Joint LC, BOF Meeting—

Chung Indicates Newtown’s Enrollment

Down-Trending Has Yet To Hit Bottom

By John Voket

Legislative Council and Board of Finance leaders believe the latest school enrollment projections affirm the need to initiate more than just conversation about the possibility of repurposing town-owned school facilities for other purposes.

Specific questions to that end, which may set the stage for meaningful long-term planning and short-term budgeting, were addressed October 6 as Hyung Chung of H.C. Planning Consultants of Orange presented his latest findings to a joint meeting of the council and finance board.

During his two-hour-plus visit, Dr Chung reiterated a number of points already made to the Board of Education when he first revealed his latest school enrollment projections to the Board of Education in mid-August.

During his introductory remarks, as well as several times during a question and answer period, the demographic and urban planning expert reiterated that his projections are based on a combination of data which include home sales, births, housing net gain, and Newtown’s unemployment rate.

The full report can be found on the Newtown School District’s website, www.newtown.k12.ct.us.

Board of Education Chairman William Hart has already proposed forming an ad-hoc panel consisting of school and town officials to initiate discussion about the report. But council Vice Chair Mary Ann Jacob believes the focus should lean more toward action than words.

“I know Bill Hart has talked about forming a committee. But we have to do more than talk about it,” Ms Jacob told The Bee following the presentation.

Both she and Chairman Jeff Capeci feel Dr Chung’s median projection of a 25 percent or more decline in overall school enrollment justifies the immediate exploration of consolidating and possibly repurposing town and school facilities. And Ms Jacob believes that if the community can embrace the need to make some hard decisions sooner rather than later, the town may be able to mitigate the need for certain planned capital spending.

She said with cooperation, and the understanding that comes from the Chung report, affecting those changes can be an advantage to everyone in town both financially and practically.

“People need to be flexible, especially the parents of future elementary students,” she said. “The numbers in Dr Chung’s report dictate that we need changes.”

Ms Jacob thinks the town can accomplish consolidating and possibly repurposing some facilities while maintaining or even improving Newtown’s schools.

“You see such a huge drop in the [student] population, we have to do something,” she said. “But we also have to do it quickly to achieve the greatest economic advantage while keeping an eye on maintaining or improving educational excellence.”

Mr Capeci said while the projections in Dr Chung’s report have a population drop variance between 20 and 30 percent going out ten years or more, he thinks the wisest course is to follow the same suggestion tendered by the consultant during his presentation this week.

“Dr Chung suggests about a 25 percent drop is what Newtown should plan for,” Mr Capeci said.

At several points during the most recent presentation, Dr Chung reiterated that even some of his shorter-term projections could be affected by a sudden and rapid upturn in the nation’s or regional economy. And he suggested something as localized as a new, substantial employer entering the region could kick off a domino affect that begins to dilute his projections.

He outlined how the movement of a new workforce population into the town or the region could begin to ripple into the sale of now empty or soon-to-be empty three- and four-bedroom homes, which in turn would bring new children into the school system at a proportionately increasing rate. This would have the greatest impact on the reliability of his farthest projections.

But Dr Chung also hinted that such a phenomenon, if recognized early, could be the red flag that signals the need for a new study. And that a new study could course correct any localized planning and fine tune projections by factoring in economic, home sale, and other economic shifts.

In the short term, however, Mr Capeci and finance board Chairman John Kortze do not foresee any major economic upswing.

“Dr Chung said an economic rebound could bring jobs in, but right now Newtown and the region have a huge number of larger homes on the market that would have to be filled to bring any substantial student population changes in the foreseeable future,” Mr Capeci said. And even then, it might slow, but will likely not stop the rapidly dwindling student enrollment townwide.

“I just don’t see the economy changing, or changing fast enough,” the council chair added.

Pointing out that the growth in the last decade has virtually reversed itself, Mr Capeci said the evidence in Dr Chung’s report lays the groundwork for immediate Capital Improvement Plan (CIP) and budget considerations.

“Decisions need to be made about buildings that provide certain services,” Mr Capeci said, citing current plans that call for a standalone senior center, as well as a separate community center for the Parks and Recreation Department.

“There are buildings we have [in the school district] that could satisfy those needs,” he said. “Condensing and combining is a conversation we should be having.”

While the finance board chairman says that the process is complicated, even the “generic themes” Mr Kortze sees in the Chung projections affirm what he said has been suspected for at least the last five years.

“The population trend we have been expecting and predicting for at least four years is [declining]. And it has a demonstrative effect on the town,” Mr Kortze said. Among the most concerning aspects the finance board chairman said he took away from Dr Chung’s latest discussion is the fact that the trough, or furthest dip in the down-trending student population, has not yet arrived.

“As Dr Chung said, our trough is still ahead of us. And he said in no uncertain terms it is coming,” Mr Kortze pointed out. “What alarmed me the most was that the upswing took 20 years, and the downswing took only 12 ... and we’re not at the lowest point yet.”

Because the Chung report shows, by past and current statistics, that the decline has been dramatically stronger and faster than the upswing, Mr Kortze cautioned that the town must be prepared for “an impact that may be dramatically greater that [what resulted from] the upswing.”