Selectmen, Finance Bd To Meet With School Bd On NHS Expansion, Timeline

By John Voket

The Boards of Finance and Selectmen are interested in getting in the same room with the school board at the same time. At press time Thursday morning, plans were nearly set to call a joint meeting among the three boards regarding future school district capital plans, the projected costs of the high school expansion, and the timeline in which the Board of Education believes the expansion process will play out.

According to Board of Finance Chairman John Kortze, the meeting is tentatively set for next Wednesday, November 8, at 7:30 pm, in the Reed School library. Confirmation of the joint meeting time and location, if scheduled, should be posted on both the town and school district website the moment it is confirmed by representatives of all three boards.

While the idea for joint meetings between the school and finance boards have been discussed for some time, the selectmen were brought into the mix at a Board of Finance meeting last Monday evening when Mr Kortze read a letter from School Superintendent Evan Pitkoff announcing the school board is scheduled to form an architect selection committee — the next stage in the new high school expansion timeline.

The letter invited one member of the finance board to serve on the committee, and that member “…has experience related to building construction.”

First Selectman Herb Rosenthal, who attended the meeting, questioned why an architect selection committee was being formed when there would be no money in the budget to pay for those services until after July 1, 2007, unless the school district was planning to pay for the services from its own current budget.

“I’m a little confused,” Mr Rosenthal said. “Selections of an architect won’t take from now until June. How can you incur expenses unless they are going to pay for it out of their budget?”

Mr Kortze said he asked the same question.

This is just one of the questions posed to the school board regarding the high school expansion, which is just one of more than $100 million in capital projects prioritized over the next five years by the district. Additional questions were presented by the finance board at a recent meeting, during which the school board presented its CIP.

Mr Kortze said it is those questions, as well as confirmation of the parameters and timelines surrounding the planned high school expansion project, he hopes will be answered at the joint meeting. The idea to involve the selectmen came later in the meeting during discussion on the first selectman’s CIP.

“Unauthorizing Funds”

Since the last budget process, questions have surfaced regarding whether funds already approved by the voters for certain projects can be reallocated to others if the need arises. While no specific discussion has occurred on the matter, Mr Kortze specifically addressed the issue with the first selectman Monday.

Mr Rosenthal replied that there was no legal process in the town charter to “unauthorize funds.” He said in the protracted process of authorizing funds, with the selectmen, finance board and Legislative Council, even the Planning & Zoning Commission in certain cases, all weighing in before a town meeting and possible referendum on certain spending proposals, there are, “plenty of opportunities to reconsider both the proposal and spending limits.”

“I don’t know how once a set of voters have approved something, you go about [having] a later set of voters deciding what an earlier set of voters did. How do you ever plan if you’re always going to be open to second guessing from a group of people who come along and decide they don’t like a decision that was made a few years before?” Mr Rosenthal said.

He said talking with the bond counsel, neither could pinpoint another time or town where such a “deauthorization” was performed. Mr Rosenthal said the only way to temporarily halt the spending of authorized money would be for the Board of Finance to recommend a certain expenditure be postponed for one or more budget cycles, but eventually, voter approved bond expenditures would have to be spent according to the voters directive.

After some more discussion, Mr Kortze asked about the first selectman’s proposed timeline on what was approved so far in relation to the timeline for the high school construction.

Mr Rosenthal said he contacted a representative of the state Board of Education office about the process of getting approval for the design before getting approval for the building project. He cited recent issues with both Bethel and New Milford, and an instance when the original Newtown High School project was proposed, where funds were approved and bonding was committed then officials had to come back requesting more money because costs exceeded estimates including contingency money.

Mr Rosenthal said the current system involves having the state approve final building plans before committing the money to a town. But he said there was a way Newtown could seek a temporary project number to conduct the design process so the town could have a firm idea of final cost parameters, before going back to the state with final plans seeking authorization and funding approvals.

“The concern was the state wouldn’t review the plans before we have the project approved,” Mr Rosenthal said. “The only risk involved is, you won’t get any reimbursement for the architect fees until one year after your final plans are approved for the final project.”

The first selectman said the danger would be losing the design money if the final project was not approved. But in 20 years the state liaison was on the job, he never saw a town project rejected by the state.

“I think that’s a pretty small risk versus the risk of tipping your hand so everybody knows how much money was authorized before you go out to bid. You don’t necessarily get the best bids that way. We already saw that on Hawley School when everybody saw what the price would be before they went out to bid on it,” Mr Rosenthal said.

Mr Rosenthal laid out a proposed timeline to make the authorization and approval processes work both at the town and state levels.

“The debt service for architects’ fees should be in next year’s budget, and we should go out for authorization before June 30 to have architects’ fees so they could start working on the plans [next year],” Mr Rosenthal said. He added that no specific action needed to occur before December 31 of this year, except to provide possible ideas on the architects’ fees.

Assessing Space Needs

A few minutes later, the board turned its attention to whether all various town organizations were making the best use of existing space before proposing to build on or build new facilities. Finance Board member Michael Portnoy asked if it should be the selectmen asking the various boards and commissions to try to exhaust all existing space already available.

Finance board member John Torok suggested that perhaps the town should begin thinking about ways to incorporate other town department needs in with school projects, to provide dual-use facilities to accommodate growing community needs.

“To get more value for our dollar, we need to look at other community needs being built into our schools — we have to take a less turf-oriented process,” Mr Torok said.

It was then Mr Portnoy suggested the Board of Selectmen be invited to the joint meeting with the school and finance board. Mr Rosenthal said he would inquire about the prospect with his fellow selectmen.

“We never had a direct request to have the Board of Selectmen meet with the Board of Education,” Mr Rosenthal said. Mr Portnoy then asked if there would be a problem including the selectmen, or at least the first selectman in the joint meeting.

Mr Rosenthal said he had a right to be included. “I’m an ex officio member of the school board, so whether they like it or not, I can be there.”