The work of Newtown’s finance authorities is axiomatic: seek economy in the increasingly expensive enterprise of running a town. And in watching the early work of the Board of Finance and the Finance Department impacting the next budget cycle, some actual axioms come to mind. Waste not want not. A penny saved is a penny earned. Less is more. For some residents who may, for example, suffer a bone-jarring commute along some of the town’s more pothole-pocked byways twice a day, the economic zeal of budgetmakers may seem more like parsimony. (More about those potholes later.) It is beginning to look, however, like Newtown’s shrewd financing may be yielding some tangible benefits.

A confluence of shifting demographics, good fortune, and economic trends led the Board of Finance last week to make some significant changes to Newtown’s five-year capital improvement plan, which is the town’s list of big-ticket expenditures that require long-term borrowing. The board dramatically accelerated plans for the demolition of three massive and derelict buildings at Fairfield Hills — Canaan, Kent, and Shelton Houses — over the next three years by more than doubling the financing available for that purpose to $10.5 million. The town has been largely unsuccessful in meeting its economic development objectives at Fairfield Hills because of the deteriorated look of the place to interested developers, so an investment to improve the prospects at Fairfield Hills, figuratively and literally, should help expand the tax base and pay dividends in time.

The key to finding benefits in conservative financing, as it turns out, is knowing where and when to invest public resources. For example, a planned $3.7 million expenditure on heating, ventilation, and air conditioning at Hawley School was pulled out of the CIP because a projected slump in school enrollment projections puts the future use of the school in question. That savings, in addition to other capital projects are now covered by timely grants, made more financing available for the Fairfield Hills demolition projects. And by managing debt in an informed and responsible way, the town has earned the town’s bonds Standard & Poor’s top AAA rating, which will realize millions in savings on the town’s borrowing in the coming years. Ultimately, smart public financing is an investment in lower property taxes.

With that in mind, we return to the issue of potholes. Nothing will undermine the town’s efforts to stabilize its tax base through economic development faster than a visibly eroding infrastructure. The proposed five-year CIP that will be submitted to the Legislative Council next Wednesday evening, November 19, will include $9.25 million for sorely needed road projects. Yet concerns about a trend toward the premature degradation of road surfaces across the state in recent years — possibly due to the use of new ice melting chemicals on the roads or less durable paving materials supplied through a state consortium — threaten to stall these crucial road reconstruction projects.

The Legislative Council needs to make the resolution of these concerns a priority so that the full schedule of road projects can get started without further delay. “Less is more” does not mean investing millions in subpar roads — roads we are counting on to lead to better opportunities and lower taxes in Newtown.