Armed With School Board Info,

Finance Bd. Seeks Joint Meeting With Council

By John Voket

In a first-of-its-kind joint meeting, the school board sat down Thursday, November 9, with members of the Board of Finance and Board of Selectmen to answer questions about a $47 million high school expansion proposal. After nearly two hours of discussion on this and other issues related to an unprecedented $101 million in capital funding requests from the Board of Education, the finance board was ready to request a second joint meeting — this time with members of the Legislative Council.

While many of its members were on hand last Thursday, albeit as audience members, the finance board chairman John Kortze said a session to consult with the council is the next logical step in assessing the way Newtown taxpayers will be expected to pay for capital expenditures while keeping the town under its self-imposed ten percent debt limit.

“There is a bigger issue here,” Mr Kortze said to the gathered contingent of officials. “There are a number of other municipal projects on the Capital Improvement Plan [CIP] that the town and Board of Education are asking for.”

Mr Kortze said it was incumbent on his board to determine that the town is spending the taxpayers’ dollars in the best way to address all the needs the community has.

“Although the high school expansion dominated this conversation, it’s a question that still needs to be answered. We’re talking about a big chunk of money to address one particular issue, and this chunk of money affects every other one of those issues,” Mr Kortze said. “It’s not that we want to build a smaller high school [expansion], we want to do the maximum number of projects and we’re going to figure out the most we can do.”

Referring to residents who are seeking a new senior center and the many parents who have contacted him via email asking for a new town pool, Mr Kortze then said that the finance board would compile all the numbers on the CIPs and making recommendations directly to the council.

“It’s a big decision, but before we do anything conclusive, perhaps we’ll be…having a dialog with the council,” he said. “Our role is advisory, and the council has the final say. So if the council thinks we need to head in a certain direction, we need to understand that. And we’ll endeavor to determine what that direction is with their help.”

Earlier on in the meeting several residents spoke, including Gary Davis representing the local advocacy group WECAN (We Care About Newtown). Mr Davis was among the residents who called on the group of officials who gathered for the meeting to consider the needs of the entire town when formulating decisions about capital spending.

“I hope the meeting will go beyond [the high school expansion]. I don’t think we as a town have looked at the ramifications of going forward with that high school expansion as it is proposed,” he said. “While the high school is probably the most pressing issue we have, I think recreation is a pressing priority, not only for people with families, but for senior citizens.”

Mr Davis said while returfing the high school stadium and expanding the high school gym are part of the expansion budget, they are not priorities when considered against the recreational needs of everyone in town.

“If we don’t look at the broader implications of going forward with [the high school expansion], we’re missing something. If we don’t like what the high school expansion means as far as other things we have to do, maybe this high school expansion is not necessarily the right way to go,” Mr Davis concluded.

Another resident, Debra Zukowski, conveyed her concern over an “us versus them” mentality she fears is splitting the town, making it more difficult for the community to pass future budget referenda.

“The finance board has an opportunity to clear the air,” she said. Ms Zukowski then asked what criteria were being used to determine the urgency of each project on the CIP.

“How can we bind urgency with affordability? And what safeguards are being used to ensure we are taking on the most cost-effective long-term debt?” she asked.

Sue Murray also spoke, reading from a letter she said was intended for the Board of Finance.

“Right now we have a high school where the standards are subpar, and we’re contemplating funding a new town hall, which to me is a frivolous idea. A new town hall will not enhance our property values or save the high school from being put on [accreditation] probation,” Ms Murray said. “Please do not abdicate your responsibility now that we need you to provide proper funding for our children.”

Questions Answered

Once the officials got down to discussions, school board member Tom Gissen circulated a package of memos providing answers to finance board questions posed at a late September meeting. Most of the answers were supplied by the architectural firm formulating the high school expansion options.

That memo first clarified costs on building out the high school to accommodate less than the maximum projected student population that was provided by education consultant Dr Bruce Bothwell. Keeping with the state standard for compensation of 174.5 square feet of space per student, building to the midlevel population projection would reduce the scope of the expansion by about 24,219 square feet.

Mr Kortze calculated the savings on that option to be approximately $10 million.

The architect was also asked to break out specific site-related costs that are collateral but not absolutely required as part of the expansion. The memo clarified that this optional site work totaled another $2.5 million and included $320,000 for mass rock excavation, $320,000 for new parking areas, $224,000 for a rear access driveway, and $179,200 to replace the tennis courts that are planned to be removed to make room for a new parking area.

The finance board asked about cost implications if a $40 million project was initially funded, followed by smaller incremental $1 million projects in each subsequent year and paid for from the school board’s budget.

The architect replied that while the project could be scaled back to a $40 million budget, each subsequent phase would cost substantially more because of restaging crews. The ongoing disruption to students and faculty was mentioned as a consideration as well.

Following discussion of the architect’s answers, the group spent nearly an hour talking about issues related to student population projections in conjunction with the downturn in local overall building and home sale trends. Several members of the finance board have consistently questioned the need for a full buildout based on the maximum reimbursable figures, arguing that the maximum population projections will never materialize.

“I understand we went at this from a ‘build to the maximum reimbursement’ [standpoint], and we’re coming off a timeframe where the town experienced significant growth nobody anticipated. We had a full high school pretty quickly after we completed an addition, so it’s understandable why you would want to err on the side of caution,” Mr Kortze said.

While Mr Gissen said he could not remember the maximum residential buildout number that he had calculated at one point during space needs deliberations, First Selectman Herb Rosenthal said he estimated a maximum of 2,700 more new residential homes would use up the remaining buildable land in town.

School board member Paul Mangiafico said he spoke with a state Department of Education representative about the various ways the town could determine the maximum reimbursement figures. But he said based on population predictions, it would be “very risky” to scale back to building for the midrange population predictions.

Finance board member Michael Portnoy noted that while the Bothwell high school population predictions have been relatively accurate, his projections for lower grades were much less reliable.

“We have to understand why the total enrollments are going down, and why he was under the ‘actuals’ for all those years,” Mr Portnoy said. “Our growth has slowed significantly in recent years, which shows why the overall enrollments might be overstated — because he was looking at 200 houses a year coming in, and it was factored into his model.

“Now he may see the pendulum has swung too far and may be coming back,” he added. “I would guess when we see this year’s Bothwell statement, we might be seeing a different number nine or ten years out.”

School board member David Nanavaty said that he felt the school board had done its due diligence in determining the best possible option and plan for the high school project.

“We put together a project we are putting forward. And whether we agree or disagree with Bothwell’s numbers, the Board of Education has made a decision,” Mr Nanavaty said. “We’re asking you to respect the decision we made based on the information we had before us.

“We’re asking you to put this project before the voters, who are the ones who are going to decide whether or not to go forward with this project,” he said. “They are the one’s who are going to have to pay for this project.”

After the meeting, Mr Kortze clarified that, based on finance board research done through the town planning office, while the high school population numbers might trend higher than the current school population during one or more future years, it would be an anomaly, and the long-term prospect of consistently sustaining or increasing those numbers is unlikely.