To the Editor:

There is a process underway in Newtown that may fundamentally change our town government.

The Charter Revision Commission is considering eliminating the Board of Finance or reducing it to an appointive, advisory role. Either of these choices will significantly reduce the role of average citizens in our town’s budgetary process — and reduce public accountability for some of our most important community decisions.

Full disclosure: My partner, Laura Miller, is a newly elected member of the Board of Finance. The opinions expressed in this letter are my own.

A proposal to eliminate the Board of Finance and replace it with an appointed advisory board merely shifts the influence of this important professional and specialized body from the voters to town and legislative officials who can then use that hand-picked advisory body to justify their own preferred agendas. This is not a partisan issue.

Unfortunate budgetary consequences could happen under either Democratic or Republican majorities.

I agree that there is a process problem in the way financial matters are currently reviewed and ratified. Duplicative reviews in front of different audiences is burdensome and can be wasteful of time and resources. A little bit of that is probably inevitable; too much can be paralyzing.

We need to structure a better balance.

We do not need to eliminate direct voter input into consideration of our budgetary priorities. We also do not need to destroy an important check on the Legislative Council, and in fact we need to bolster it. Voters currently can split their tickets, giving one party their votes for Legislative Council and the other party their votes for the Board of Finance. More centralized authority with less voter input is never a good idea.

One of the alternatives under discussion is to give the elected Board of Finance more autonomy, allowing it to exercise its expert judgment, subject only to a veto by a super majority of the Legislative Council. With this structure, the Legislative Council would still be a check on any excesses by the Board of Finance and the Council would remain the ultimate financial authority as defined in the Town Charter, but with a higher burden to override.

In addition, the Charter Revision Commission should consider staggered four year terms for the members of the Board of Finance, to insulate against too much turnover and loss of experience in any one election. Our community should support this alternative.

These proposed revisions have not yet been finalized, and may be the subject of a future voter referendum, but we need to make sure we express our views now. Please contact the Charter Review Commission at 2021newtowncrcchair@gmail.com — or your representative on the Legislative Council.

We need to be vigilant to protect and safeguard this important expression of our community preferences.

Peter C. Schwarz

Newtown