Final Council Budget Action Preserves Police Recruits, FFH Management

By John Voket

At its final meeting on the budget April 1, the Legislative Council acted to make several adjustments and restored funding to several line items accommodating a hybrid combination of finance board and selectmen recommendations. The council’s actions did not affect the final budget bottom line, which was approved during a previous meeting March 26.

On April 28, taxpayers will be asked to approve or deny a proposed combined town and school budget totaling $103,716,695, which reflects a net reduction of 1.66 percent in spending over the current year. Due to anticipated shortfalls in revenue, however, the amount required to be raised by taxation has increased, necessitating a 0.99 percent increase (less than one percent) in the tax rate.

If approved at the April 28 referendum, Finance Director Robert Tait has calculated the average property tax increase based on a home assessed at $356,957 will be about $82.10.

The breakdown between the two sides of the council’s adopted budget proposal for the next fiscal year reflects $37,401,767 in spending on the town side. This represents a 5.15 percent reduction over the current year’s spending.

The school district’s portion of the overall budget stands at $66,314,928 — a 0.43 percent increase over the current year’s spending.

According to Mr Tait, a tax rate of 23.43 mills on the grand list of October 1, 2008, of the Town of Newtown is needed to meet the above appropriations.

Fine Tuning

Although the council is typically bound to accept or adjust the final recommendations of the Board of Finance, subsequent deliberation and action to achieve $200,000 in town-side savings resulted in some specific differences between the boards on how the bottom line outcome should be achieved.

By combining various recommendations from the selectmen and finance boards April 1, the council endorsed the following funding restorations 10-1, with Councilwoman Po Murray in the minority:

*$104,410 for contractual services for management of the new municipal center at Bridgeport Hall;

*$56,220 for management services to cover the rest of the Fairfield Hills campus with an expectation that that funding will be fully or partially reimbursed through common charges being paid by tenants;

*$66,667 in contingency to give the first selectman some flexibility — to suggest transfers to cover medical premium increases, road salt, or an increased burden to the unemployment account

*$209,709 to cover salary for two contracted police department officers who are currently completing academy training, projected overtime expenses and replacement patrol cars.

Both Selectman Paul Mangiafico and Police Chief Michael Kehoe had opportunities to speak to the police restorations. The selectman spoke at length about the police issues, telling the council that the system by which cruisers are replaced dictates and absolute need for the funding in 2009.

His primary concern is taxpayers would be faced with an expense of replacing as many as “seven or eight cars by 2010” if several were not sanctioned for replacement this year.

Chief Kehoe also clarified that if Newtown was to cut the two officer position of the academy recruits, they would be immediately released to other departments for hire with Newtown taxpayers picking up the cost of their academy training.

Ms Murray told fellow council members she could not support reinstating funds to some departments while other departments clearly made sacrifices to reduce their budget burden. She also believed further “efficiencies” could be found in the Fairfield Hills budget.

Pension Bump Shelved

The largest expenditure that was shuttled through the final stages of the budget refining process involved the status of the town’s pension fund.

In its final recommendation, the finance board endorsed spending $250,000 to increase the town pension contribution to reflect declining investment value. Officials learned during earlier deliberations that the town pension fund lost 20 percent of its value since last summer, and the fund’s actuarial suggested between $400,000 and $1 million might be required to keep the pension fully funded through the 2009-2010 fiscal cycle.

Selectmen then suggested splitting the contribution proportionately based on participation between town and school retirees, with the town contributing $150,000 and the school district contributing the $100,000 balance.

The council’s final reduction motion, which passed on a voice vote April 1, included removing the $250,000 pension fund bump, with the agreement to add money from other sources, if required, based on the outcome of an actuary evaluation.

The motion also reduced:

*$30,573 from the oil/gas utility line

*$57,070 from the utility electricity line

*$612 from combined water and sewer budgets

*$32,165 from the Highway Department that was earmarked to purchase a new road grader

Later that evening, the council also ruled against placing local advisory questions on the ballot.

Following the meeting, Council Chairman Will Rodgers told The Newtown Bee much of the discussion regarding the apparent value of information from an advisory question was rooted in an earlier opinion from the town attorney about scripting specific questions to reference voting trends on the town side, and/or school side of the budget.

“Since the budget can’t be bifurcated [split] between the school and town side, a written legal opinion indicated we cannot bifurcate the advisory questions,” Mr Rodgers said. “The feeling was, that without that level of detail, the information is not going to be that helpful.”

Mr Rodgers further stated that in his opinion, and based on conversations he has had with other council representatives, if local ballot questions were allowed to define voting outcomes based on the school and town side separately, the vote against it “would have had a totally different outcome.”

Mr Rodgers further clarified that the most recent charter change specifically permitted local questions on the ballot, and that according to research performed by the town attorney, there is no authority in the state statute for advisory questions, although they have been used in Newtown and other surrounding communities in the past.