Selectmen Talk About Plans

For Pensions, Sewers, CIP

By John Voket

The Board of Selectmen briefly covered a number of agenda items at its October 1 meeting, including a response from Town Attorney David Grogins about how the town could move forward with sewer assessments ahead of a planned Hawleyville system extension.

In addition, the board received the latest Capital Improvement Plan, which details the significant town capital projects proposed for the next five fiscal cycles. And Finance Director Robert Tait reviewed his proposal to begin shifting town worker pensions from a defined benefit to a defined contribution benefit plan.

During the brief presentation by Mr Grogins, who was accompanied by Public Works Director Fred Hurley, selectmen learned that state statutes would permit initiating special benefit sewer assessments based on the current value of commercial properties affected.

Mr Hurley and First Selectman Pat Llodra initially expressed concern that those assessments would have to be levied based on the value of the properties when a sewer line was first extended into Newtown from Bethel in 2002.

The town attorney explained that provisions in the general statutes regulate the ability for the town to recover the costs of sewer extensions and improvements through supplemental assessments.

Mr Hurley said the town did a general assessment of properties in Hawleyville in 1987, before the town first bought additional sewer capacity from Danbury, via a Bethel sewer line extension. But since then the town has not performed a general assessment on commercial properties that, if developed, could tap into a new spur of the sewer line planned for the area in the coming years.

Mr Grogins told the selectmen they are under no time constraints on when those supplemental assessments must be completed, and those assessments can use present valuations. He also suggested the town could break the Hawleyville sewer district into two parts, incorporating the areas already served into a primary district, and properties affected by the proposed extension into their own secondary district.

Pension Plan Changes

During his report, Mr Tait outlined his hopes to bring Newtown into the position of a growing number of state municipalities and private employers by switching new town pension contributors and existing nonunion employees from a defined benefit to a defined contribution benefit plan.

He said the balance of union workers would hear about the planned changes as local bargaining unit contract negotiations ramped up in the coming months and years, and he anticipated a full-scale changeover to the defined contribution plan as new union contracts are finalized.

The finance director said while he does not anticipate seeing significant cost savings in the near future as a result, the switch will eliminate the uncertainty that comes from basing pension contributions on fluctuating payroll numbers. Mr Tait said the town already has a 401(a) plan set up and available, “so we have the vehicle to accomplish that.”

“Thirty-nine percent of towns in the CCM [Connecticut Conference of Municipalities], and more than 60 percent of the towns in Connecticut have started the process, or already shifted to a defined contribution benefit plan,” he added.

First Selectman Pat Llodra said her colleagues should consider how to move forward crafting policy language regarding the pension proposal, and to be prepared to discuss options at the board’s next meeting. She said the town should have the proposal defined and new policies in place as the town goes into the three contract negotiations planned for the coming year with public works, emergency dispatch, and town hall clerical workers.

Capital Improvement Plan

Mrs Llodra then circulated a chart detailing a proposed CIP for the coming five years, telling her colleagues that she hopes to approve the plan by the board’s next meeting on October 15, in time for the Board of Finance to take up discussions on October 25.

She reminded the board that she has less confidence that proposed projects for the final three years of the CIP will go forward at the scope and level of funding proposed in the document. Mrs Llodra also introduced two new items on the CIP, including the proposed demolition of Danbury Hall at Fairfield Hills.

The first selectman said that project would only occur if the town secures grants to cover the cost of likely hazardous materials abatement.

She also noted that planned improvements to the Treadwell and Dickinson Park parking lots, which were on previous CIPs but dropped off in the most recent cycle, have been reestablished on the latest plan. Most of the other projects on the new CIP have been included in previous proposals, Mrs Llodra added.

Mr Tait said the review and inclusion of CIP projects has changed this year, based on what the town could afford to bond in each of the five years.

“All the department heads have met with Pat, and prioritized the projects based on affordability,” Mr Tait said.

Noting a bubble of potential bonding opportunity in the 2015-16 fiscal year, Selectman Will Rodgers said that town departments and taxpayers should know that that availability of up to $20 million in bonding capacity is a result of “good fiscal policies,” and that the availability of funds should not be viewed by town departments as “a candy store.”