The Legislative Council (LC) met at the Municipal Center, with a call-in option, on the evening of November 4, where they voted on revisions to the Newtown Capital Improvement Plan (CIP) policy.

Finance and Administration Committee Chair Chris Eide gave a brief overview of what the group did with the policy.

“The Board of Finance did a lot of work on this. It was thoroughly reviewed by them and then even after we made changes, they came back and reviewed it more, so we really need to appreciate and understand the amazing amount of effort they did put into this,” Eide prefaced before saying he would be speaking to the Finance and Administration Committee’s changes and how they approached it.

One of the major ideas that was looked into centered around the rules of the different town groups in terms of the CIP process.

“We have all these different bodies — the Board of Finance, the Board of Selectmen, the Board of Education, the LC — and everyone is sorting and prioritizing, so what we looked to do is better define when that prioritization is happening and what each body’s role was within that structure. We also took a little bit of a stab at the language around bundling, although we didn’t make major changes there,” Eide said.

He then referenced the CIP document, citing section 310-6, labeled Eligible Capital Asset/Project, about bundling.

While the previous wording said that bundling would be scrutinized, it did not explicitly say it would be discussed, so that language was clarified.

It now reads, “Bundling of annual maintenance or dissimilar items in order to reach the $200,000, threshold is strongly discouraged, and shall be called out for discussion prior to consideration of an exception.”

Changes were also made in section 310-7, labeled Process.

“In G3, there was some clarification of roles of the various bodies,” Eide said.

The portion he referenced states that the town finance director shall “Prepare Debt Service scenarios for consideration relative to the Debt Service Policy goals.”

He then went on to add that there was a change in M1, of the same section.

“In the old system, the language said that if the Board of Finance didn’t pick it up, then whatever the LC had approved [last] would stand. So, it was almost that the Board of Finance could veto any LC changes by just doing nothing with what the LC said to them. So, we did make changes around that, that the LC can act if the Board of Finance fails to take any action on a CIP that was sent to them,” Eide said.

He concluded by saying that there were other language changes, but the ones he presented were the most substantial in the group’s revision.

The motion to accept the Capital Improvement Plan policy, as moved at the Finance and Administration Committee meeting of October 22, 2020, was approved unanimously.

The Legislative Council also passed a motion to approve the Castle Hill Farm Grant of Agricultural Land Easement, previously approved by the Board of Selectman, as reported in The Newtown Bee, November 6, 2020, “Conservation Easement Accepted, Emergency Communications Project Reviewed,” and found online at newtownbee.com.

For more information about upcoming Legislative Council meetings, visit newtown-ct.gov/legislative-council.