Need Transparency In Capital

Planning

To the Editor:

The dramatic increase in the proposed five-year capital budget now before the Board of Finance clearly highlights the weakness of our current capital planning and approval process. Though we are yet to see what the Board of Finance will recommend, the $106 million in proposed bonding is a 60 percent increase over last year’s plan.

With the capital plan covering a five-year horizon, you would not expect to see a significant change in the plan from year to year. Normally changes would be due to new projects being added to the farthest out year in the plan. In this year’s plan, however, the increases occur in the “middle years” of the plan, years that should have been forecasted in last year’s plan. In total $36 million of new bonding is being proposed for the 2010–2014. An increase that large clearly shows the weakness of prior planning.

The majority of the increase is for Fairfield Hills, adding $30 million to the total plan. This is doubly surprising given that it is not just an increase in the Fairfield request, but rather an entirely new request. There were no requests at all for Fairfield Hills in last year’s plan.

The Fairfield Hills request is for more than a dozen projects spread over the five years of the plan, ranging in cost from a few hundred thousand to several million dollars. The fragmented nature of these projects points out the second weakness with our town’s process: the relatively opaque nature of capital project approval for “small” projects.

Although the capital budget must be approved by the Board of Finance and the Legislative Council, it remains relatively hidden to a voter accustomed to the visibility of the annual expense budget referendum. Although large capital projects, those over $10 million, by the Town Charter must be put up to a referendum, smaller projects only have to go to a “special town meeting.” These meetings frequently have a small turnout, as exemplified by the meeting last Thursday to approve $2.4 million that had roughly 25 attendees. It’s probably safe to say that most people in town aren’t even aware that the meeting was taking place. Breaking a large project into small pieces so that it can pass through the rather opaque special meeting system is not in the best interest of the town or the democratic process.

Clearly, as proposed by IPN First Selectman Candidate Bruce Walczak, all spending at Fairfield Hills should be stopped until a community consensus has been reached on a long-term vision for the campus and the master plan altered to fit the new realities. It is also time to take a look at modifying the capital approval process to make it more transparent to the voters. An alternative should be found to the current special meeting system that allows the voters to consider the entire capital plan.

A more detailed version of this analysis can be found at www.IPN2009.org/CIP.

William Hart

Board of Education Member and IPN Candidate

24 Fawnwood Road, Sandy Hook                       September 22, 2009