At A Foul Weather Hearing Council Hears Pleas For Budget Cuts

By John Voket

If the three Newtowners who turned out on yet another stormy council hearing night each truly represented one-third of all taxpayers in Newtown, and the council acted on their pleas, Vice Chair Mary Ann Jacob believes the proposed increase in the budget going before taxpayers this year would be much closer to zero than the 2.68 percent currently on the table.

“It’s worth acknowledging that last year a couple of our council colleagues reminded us that we have to listen to the taxpayers who show up,” Ms Jacob told The Bee following the brief hearing. “That would mean 100 percent of the people say ‘cut it.’”

The three who each spoke to the council March 23 uniformly called for reductions or flat-lining the spending proposal to a zero increase over the current year. George Schmidt, Gary Svendsen, and Dan Kormanik each in turn, directly and succinctly presented versions of why they thought this was the year, and the economic climate, to demand it.

Mr Schmidt noted that the budget this year appeared to be prepared in the spirit of goodwill, although he thought the narrow finance board approval of the proposal in a 3-2 vote was the result of “abuse fatigue at play” on the part of some finance officials.

Doing the math, he said the compounded annual increase in his own property taxes over the 17 years he has lived in Newtown amounted to five percent per year. And he begged the council to consider how successive tax increases will “drive away both ends of the age spectrum,” adding that “the young will not be able to afford to come here, and the old people won’t be able to afford to stay.”

In making his final pitch to the council, Mr Schmidt requested the officials “please, please consider this year taking at least one small step to” reduce and constrain the town budget, like most taxpayers are doing in their own homes.

Mr Svendsen brought a similar observation about his own situation, telling the council his tax burden has doubled in the 20 years he has lived in town.

“With what is happening in this country, what the states face, and what we face, you want to perpetuate rolling the money up. How can you in good conscience do that, I ask you?” Mr Svendsen asked. “Do your finances keep rolling up?”

He referred to young families, but did so in a different light, referencing the justification for a $70 million school budget request, when more and more young families were unable to afford relocating or returning to Newtown.

Consider Capital Costs

Mr Svendsen asked the council to consider the requested capital debt service already in the budget or requested in the coming year for school projects, and factoring that approximately $10 million addition into the larger tax burden.

Mr Kormanik identified himself as a former Brookfield finance and school board member who has relocated to Newtown in recent years, and said he contacted some Newtown finance board members to thank them for voting No to the proposal before the council for 2011-12.

He related that while he was recently fighting cancer, his wife was looking for a job. And while he has beaten the illness, and his wife thankfully found employment, through it all his annual tax rate was climbing an average of eight percent per year during the decade he lived in Newtown.

“Like some 20 percent of our community, we’re in tough times,” he said. “This is not normal times, we’re in a national crisis and people don’t get it.”

Referring to the added burden he is expecting to come as the state increases taxes, Mr Kormanik expressed frustration over Governor Dannel Malloy’s call for “shared sacrifice.”

“I don’t see it. If I saw it, I’d be happy to pay increased taxes,” he said, adding that “most of the people who say we’ll muddle through have got government jobs. They’re still getting pay increases, tax increases don’t hurt them.”

Public Invited Back

Prior to the meeting, Council Chairman Jeff Capeci took into consideration that a winter weather advisory and warnings about possible slick roadways that may have kept constituents from attending. He told The Bee the council would reopen the opportunity for public comments before the council settles into collectively deliberating the budget package Wednesday, April 6.

On March 3, the Board of Finance narrowly recommended to the council a town request for $37,922,648 and a school district request for $68,703,427, totaling j$106.6 million.

The only changes made by finance officials to the school district’s original request amounted to a $497,590 reduction to account for health insurance savings and a slight increase in fuel costs. The finance board also agreed to a $70,000 increase for a district organizational study that will be shared proportionately by the town, which is contributing $30,000 toward the overall $100,000 study.

On the town side, finance officials approved a reduction of about $274,000 in similarly adjusted health coverage totals; added $5,000 for other increased benefit costs; provided $5,000 to the Labor Day Parade Committee; added $50,572 for equipment fuel, $37,830 in borrowing interest, and $4,500 to underwrite services provided to town residents by Ability Beyond Disability, a regional human services agency.

If endorsed by the council without further change and approved by voters in the scheduled April 26 referendum, the proposed budget would generate a 2.68 percent tax increase next fiscal year, and an increase in the tax rate to 24.64 mills. A mill represents $1 in taxes for every $1,000 in taxable property.