Show Me The Money

To the Editor:

Frustrated and disgusted. That is how this writer and some other No voters feel about the Legislative Council’s recent actions on the budget. With the majority of voters for the past two budget elections having said No to the proposed budgets, the Legislative Council has virtually made no reduction in the expense lines of either budget (they did cut the town expense budget by $120,000 after the third defeat — a whopping 0.1 percent). Instead they have reduced the reserve fund, which would help every taxpayer with lower bond interest payments and reduced future taxes. They made no spending cuts to the fixed costs. Many No voters are insulted by these actions.

Additionally, there is a very telling story in The Newtown Bee, June 22, 2012, edition on page 8 titled “School Board Again Examines Budget Options.” Toward the end of the report it refers to a special meeting held on June 14 “for the school board to discuss its budget, and during the meeting two documents were shared that highlighted what a ‘same services’ budget would look like with and without full-day kindergarten (FDK). Those documents listed a budget shortfall of $517,868 if FDK is implemented in 2012-13 school year … The budget options discussed this week reduced that shortfall if FDF is implemented to roughly $25,000.” With just a little work the BOE was able to find almost a half a million dollars! Said another way, even with the original budget reductions, the BOE has at least that much in the school budget they can cut and still provide truly “same services.” Clearly there is more money to be found and therefore unfortunately we need to vote No again until we see a budget that is at least no increase but below last year’s would be better. Necessity is clearly the mother of invention.

I would challenge The Newtown Bee reporters to find where the money is going rather than blindly endorsing every budget.

Warren Hoppmeyer

23 Cobblers Mill Road, Sandy Hook                             July 3, 2012