To The Editor:

I am writing in response to Mr Rosenthal's most recent letter criticizing the actions of the Legislative Council regarding the recent bond premium. While I am Chairman of the Legislative Council, may I state that the opinions expressed in this letter are my own, but the facts can be confirmed by watching the recording of the April 6th meeting that can be found on the town website.

The bond premium occurred as described in Mr Rosenthal's letter, and was not anticipated or orchestrated by anyone during the bond sale. The duty of how to allocate those funds once received was the responsibility of the council: which was taken very, very seriously. We had a lengthy discussion on the options available and the impact to the taxpayers of each of these.

The three options available were to put the money into lowering debt service, put it into the bank to increase our fund balance, or to use it this year to lower your tax increase. Each of these actions was deemed appropriate by our auditors.

First, the option for putting it into reducing debt was discussed. A motion to split it over 20 years at $25,000 per year failed to gain support. While appropriate, our borrowing is well below our policy, even after the council took action recently to LOWER our borrowing. This motion would have made no change in the Mill rate or your tax bill at all.

Second, we discussed putting the money into our fund balance. This is how the council handled a smaller premium we received in 2012. At that time, our fund balance was below the policy required level and we were working hard to meet that goal. Currently, we have a healthy fund balance and putting the money there would have had zero effect your tax bill.

Finally, we debated at length using the money to pay for capital items in the budget. Each item removed from the operating budget and paid for using the bond premium results in directly lowering the tax increase this year. The budget was reduced by this action from an increase of 2.34% to 1.82%. Please note that reductions in spending further reduced the budget to a final tax increase of 1.62%, which is the increase you will be asked to approve.

The money specifically allocated to road work will not require a $500,000 increase (double what has been planned) in the following fiscal year, rather one more year to reach our goal of funding our roads annually at $2,000,000.

While we can all debate which of these priorities the council should have chosen, make no mistake: it was done thoughtfully and not without concern. I know I don't personally consider it a "windfall" and everyone clearly understood the seriousness of the decision being made.

The 10 council members voting in favor of this action did so with the taxpayer in mind. Delivering a budget that had the best possible tax rate.

Sincerely,

Mary Ann Jacob

65 Mohawk Trail, Sandy Hook                           April 22, 2016