Members of the Board of Finance asked questions about special education, transportation, and other areas of the proposed school budget at its meeting on Thursday, February 23.

Both the municipal and school district budget proposals are before the Board of Finance for review. The board will return to deliberate and possibly act on both on February 27. The board has also reserved Thursday, March 2, as a possible additional date to meet if members do not complete their review and recommendation beforehand. Once voted on by the Board of Finance the budget proposals will go before the Legislative Council for review ahead of the town's referendum in April.

Before representatives of the school budget spoke Thursday evening on the 2017-18 proposal, Superintendent of Schools Joseph V. Erardi, Jr, and district Director of Business Ron Bienkowski shard some news about the current school budget. Compared to the "alarming deficit" and following budget spending freeze the school district was facing at this time last year before balancing the budget, Dr Erardi said this year, for the 2016-17 fiscal year, the district is currently projected to be over $400,000 "in the black."

"Really what this is means is, when [Mr Bienkowski] reports a $472,000 to the good, if there are no surprises- if nothing happens that we don't know about- we will have a significant fund balance to return or to be directed by the [Finance Board] or the [Legislative Council] at the end of this school year," said Dr Erardi.

The superintendent later explained the money predominately comes from adjustments in the district's special education department-  from marginalizing legal council, mediation time, and providing in-district options instead of placing students out of district. District Director of Pupil Services Deborah Mailloux-Petersen said her department has made many efforts, with the support of the administration. Dr Erardi said those efforts brought programs "in house" and focused on being better listeners. The superintendent and Ms Mailloux-Petersen also spoke to how those efforts impacted the 2017-18 budget proposal.

Dr Erardi also shared news that reduces the proposed $75,120,605 2017-18 school budget by $145,000, to $74,975,605, or a 1.78 percent increase from the current budget.

"Through the Dalio Foundation we are able to share with the Board Finance... the recommendation that you reduce our budget by $145,000," said Dr Erardi, sharing an e-mail from Andrew Ferguson of the Dalio Foundation announcing a one-time grant to support the social worker and psychologist at Reed Intermediate School for the 2017-18 school year.

Dr Erardi said the one-time grant was made possible through the district's part-time grant writer, who's part-time position is funded by the Newtown-Sandy Hook Community Foundation for $25,000. The school board approved spending $35,000 in its 2017-18 budget at its meeting on February 2 to increase the part-time position to be full-time.

Board of Finance Chairman John Godin later asked about ridership, when the district's proposed transportation spending came up for discussion. He questions some buses with low average ridership.

"I struggle with that, because I know you have buses that are under utilized," said Mr Godin.

Mr Bienkowski said "time" is a big part of the consideration for bus routes, including dismissal time and the length of time students are riding the bus. Dr Erardi said he would bring the Board of Finance's questions to All-Star Transportation, Newtown's main transportation service provider.

Mr Godin said one of the topics the Board of Finance will look at its meeting on Monday, February 27, will be energy costs for both the district and the town.

Standard & Poor's Rating Shared

Finance Director Robert Tait shared near the start of the meeting the town's most recent ratings report from Standard & Poor's, an internationally recognized bond rating services.

"Our AAA with Standard & Poor's was reaffirmed," said Mr Tait. "So we got a AAA and a stable rating."

The rating, he shared from the report, reflects Standard and Poor's opinion of Newtown's strong economy with access to a broad and diverse metropolitan statistical area; very strong management with strong financial policies and practices; strong budgetary performance with a slight operating surplus in the town's general fund and a operating surplus at the "total governmental fund level" for 2016; strong budgetary flexibility; very strong liquidity; a very strong debt and contingent liability position; net-direct debt that is 46.2 percent of the total governmental fund revenue, as well as low overall net debt at less than 3 percent of market value, with 72.9 percent of debt scheduled to be retired in ten years; and a strong framework score.

"We rate Newtown higher than the sovereign because we believe the town can maintain better credit characteristics than the U.S. in a stress scenario based on its predominantly locally derived revenue base and our view that pledged revenue supporting debt service on the bonds is at limited risk of negative sovereign intervention," the report reads. "In 2016, local property taxes generated 84.2% of general fund revenue, demonstrating a lack of dependence on central government revenue."

The report also says Newtown has a projected per capita effective buying income of 161 percent of the national lvel and per capita market value of $157,064.

"Overall the town's market value was stable over the past year at $4.4 billion in 2017," the report reads. "The county unemployment rate was 5.3 percent in 2015."

The stable outlook, according to the report-which was compiled by primary credit analyst Tiffany Tribbitt and Timothy W. Little for Standard & Poor's- should mean continued strong budgetary performance and flexibility.

"In addition," the report reads, "we anticipate the town will be able to weather any fiscal pressures that state budget decisions cause. For these reasons, we do not anticipate changing the rating in the next two years. However, if Newtown were to experience budgetary pressure resulting in negative operations leading to a significant deterioration of available reserves, we could lower the rating."