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Health & Fitness

Defeating Budgets A Poor Substitute for Leadership

Clinton First to the Rescue

Tuesday, voters will return to the polls to elect municipal boards and commissions.  In Clinton, for the first time there will be another party on the ballot that promises to put Clinton First, ahead of special interest groups that seek to take ever-bigger budget bites.  That is why it is my duty and privilege to run for the Board of Finance on the Clinton First ticket.

 

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Since 2010, voters have defeated one budget referendum after another, saving taxpayers $2.7 million annually.   Defeating budgets at referendum is a very poor substitute for leadership that takes seriously growing the grand list, right-sizing budgets, setting priorities and keeping local tax-rates competitive.  Repeatedly, the elected officials of Clinton’s so called “two-party” system have unanimously passed bloated Education and Town budgets resulting in referendum defeats, large surpluses that benefit no one, needlessly hiked tax-rates (that are already uncompetitive) and depressed property values.

 

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No one else is talking about cushioning the mushrooming debt burden taxpayers are going to shoulder over the next two years, if extraordinary measures are not taken.

 

Education Budgets Scaled to Education Needs

 

No parent wants the minimum spent on his or her child’s education.  And neither should any of us.  Public education is the bulwark of democracy and of a competitive workforce and economy.

 

That is why the term Minimum Budget Requirement (MBR) is such an unfortunate choice of words.   If parents and taxpayers knew that it shifts an undue and needlessly growing burden on local property taxpayers, it might be accurately renamed the Perpetually Inflicted Tax Inflator (PITI).

 

The Connecticut Conference of Municipalities (CCM) Public Policy Report published in November of 2012 concluded that,  “…the state share of public elementary and secondary education costs is too low.  According to the U.S. Census, Connecticut is the most reliant state in the nation on the property tax to fund PreK-12 public education…

 

“…The cost of education in our state for the current school year is over $10 billion and municipal property taxpayers will fund 51% of that amount…”

 

In Clinton, local property taxes pay 78% of education costs.

 

The CCM Report continues, “In an era in which governments are looking for budget efficiencies, the MBR is a relic… In an era of frozen or reduced state aid and rising education costs, the MBR is unfair to residential and business property taxpayers.”

 

In Clinton, years of increasing appropriations in spite of large Education budget surpluses and decreasing enrollment have compounded the MBR to perpetuate artificially inflated budget “minimums” that are excessive.   When the Boards of Education and Finance examine the record of budget appropriations, spending, and surpluses, they will see that currently budgeting to the MBR is more than ample to satisfy Clinton’s Education needs.

 

Since 2010, half of the Education budgets have failed at referendum, saving Clinton taxpayers $1.2 million but still resulting in $2.1 million in surpluses. 

 

Non-incumbents Only Chance for a Fresh Approach

 

The Board of Education (BOE) vigorously defends these inflated budgets and the surpluses they produced.   On November 5, Clinton voters have an unprecedented opportunity to elevate the credentials of BOE members. 

 

The four non-incumbents are significantly better qualified than the two incumbents.  Tim Wininger (Clinton First) and Annaliese Spaziano (D) are both qualified educators.  Ray Moore  (R), Ph.D. Nuclear Physics, is a former professor and Michael Giordano (R), M.D. Neurosurgery, is a Morgan graduate. 

 

These four fresh faces on the Board of Education would constitute a new majority who are not invested in traditions that fail to serve the best interests of education, students or taxpayers.

 

IMPORTANT - Voters can vote for ANY four candidates who are listed in ANY of the four BOE candidate columns.  So voters can rightfully vote for both Tim Wininger and Raymond Moore even though they are both in column one of the BOE ballot section.

 

What can fresh BOE members do about the large education surplus perpetuated by the MBR?  First, reduce the education-operating budget by $3,000 per student in lost enrollment as allowed by the MBR. 

 

Clinton has never used this provision.  Since 2010, enrollment dropped 32 students, permitting unused surplus reductions of  $96,000.  Over the next three years, projected enrollment declines of 100 students will permit $300,000 in surplus reductions.  Remember - Surplus reductions are not spending reductions.

 

Also, Education costs borne by the Town, such as the School Resource Officer and overtime related to D.A.R.E, should be absorbed in the BOE budget as part of the MBR.

 

Creative Solutions to Cushion the Tax Burden

 

Mushrooming debt service obligations loom large for Clinton taxpayers over the next two years and will stretch over 20 years.  Is anyone on the Board of Finance alarmed by the tax consequences of bonding obligations for a new school… soon to be added to by a mandated wastewater project?

 

Where will Clinton get the money if not from taxpayers who are already over burdened with the highest mill rate on the shoreline? 

 

There is no single answer. Education surplus reductions outlined above would help some.  Without cutting services or support for important institutions, what can the Boards of Selectmen and Finance do?  Are budget defeats at referendum and forced painful spending cuts inevitable?

 

There is no single answer.  One of many approaches is to look at off-balance-sheet assets and liabilities that have been neglected and that needlessly cost Clinton hundreds of thousands of dollars each year in lost tax revenue or higher taxes required to compensate for previously under-funded pension obligations.

In 1996, the Hartford Courant reported, “First Selectman James McCusker hopes to increase town revenue by selling surplus town properties, including a parcel on the Hammonasset River that was purchased in 1988 as the potential site for a sewage treatment plant.”  Fast forward seventeen years later, the current First Selectman proposes to encumber this parcel for 25 years with a $1 per year lease.  This parcel is appraised by the tax assessor at $285,000. 

The Town owns 74 other vacant parcels, 23 of which are not used by the Town and have a tax assessor appraised value of over $1 million.  This excludes landlocked parcels that adjacent property owners might be interested in purchasing.

If liquidated, the proceeds could partially reduce the Town’s unfunded pension obligations, which inflate the annual required contribution by over $500,000.

Solutions like this to cushion the mushrooming debt burden will not be crafted by just showing up.

Just “Showing UP” No Longer Good Enough

Woody Allen famously observed that, “Eighty percent of success is showing up.”   When filling vacancies on the Board of Finance, its Chairman has repeatedly listed “showing up” as the primary qualification for new appointees.

 

When “showing up” is the standard of excellence, the results are predictably mediocre.  For taxpayers, who saved $2.7 million by defeating 10 referendums in four years that produced $4.7 million in operating surpluses, the inflated budgets proposed by the Board of Finance have proved unacceptable.

 

Budget surpluses are strong evidence that budget defeat induced reductions in Town services, library hours or popular Education programs, were purely retaliatory and punitive.  The Board of Finance must prohibit that sort of nonsense.

 

The next four years can and should be different only if voters insist on raising the standard of excellence.  While no single Board of Finance member can make all of the difference alone, a better example can be set and a higher expectation should be articulated.

 

That is why I seek a position on the Board of Finance and why I support Board of Finance incumbents Doug Traynor (R) and Valerie Nye, (D) both of whom far exceed the just “showing up” standard.  Voters can and, I hope will, vote for all three of us.

 

Those who have observed my service on the Planning and Zoning Commission know that I am serious about attendance, do the homework, ask the right questions and exhibit the courage to do what I believe is right, even if it is not fashionable.

 

Budget memos I have prepared and submitted to both the Boards of Finance and Education have demonstrated an ability to analyze and propose constructive alternatives that would unburden taxpayers without jeopardizing education resources or Town services. 

 

Defending uncompetitive mill rates and defeated referendums should not be confused with being positive.  Budget recommendations must be weighed based on substance instead of style.

 

My objectives are to : 

 

·      Right-size budgets,

·      Cushion taxpayers’ burden,

·      Fund adequately Education and Town services and,

·      Propose budgets that taxpayers willingly pass the first time, every time. 

 

Even though Doug Traynor and I are in the same ballot column, voters may vote for both of us, for which, I would be most grateful.

 

Vote Row C, Tuesday, November 5.

 

 

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