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DRAFT
BOARD OF FINANCE
MINUTES
PUBLIC HEARING MEETING
April 5, 2010
1. CHAIR, BOARD OF FINANCE: Thomas Harrison - Preside and convenes meeting; Leads Audience in Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag; Advises the audience of the order of presentation tonight
Chairman Harrison: Good evening ladies and gentlemen. We are about to begin. Those of you who normally come here, you know my one big purpose as the Chairman of the Board of Finance is to start the meeting by ringing the school bell. It’s even more appropriate doing it here than it was down at the Senior Center, but I did bring it, so let’s begin. We are officially adjourned. Good evening. I, not adjourned, sorry, Freudian slip. I can tell we are going to have fun tonight. Okay. My name is Tom Harrison and I am the Chairman of the Board of Finance. Welcome to our annual budget hearing. The Board of Finance always begins its meetings with the Pledge of Allegiance, so I would ask everyone to stand and we will go through the pledge.
(The Pledge of Allegiance was recited.)
Chairman Harrison: Thank you. There are a huge number of new faces here tonight, and I think that’s great. We welcome you here. I think it’s tremendous interest in the budget process and with your indulgence, I will take about a minute or so just to explain it in very summary terms. Although before I do that, however, I have a couple of announcements that I have to make. One has to do with the seating. Because of the fire restrictions, I think it’s about 625 people who can sit here in this room. The seats must be occupied. We cannot have people standing in the aisles. So, there are some empty seats here and there. Please, fill them in, but the Fire Marshall is insisting that the capacity is determined by the number of seats and the seats must be filled.
Secondly, Jaime DiPace has asked me to read this: this auditorium and building are protected by an automatic fire alarm system. In the event of an alarm or other emergency, please leave the building from the closest exits, which are located to my left and right and to the rear of the room. Firefighters and Police Officers are located throughout the building to assist you. Jaime, did I get that right? Thank you. I have been practicing that. The process is all spelled out in the Town Charter. If I could ask everybody to please take some seats because we are starting now. The Charter says that the Board of Education takes the first step of the process. They develop their budget requests and submit it to the Town Council by February 15th. The Town Council has the right to comment on that submission, but not to make changes to it and the Council has traditionally never comments on the Board of Ed’s
budget. The next set thing, in March, the Council develops its budget not only for its own operations, but for debt service, capital improvement projects, sewers, things like that. In late March, the Council submits both budgets to the Board of Finance. And the Charter requires us to first hold a public hearing on the budgets that are submitted to us. That is what we are doing tonight. And secondly, it then directs us, after the hearing, to confer, the word used is confer, with the other two Boards and then make such revisions to the budgets as we deem desirable and then to submit the adjusted budgets to the voters in the referendum. We have been doing the referendum here for about ten years. It used to be done by the old fashioned New England Town meeting, in this room usually, but as the Town grew in size, there was an effort made, a special effort, to amend the Charter to have a mandatory referendum. Many of you may remember that
we are limited in Avon at least to no more than three referendums. If after the third referendum there is no budget that the voters have approved, it goes to the Town Council. It can then set the budget using whatever criteria it deems appropriate. We have only had that situation happen once. That was in 2008 where three referendums were defeated and it went to the Town Council. Essentially, it got the existing budget that went through the referendum process. Tonight what is going to happen, each of the Boards will make a twenty minute slide presentation, what’s in their budget requests, what they’re looking for, and in our case, what things we consider in deciding what to do. Following those presentations is the public process where you can speak out and share your views on the budget requests, if they are too high, too low, just right, or whatever. If you have a specific question on a particular budget item, if they are
talking about repairing roads or if your street for potholes is on the list, you can ask specific questions for items in the budget, but it is not something that we have a dialogue. We are not going to give you our opinions tonight. We are here to listen to you and to hear what you have to say and to learn from you. So, we will not be doing any dialoguing on that. Because of the large crowd, we are going to limit the speaking to three minutes. We have previously done that but it was a little bit loosely enforced, some people went under, some people went over. Tonight, we are going to do it with a very strict time frame and we have the assistance, to be the timers, of two Avon High School students. And they are here tonight, their names are Chris Smith, I’m sorry Chris Rieckers and Karen Smith and they are sitting right down here in front. And they have color coded cards, we have consulted with the experts and came up with a
yellow card that they will raise when you have thirty seconds left and the red card that they will raise when you have finished your time. You can finish your last sentence that you are in the middle of, but that’s it. The Boards have twenty minutes and they will time the three of us, too, making our presentations, except the yellow card will mean a two minute warning. For the speaking part of it, we have a microphone set up at each of these side aisles here. What we will do, in the past in the Senior Center where the lighting was very different, we could see raised hands, we would ask people who wished to speak to raise their hand and we could call them up to a single microphone we had. Here we have two microphones and what I would like to suggest, let’s see if it works, if you wish to speak, come up to whichever one of the two microphones is the closest to you. You don’t have to wait for me to recognize you. If you want
to speak and there is already somebody speaking at this microphone here for example, Jaime DiPace said that it’s okay to line up along the outside walls, single file with your body up against the wall. That way, when that person is finished, you can move over and get ready to speak. I will alternate, go back and forth, so when this microphone on my right, when this person is finished, I will ask the person on the left microphone to speak and in the meantime, the next one lined up here can walk over and get ready to go. But, we do ask you to be aware of and to keep to that three minute schedule. We traditionally allow everybody who wants to speak to speak. If you’ve already spoken, we ask that you please wait until everybody who has not yet spoken gets a chance to say something. Then you can come back if you’ve got second remarks or follow up or something like that to say. Okay. We welcome everything that you might
say to us; we are anxious to hear it. In the interest in some sense of decorum here, it doesn’t help when we keep hearing the same thing over and over and over again. You are welcome to say it, but having fifteen people say that the budgets are too high or fifteen the other way, that’s interesting and it’s alright to speak, but it doesn’t really add any value, so, if all you were planning to do was to say the same thing that fifteen or twenty or thirty other people have said, just think about it, is it really necessary to add the same remarks to that. I understand that there are going to be some petitions that have been collected and submitted to us tonight. We welcome that. I think when that last happened was 2003. What we will do with the petitions is our clerk here, Alison Sturgeon, will attach them to the minutes of the meeting. It takes a little while to transcribe the minutes, but they will be attached to the
minutes so they will be a part of the official record of this proceeding. When you do come up to speak, it is limited as you know from the notice that you have to be either a taxpayer or an elector. And those terms are, an elector is somebody who is 18, a citizen of the United States, registered to vote in Avon. A taxpayer is somebody who is 18 or a citizen, does not necessarily live in Avon but owns property in Avon that has an assessed value of $1,000 as of the October 1st start of the new grand list here. When you do come up to speak, please state your name and your address. That becomes part of the record. Alison is recording this. We always do it that way, so it’s helpful that you do use the microphone. The other thing that I would like to ask, but I probably don’t need to say it, but I want to say it just to ensure that this is what we have come to expect here in Avon, that we are all residents of the same
Town. Whatever our views may be on the budget, we still love the Town of Avon. We want the Town of Avon to be the best Town in Connecticut and on that basis, I would ask everybody, please to be kind to each other. No heckling, booing, applauding, hissing, whatever. Give everybody a chance to speak their mind. I will insist on that. And I think you would agree, it’s a much better way to proceed, if we don’t get into a shouting match of one side against the other. So, please treat every speaker with courtesy and common civility and I think that that doesn’t need to be said. All right, now, we will go into the presentation from the three elected Boards. They are limited to twenty minutes. We alternate who goes first. This year, it is the Town Council that will go first. And our Board, are we blocking? Can you tell, we usually get down off the floor, but if our members are not blocking the
screen, we can probably, unless you want to go down and see the presentation, all right, we will go down so we can watch the presentations. So, with that, we will exit the stage temporarily.
2. CHAIR, BOARD OF FINANCE: Thomas Harrison – Calls on Chair, Town Council to present the proposed Town Council, Sewer, Debt Service and Capital Improvement Budget for FY 2010-2011
Chairman Harrison: I will ask the Chairman of the Town Council, Mark Zacchio to come up here and go through the slide projections on the Town Council’s requested budget. Mark.
3. CHAIR, TOWN COUNCIL: Mark Zacchio – Presents the Town Council Sewer, Debt Service and Capital Improvement Budget for FY 2010-2011
Mark Zacchio: Good evening everyone. I’m pretty sure that Tom just used up the Board of Finance’s twenty minutes. First, I want to welcome everyone here tonight. As you know, there has been a lot of hype about this year’s budget. It’s good to see so many faces, actually. In the ten or eleven years that I have been involved, I don’t think we’ve seen more than three hundred or so people turn out to public meeting. So the input is going to be great. I would like to thank all of the volunteers, all of the volunteers, the Fire Department, all of our Town staff for making this a safe environment tonight. I know that it’s kind of a hassle to be standing in the aisles, but we have to make sure public safety comes first. I would like to recognize the
full Council that’s here tonight. I will introduce them, if you guys would just stand up, Phil Shay, Pam Samuel, David Pena and Doug Evans. We are all here to answer questions tonight as we get into the question and answer session. As well, we have our new Town Manager, Brandon Robertson, our retired Town Manager, Phil Schenck, who is still on as a consultant with us for the next few months, as well as our Town Attorney, Dwight Johnson. So, we will certainly have a full panel of folks here to answer questions as we go through. I am going to kind of move through this quickly because I think I’ll get hooked at twenty minutes, so I’ll move through these fairly quickly. Next slide please, Peg. Our first statement is really just our mission statement. A couple of points that I want to make, the quality services at a reasonable cost. That’s a mantra that the Council has had for a number of years. That is
something that, I think, we are all here to talk about and what quality services are and what reasonable costs are two different things, depending on who you talk to. So, I hope that we follow what Tom’s advice was and that we have perspective tonight about the opinions that will be stated here and as we talk, we use that perspective in what, I think, the pack as been calling the unity in community. I love that. And tonight, this is a much bigger representation of the community that we would normally see. So, I hope that we put that together as the night goes on. Next slide, please. Thank you. So, activities funded by the Town Council’s operating budget includes our general government, public safety, public works and you can read down the list. The biggest portion of our budget is, of course, public safety. It constitutes about 43% of the total budget. That includes our Police and our Fire and our equipment, as
well as our emergency medical services. The next biggest hit is our Public Works Department at about 22%. Of course, that includes the roads and the paving projects and the maintenance of our roads. The third is our general government. It is about 15% of our budget. That includes our basic Town office services. It includes HR and finance, and our Town Manager’s Office and all of our favorite department, the Tax Collector’s Office. They do a very good job for us. So, the objectives this year, now we continue to adapt to the economic realities. As we put our budget together this year, we certainly understood that we had a shrinking State aid and increasing pressures from an operating standpoint. We really tried to retain core services. We really took a lot of time thinking about what that is and again this year, we decided that public safety and social services were the two very important parts of our
budget that we wanted to continue to fully fund. And if we did any reductions, we would try to do them in non-core services. We have, in, at least as we went through the process, we thought a lot about our “Triple A” bond rating. Some of the items in here, as you will see, further in the presentation, fund the pension contributions, fund other employment benefits for our retiree health accounts. Each of those are components of what Standards and Moody’s, Standard, Moody’s and Poor’s looks at as they consider our “Triple A” bond rating. I will talk a little bit more about what that means to us later in the presentation. We certainly try to actively manage our personnel resources. We have avoided voluntary layoffs, but we have certainly gone down in staffing over the last three years. Particularly, we have gone done in three of our maintainers in the Highway Department. We have done that
for attrition more than we have done that for layoffs. We have made some adjustments in the past where needs for services have gone down, especially in our Building Department, but we have always filled the essential vacancies. And the last part there, we have funded, really essential CIP projects only. For those of you who don’t understand the CIP program, it’s our capital improvement projects. It only includes items that costs us more than $20,000 and have a useful life of more than five years. Typically, you have seen in the presentation, that’s trucks, playground equipment, road resurfacing and the like. One thing about CIP is we funded that this year at the point that it was approved last year, which was drastically reduced by our own accord before we put it forward to the Board of Finance, so we really, in other years, we might have had room to trim within those categories, but we have very little elasticity in that area
this year. So, our budget looks like, the top line is the $467,937. That’s the spending increase that we are requesting on the operating budget. That constitutes 2 ½ percent of our total spend. As you go down the line, all of these items are within the budget, so we include them in the presentation. The sewers, while they are up 4.66% or $75,000, they are fully funded by those of you who pay a sewer fee and are hooked up with sewers. Those who are on a septic system and their own private systems do not have an assessment there. So, in the budget, it’s not funded through the tax levy. The debt service, that’s the interest and the principle that we pay on all of our outstanding debt. That’s where we issue debt for the buildings and do roofing projects and the like. That was actually down $258,000, 4.9%. That’s because we retired some old debt, so just think, it’s like we just
paid off a car and we no longer have the interest and principle payment, so we had a reduction in that budget this year. Lastly, the CIP budget, as you can see, it’s fairly evenly funded, .93% in the negative from last year and just slightly below what we approved last year, but that again was a drastically reduced budget. So, combined spending increase, $271,981 or about 1.01%. Some major drivers this year is our economic data and our climate, basically, we took into consideration, and it’s an important driver because about 1.54% of the spending increase that is before you tonight is just to come even because of revenue losses that we’ve had in various accounts. We had that projected at $1.2 million in reduction in revenue. And the easiest way to explain that is about $500,000 of that is a reduction in just, where our normal interest would be bearing on the tax levy we collect from you each year. Though we collect your taxes in
one full sum, but we allocate that out as we spend it monthly, so those in government accounting standards board, approved accounts, earn short term interest, those interest bearing accounts, like all of our accounts, are bearing a lot less interest than they have had in the past. They rest of them is made up of revenues that we would depend on for building, so building permits, conveyance fees, obviously there has not been a lot of building going on. Our grand list growth has been very small this year, and I will get into that in another slide, but certainly has reduced the amount of income that we normally depend on within the budget cycle. The 2.5% interest and the $467,000, the two biggest drivers, about 80% of that is due to funding our pension plans. For those who don’t know, we have a DB plan for our older employees as of 1997, the Town had moved out of these DB plans and into 401K plans as we would in the corporate world, but we still need to
fund those account in order to meet those pension obligations in the future. The $125,000 is OPEB, that is Other Post Employment Benefits, so these are our retirees and this is to fund our obligated health care accounts for those retirees. So that makes up 81% of our budget request. We certainly have reduced and eliminated some things within the last few years and we have used a phased in approach to fill in vacant positions. The way I like to think about that is that we have an attrition rate and it really just means that as we have a vacancy, we run that vacancy out as long as we can for two reasons. One, because it saves money over time and two because we try to find ways to double up with other employees and try to find ways to cover those same job skills and job duties without filling those positions. So, certainly we have had some success through that attrition process. We have had no increase in service and supply budget this year
except for where it was completely necessary to maintain current operations. We have had a lot of pressure on that because like all of our home budgets, costs are going up, but we are continuing to put stress on our service and supply budget in order to keep those accounts low. And of course, as I spoke to you before, there are some reduction in our capital improvement program, which I will speak a little bit more, but it is one that I think we are most concerned about. We certainly have worked with our bargaining units and our non-bargaining units on some strategies around both short term and long term management of costs. We have, as I said, we have reduced our staff where possible and raised the bar and expectations of those who we have kept on. Each time we go to negotiate with one of our unions, we work on some of the, changing some of the language to have some long term concessions. A good example of that, is that we have reduced some of
the retiree health benefits over the years, we have asked for higher contributions from our folks and that nature of union concessions. We have also sought to offer smaller pay increases in return for some concessions, somewhat successful in that and somewhat not. We have tried to be very fair as an employer as well. This slide, I threw in because there is a lot of interest in the growth of the Town over the years. And interestingly enough, our highest growth was really from 1970 to 1980. It was about 34% and you can see what we have tracked, is the number of Town employees. At that time in 1970, we had 42 employees; it jumped to 85 by 1980. And I joke with my dad who is a retired Police Chief, that I think they are all police officers. You know, he always said that the Board of Ed got their way, but I think he was doing alright there. From 1980 to 1990, we jump another 25% or 700 people. Our growth since 1990 however, has
sort of flattened out. We had a 14% increase from 1990 to 2000 and about a 12% increase from about 2000 to 2010. One of the points that I want to make here was that from a Town employee perspective side, from 1990 to 2010, our population grew a little over 27%. Our employee base at the same time tracked at about 5%. So, we have done a really good job of trying to keep our staffing at a disproportionate level to our growth in Town. This next slide is representative of our debt service. Is that yellow? The white line on the bottom, one of the light colors on the bottom is the interest, the principle that we have paid for on our debt and the goal is the interest. As you can see, we have strived to have a curve that is downward, and that gives us room for capital projects in the future. This graph in particular includes the $8 million for the library renovations, which we have approval from you all to go forward with and we are in
the midst of the planning stages now. It also includes about $5 million for a future fire station and training facility, about $1 million for more sports athletic fields at Fisher Meadows and $2 million for Secret Lake Road reconstruction. But as you can see, it has a downward trend and we continue to try to do that. This is where the negative 4.9% came from. We paid off some of this debt and you can see it dropped year after year. I’m sorry. Go back one, Peg. Thanks. This is where the “Triple A” bond rating actually comes in. This is something that is really important to us. I have Dennis Dicks, our bond consultant run the numbers just for this illustrative purpose and here at the high school, we just issued a little over $27 million in general obligation bonds and that our “Triple A” bond rating gave us a very low interest rate. If we were to drop one rating, that’s double A-1,
the excess interest over the life of the bond would be over $880,000, so that “Triple A” bond rating does help us keep the pressure off the operating budget as we go over the life of the bond on a building project and of course we have done a lot of those with the schools and roofing projects and most recently with the library. This is our capital improvement. These are our top projects on the capital improvement budget right now. As you can see, the Avon Middle School boiler is our number one item; it is the number one priority for the Board of Ed right now. We have a boiler that is original to the school. It has had a storied history over the last few years. It is one of those items that we can’t wait to replace because if it breaks during part of the school season, we are certainly going to have to close the school in order to make that happen. So, this is a project we try to plan for during the summer time. It’s something that is, I think, imperative for us to move
forward with, so it’s our number one item on the CIP budget. The second is road resurface in $245,000. We engaged in a road management plan about two years ago. The figure that the road management plan, if we were to keep the roads in pristine condition, is about $1.2 million more than that figure. So, that gives you an idea of how much work our roads really need at this point. I have talked to our public works, at our Department of Public Works, and he assures me that the $245,000 is sufficient for us to do some road repaving this year. The potholes will be filled. Some of you, you know, if you go Country Club Road notice that the crack sealing process, which helps give the life of the road, extends the life of the road, has already started this year. We are taking advantage of the good weather. Our road program really depends on the oil prices, right, because oil is one of the main ingredients in the asphalt process, so
if oil goes up, that budget looks really small, as oil comes down, it can pave a lot more than what we would normally be able to do. So, we think we are in pretty good shape, however, that is a short term fix. We have certainly skimmed on our infrastructure needs in the road department and we expect to see increasing amounts in the CIP item in future years. The Deepwood Drive sewer extension phase two, again, funded completely out of the sewer fees, but needs to be within the budget. So, that’s paid for by the folks through sewer assessments. We have a dump truck in this year. I think it’s been for about three years now. This is one of the largest dump trucks that you would see on the road. It’s used for plowing and sanding and general maintenance during the summertime. The truck that we have is from 1992. I would be embarrassed to drive it myself. I think it’s become a safety issue. It’s one that the Council felt was important for public safety, again, as going with
one of our mantras for this year so we have included that this year. The next item is a fire department truck. We are going to try something a little different with this truck. In the past, we have saved up dollars and paid for things two or three years in advance. We have built up an account to pay cash. This year, the Fire Department is going to do a lease purchase program where we are going to make payments forward of $160,000 if we have approval from you to do that this year. So that will be an item that you see over the next four years as well. The last item is Pine Grove School playground. Those of you in the Pine Grove district know that we have collected about $130,000 in private funding to replace that playground. The bill to do that is somewhat more than that. This was an item that the Council added on to the budget a little late in the process. We had worked on using in-kind services and tried to avoid
putting money in the budget. It sounds like there were some communication issues between the Town and the folks driving this project, so we felt that it was important to note, not only the hard work of the volunteers that raised all of that money, but the playground is really in bad shape and we really need to replace it. So, the top items total about $1.2 million in our budget this year. Next slide, you will see, I think that this is the one that the Council had the most concern with. Total number of projects, total request of dollars for Cap projects this year, $6.7 million. What we are putting forward to you tonight is $1.3 million. That includes the $1.2 from the previous slide plus a few small items that are left for the difference. Some of the deferred projects, they are important, engineering projects, box culverts. For those of you who travel down Thompson Roads to the schools, you know where the river stream backs up and
flows. There is a box culvert there that is built of stone and is certainly that we need to pay attention to and replace over time. We have a number of those across Town as well as other drainage issues. That makes up the $1.346 million. And as you read down the list, our pavement program that I referred to before, it’s fully funded, we have $1.1 million more than the 246 we have out there. Roaring Brook School, building management controls, we have replaced that boiler there some years ago. These controls, what upgrades from the old manual controls in each room to an automated system that would be more efficient. Another item that was removed from the Cap budget, various replacement vehicles across the Department of Public Works, $670,000. Again, those are aging and rusting to the point where they are becoming a safety issue. We also have our Fire Department, Northwest Fire Station planning. We have delayed some of
that, and that’s one of the items that you saw that might be within the bond issues in future years and then the parking lot improvements that are under the Department of Public Works. For those who haven’t been around a long time, our Department of Public Works is built on the old landfill. So, over time, it’s like a rollercoaster to get in there. The only thing that I think that hasn’t sank is the building because they drove pilons down about three hundred feet, so we are definitely going to have to do some work there. Next slide, if I can find it, we have done this, I call it the In-Town cooperative agreement, some of you have heard that we had done a consultant study, we call it the Matrix study, because Matrix was the name of the company that did the consultant study for us. Joined by members of the Board of Finance and the Board of Education, we have a nice list and menu of items that we think that we will be able to
work with each of the boards on and find some cooperative efforts. Right now, the major one we are working on is the field maintenance, so we are looking for a collaborative effort between the Board of Ed and the Town to combine that and try to save some dollars in both equipment as well as personnel maybe. In the future, we are looking to join forces within our HR Department as well as our Finance Department. Some of that is going to take some technology and infrastructure changes; they are probably future items that you will see in these presentations. We obviously, share our vehicle maintenance, our Department of Public Works takes care of both the Board of Ed and the Town fleet, our athletic fields, human resources, and insurance, we do some sharing on now and you can read down the line of some of the In-Town collaborative issues that we’ve worked on. The next stage, although slightly dated, it was updated in 2002 we are sure that the numbers
are still pretty valid, these are out of Town cooperative programs. The Town programs that we are working with, about 68 programs we work with other Towns in the collaborative effort. They include our animal control officer, our building inspector, our assessor, the Farmington Valley Health District, our regional purchasing agreements for salt and equipment, our ambulance service with AMR are all good examples of what the Town engages in with other communities, a total of about ninety. And it’s interesting, we are tied with Farmington for fifth out of the 169 cities and towns in Connecticut with a number of collaborative issues that we have been working on with other communities. Okay, I’m getting the red card, but I am going to keep going because I’m almost there, I’m almost there. So, our proposed budget summary, I’m at the summary slide, I’m at the summary slide, and again, we are at about a 2.5% request in
spending, all in net, it’s about 1.1%, $271,000, that’s what is going to be before you tonight and for the Board of Finance to deliberate on. Final slide. Thank you. For those of you who have not subscribed to our newscast, as you know, the Council has cut back on mailing newsletters and such. We have certainly been able to use our technology and our website. It’s easy to navigate. There’s a page that you can subscribe to our news; you can get anything from the budgets to job openings and anything around that is community news and events that’s going on. It’s a push system so once you sign up, it’s automatic to your email. It’s a really nice thing, so I encourage you to go to the Town website and sign up and save us some money in printing and mailing costs. Thank you very much.
4. CHAIR, BOARD OF FINANCE: Thomas Harrison Calls upon Chair, Board of Education to present the proposed Board of Education Budget for the FY 201-02011
Chairman Harrison: Thank you Mark. That wasn’t bad for the first time we are trying this timing system, Mark, so we won’t deduct any money from your budget for the extra minute and a half that you went over. I will remind you, I understand that the people in the overflow over in the old gymnasium, when we get to the public speaking part, if you would like to speak and you’re in that room, you will have to come into this room and get on the line for one of the microphones. So, we will give you a chance to speak, but since we can’t see who’s there, just come in when you are ready. Okay, next presentation will be on behalf of the Board of Education and I call on the Chair of that, Peggy Roell.
5. CHAIR, BOARD OF EDUCATION: Peggy Roell – Presents Board of Education budget
Peggy Roell: Thank you Tom and members of the Board of Finance. I would like to begin by introducing the Board of Ed members that are here. I will take my glasses off for that. Mike Egan, Jay Spivak, Stacey Biernat, Kathy Zirolli, Barbara Zuras, Ken Notestine, Bill Stokesbury, Houston Putnam Lowry, and then we’ve got Ben Verman and Lindsey Rice, who are student representatives on the Board of Ed and active members of the Board of Ed. The education budget is not just about numbers, taxes and mill rates. It is about our children and the education that our community expects for its children. We want all of our children to succeed and eventually become contributing members of their community. This budget not only represents numbers, but also represents the moral and legal obligations to
educate our children. We need to be able to count on our children to have the knowledge, skill and integrity to meet the challenges in the twenty-first century head on. Preparing this budget, both the administrators and the Board of Ed were aware of not only the current economic situation, but we remember the budget challenges in the past. This coupled with greater accountability in the Federal, State and local levels and an even greater expectation for continued higher level student achievement make the budget preparation process quite a challenge. We acknowledge our budget request is higher than to be expected in these economic times and higher than most other Towns. The real issue has been the approved school budgets over the past ten years have not kept pace with the increases in student enrollment. Our proposed budget represents a 6.91% increase over this year. After many hours of review and discussion, the Board of Education
unanimously approved this budget, not because any of us have extra cash or want to pay more taxes, but because we all feel that the Avon Public Schools are at a critical cross roads. This proposed budget just maintains the current programs at the current levels. We believe that approving this budget was a fiscally responsible decision to make for both the Avon Public Schools and the Town of Avon. We have cut and cut and we believe there is nothing left to cut. The question that needs to be answered is, what type of school system does the Town of Avon want. For those who have more detailed information that can be provided tonight, the thousand line items that make up this request are detailed on the school website and the budget book that is available at the public library. Like I mentioned, this proposed budget only maintains the current programs. It doesn’t add anything new. It meets our contractual mandated obligations, it
addresses changes in enrollment between the schools, and it supports the purchase of computers to meet advanced technology needs and State reporting requirements. Let’s just talk about a few of the specifics of the request. Teacher’s salaries are indeed a significant portion of our budget, just like other school districts State wide, representing approximately 70% of the budget. We have been asked many times, why can’t we just lower teacher’s salaries. The market drives salaries. We have always made it a point to go after the best administrators, the best teachers, and the best support staff. We compete with other communities for the same talent. If Simsbury offers better salaries, benefits and support, they will be the winners and we will be the losers. As a pool of outstanding candidates of key areas over the past several years competing for those have intensified. If we are going to have the best
schools, we will continue to need the best teachers and best administrators to lead them. We have maintained our strong reputation on the backs of those who teach in our schools, the parents who agree to pay for programs that otherwise would be lost and administrators who continue to lead. Although the school administration has been an ongoing discussions with all of our employee groups about the budget, it would be very difficult to reopen this last year of the parent teach contracts and no specific results are guaranteed. Moreover, any savings realized would only likely be temporary and just deferred to next year and not solve the real issue which is insufficient funding, not overspending. The AARA positions on this slide represent people who we were able to rehire this current year using Federal money rather than local tax dollars because it was just a one year funding from the Federal Government now included in our budget for next year. And the new
positions primarily are a result of the increased eighth graders coming into the high school are a specifically larger class than the seniors who are graduating. Just as a point of reference, right now, this year, we have 269.07 teachers, I’m not sure where the .07 came from, but whatever, and its total projected for next year is 273.04. The difference reflects an increase of the 2.95 teachers in the AARA restoration; the 1.65 new positions on this chart all set by reductions of a .63 net. The numbers that are used on the ATA handout represent actual people, not full time equivalence. That’s why the numbers don’t agree or match. As you heard us talk about in the past, we do operate very efficiently. In 2006/07, which is the latest comparable data available on the Connecticut State Department of Education website, Avon spent less per student than Canton, Farmington, Glastonbury, Granby, Simsbury and West Hartford. Four
years earlier in 2002/03, we had just about the highest per student spending. In 2008, prior to eliminating an additional administrator in 2009, Avon has one administrator for every 223 students compared to Farmington’s one administrator for every 180 students and Simsbury’s one administrator for every 164 students. It’s interesting to note that in 1989, with an enrollment of just over 2,000 students, Avon had 17 full time administrators, including a senior director of instruction and 6 district wide curriculum directors. In 2010, with just over 3,600 students, or about 1,600 more, we have 15 administrators including 4 who work just during the school year. The work of the senior director of instruction that 6 directors did is now being done by the assistant superintendent for curriculum and instruction with the assistance from the principal, assistant principals and teams of teachers. As Mark pointed out, we, over the last ten years,
have implemented many cost savings and avoided initiatives with both the Town and surrounding school districts. What is different this year? For the first time, next year coming up will be the first time that Avon is projected to have a decrease in enrollment since the mid 80’s. Over the past ten years, our enrollment has increased almost 43% for an average of 4.3% per year. We are different in that, compared to Farmington who has been on a downward trend for six years and Simsbury who has been on a downward trend for five years in the number of students, we have had to utilize a lot of our funding to fund our growth, which other districts haven’t had to do. In order to address the changes in enrollment between the schools, the current budget proposal eliminates two teachers at the elementary schools and adds one to Thompson Brook and then adds part time positions that we talked about at the high school for increased enrollment. At
this time, I would like to introduce Mr. Jody Goeler, who was recently appointed Avon’s interim Superintendent of Schools. Mr. Goeler will provide a broader, historical view of changes in Avon Public Schools over the past almost thirty years. I don’t know, where you about ten when you came here?
Jody Goeler: Well, thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak to you tonight. Twenty-seven years ago, in 1983, I was introduced by then director of English as foreign language, Roger Dennis, our director then. Our district then enrolled approximately 2,000 students compared to the 3,600 who currently walk through our doors each morning. As a sixth grade language arts teacher in 1983, I taught five classes with almost 75 students and additionally taught one period a day assigned for students who needed assistance with their writing. That meant that I was able to provide individualized support for students that needed additional assistance with writing assignments. My math colleagues were able to provide students a problem solving class and an additional resource period as part of the math program. Other courses available to students included art enrichment, theater arts and even dance. At the elementary level, students had the opportunities to participate in academic
and enrichment and art enrichment. Students having difficulty in math were provided smaller group math and reading assistance and while reading support is still offered, enrichment programs are no longer available through the school budget. PTO’s continue to work with principals to provide programs for students and grants to use to provide support for struggling students. But neither compares to the level of programming students once enjoyed in our district. At Avon High School, we have seen the same trends with the disbandment of the ninth grade team and increasing student case load for teachers and guidance counselors, a shrinking electives program, pay to play sports, increased fees and a much more competitive environment for college admissions. Years ago, when we drove down West Avon Road in the spring, one would see students playing on tennis courts and every inch of field occupied by young athletes competing against students from other
districts. I coached middle school boy’s soccer and girl’s softball. I think we won one game while I was coach. It’s true actually. I was a great coach, but I shared that feeling with other coaches and students playing baseball, field hockey and girl’s soccer. We never collected a penny from parents, busses, referees, coaches, and equipment and uniforms were all covered under the general budget. Now the fields are barren and what little is offered, parents pay for. At that time, our district employed a full time athletic director whose sole responsibility was to organize and oversee our entire athletic program. As time went on, this position included a district wide supervisor, district wide supervision and the evaluation of health and physical education, teachers and programs as well. The athletic director was eliminated as a result of last year’s budget and replaced by an athletic coordinator an
incredibly hard working full time employee earning half of what we paid the athletic director. The supervision of the health program and evaluation of teachers has been reassigned to assistant superintendent and building administrators. And what happened to that director of English and foreign language? The person who hired me. What happened to that person? Well, that person is gone as well as are the director of math and science, the director of social studies and performing arts, the K12 director of guidance, the K6 director of reading and the senior director of instruction who oversaw the district administrators. All of these positions once responsible for direct departmental oversight, gone. When I left the district in 1990 to pursue district and school leadership opportunities, these directors, along with principals and assistant principals were responsible for supervising and evaluating teachers in the content areas. In
addition, they facilitated curriculum writing and a five year text book review plan process along with sharing continuity for their programs. Coming back to Avon, nine year later in 1999 as the Avon Middle School principal, I met with the K12 directors who were still there to plan my direction for the middle school. While the senior director of instruction and the K6 reading director had been eliminated from the budget, the others still remained at that point. Little did I know ten years later, I would be fulfilling all of those roles as assistant superintendent. I know that my work load has increased, but in fact, all of the remaining administrators continue to pick up the slack. Even with our best efforts, we are unable to fund curriculum writing initiatives, program evaluations and summer curriculum workshops. As a result, our CMT and CAP scores are no longer at the top when compared to Connecticut’s most competitive districts. In
addition, we have seen class sizes and student teacher ratios increase as well. Avon had already made the cuts to personnel and programs that surrounding Towns are just now considering. And our high school and middle school offer fewer electives than schools in Farmington, Simsbury and Glastonbury and due to lack of staff and therefore a lack of elective courses, 20-30% of our high school students have open periods throughout the day. Since 1983 when I first came to Avon as a teacher, the landscape has changed and it continues to change. At this point, I would like to speak for the young people in the audience tonight concerning their schools, their community and their futures. Yours is not the generation that spawned Bernie Madoff and those who brought our economy to the precipice of a depression, but we will certainly count on every one of you to solve their mess. Yours is not the generation that chose to bail out the car companies and major
financial brokerage firms, but you will be left with the bill to pay. Many of you won’t be able to weigh in on this budget even as it directly impacts your day to day lives and your future, where you will be expected to assume careers that we can’t even imagine today, where competition to get into the best schools and obtain the best jobs will remain fierce. The need for you to know another language and understand the other cultures and the need to learn a broader range of skills is more critical now than ever. And how will our schools meet the needs of our students today and into the future? Reading, writing and arithmetic are just the beginning. In the book, the Whole New Mind notes, the future belongs to a very different kind of person with a very different kind of mind, creators and empathizers, pattern recognizers, meeting makers, these people, artists, inventors, designers, story tellers, caregivers, big picture thinkers, will now be
society’s richest rewards and greatest joys. What are the skills that our students will need to create design and market the next iPod or remaining current with the next iPad. Over the years, we have lost administrators, teachers and programs; now we stand to lose guidance counselors, more teachers, more secretaries, more support staff and more programs. For students, there will be more to join (inaudible) high school and fewer opportunities to attend classes that would broaden their outlook and develop their skills. One suggested after seeing the list of cuts, I, the person said, I guess if you had to dismantle a school system, this is a good plan for doing so. The worst thing that I can say about our budget proposal is the fact, it only serves to maintain what we currently provide our students and it is a lot to request in these troubling economic times. With the exception of a few added computers district wide, you won’t see class
sizes diminish, instructional readers hired, new electives offered, and the soft tax for pay to play reduced. We will only keep what we have with the reductions over the years. Finally, one myth I would love to dispel tonight, that Town employees don’t work together and consolidate resources. In my experience in Avon, that couldn’t be farther from the truth. I have had the great fortune to work with some extraordinary Town employees who believe that it isn’t my Town or their Town or your Town, it’s our Town. I would like to publicly thank Jaime DiPace for his continued work with our schools. He will teach anyone, anytime, anywhere fire safety if it meant that someday his efforts would save one life, Jaime DiPace. Mark Rinaldi and his police department were always there to help provide support and expertise. The Police and Fire Departments don’t just come when we have an emergency. They are
there to help us plan and prevent loss of life if there were to be an emergency as well. So, thank you Mark Rinaldi and the Police Department. And finally, my good friend, Glenn Marston, one bit of warning, if ever you are in a hurry, don’t get caught in a conversation with Glenn, but he is our Director of Parks and Recreation and he is always looking to work with us to share services to ensure every child continues to have a chance to thrive. As we have eliminated interscholastic sports programs at the middle school, Glenn and his department have assumed the responsibility to take on these programs. Thank you, Glenn. Finally, I would like to thank you all for coming out tonight and demonstrating your interest in our school system and your community. It takes years and years of hard work, resources and community commitment to build this reputation. It takes a handful of years of underfunding and division to destroy it. Let’s stand united of a community budget. Thank you.
Peggy Roell: Thank you Jody.
6. CHAIR, BOARD OF FINANCE: Thomas Harrison – Presents Board of Finance Overview
Chairman Harrison: Thank you Jody and Peggy. And Jody, all the best to you in your very very challenging position. It’s unusual circumstances for you and I am sure everyone in this room I can speak for, everybody wishes you nothing but success, so all the best. I will also introduce the members of the Board of Finance, Margaret Bratton, where are you? Cathy Durdan, Brett Eisenlohr, Bill Hopper, Tom Gugliotti and Jim Spiech. Many people think of the Board of Finance as those pesky people who, if you’re watching a UCONN Women’s basketball game and every time there is a time out of more than three seconds, they flip back to the studio and there are people asking you for money. And that’s sometimes where the Board of Finance lines up. We are the ones that have to pay for
these very well developed spending requests from the other two boards. And it’s not the easiest thing to do, but we try to do it and enjoy it. And one thing I want to stress is that we really thank you sincerely for the tax dollars that you are willing to turn over for the Town. A lot of public officials sort of take that part of it for granted, or almost as an entitlement. We are the elected officials and we are entitled to have those tax dollars to do what we think needs to be done. Well, we are very thankful to you, you have been very very generous over the years in turning over your hard earned money to the Council and the Board of Education for these wonderful projects and goals that they have. And our board at least is mindful of the sacrifice that you make and really appreciate it. So, I would like you to give yourselves a hand for giving us that kind of money. You deserve it. All right, Peggy if you could go onto
the next one, we don’t have to go through that. The key thing to remember is that our role here is to find a balance between the requests for spending for services and the ability to pay for them on the taxpayer’s side of it. That’s what we do and we try out best to come up with some sort of way to balance that scale. The role of the Board of Finance, as I said, is to achieve that level of balance. One of the ways, the only way we do that is really through asking you for money. And how do we do that? Peggy. We do that by living up to the State Statutes and the what Avon Town Charter provides. Years ago, you may not think this is possible, but years ago, there was a fairly heavy body of lawsuits where Boards of Education sues Boards of Finance, although this did not happen here in Avon. But the Boards of Education were concerned about some of the budget adjustments that the Board of Finance made. One of
the cases made it to the Supreme Court in Connecticut. You can read the decision there which spells out very clearly what our role is. We sort of see to it that the goals that the Boards want can be paid for. The Charter also spells it out, I also mentioned this earlier, what we do is listen to what we hear tonight, what we have seen in emails and when we get letters and what we hear in conversations from friends and neighbors around the Town and if it is necessary and desirable, we will make some adjustments depending on the requests. Peggy. The problem is, we don’t have too many places to go to get the money. State law does not allow Towns to, like a lot of other States, we do not have a Town income tax in Connecticut. We don’t have a Town sales tax, we can’t tax alcohol or tobacco or things of that sort. We really have only two sources. Peggy. Our non-property taxes and our property taxes. The
non-property taxes, you will see there, licenses, building fees. You can see comparing the current budget with what we are projecting in revenue sources for next fiscal year, the non-property tax sources are down significantly, Mark alluded to that, and the only way we can make up the difference if that we are going to just keep the funding to support these budgets, we will have to go more to the property taxes. We will have to go to 86% for our revenue stream (inaudible) but as he explained, what that means is just to pay for the current $70.8 million budget, we will have to raise the mill rate by 1 ½ percent. So, we are already starting in a hole here and that makes the job even more difficult. Peggy. The single family home category which is the one that affects most of you in this room, 66% of our property tax revenue comes from that category. When you take 66% of the 88%, it shows there on that thing on the bottom, about 58% of all of
our revenue comes from single family homes. Peggy. The next are licenses, fees, charges, things of that sort are helpful; they have been more valuable in the past years, but they are not doing the job for us this year. Mark mentioned the decline in the grand list growth. I am going to get to that in a moment. You can just compare this, Peggy, you can move on to the next one please. This is how we use the revenue. You can see it has traditionally been and it’s continuing a little bit each year, spending on the Board of Education related items there is, compared to the Town and the other fund, you can see that there is a slight uptake there from year to year. Peggy. In percentage terms, when you factor in the operating budget requests along with the principle and interest that we are paying on the mortgages for school buildings as well as boilers, roofs, things of that sort, about 70% of the entire budget, both in the
current year and what would be the case if the budget, as submitted and approved by the voters, about 70% of the Town’s revenues go to support education related expenses. Peggy. One of the biggest problems we have is the grand list. It used to be that we could count on the grand list for $3-4 million of new, not previously taxed revenue each year. And that new revenue was able to support significant spending increases. There is a chart in the back of the handout, I don’t have it up here, but if you got the Board of Finance handout outside, there is a chart in the back that shows the referendum history going back to the first one in 1999. You will see that up until the current fiscal year, Avon was able to fund spending increases to 5% or 6% with tax increases in the 3% range. That was because of the growth in the grand list. We don’t have that anymore. Last year was the revaluation year, but for the
revaluation, the grand list would have actually declined last year. This year, it’s up a less than 1/2%. There is about $300,000 in new revenue. So, we can no longer look to grand list growth to fund spending growth. In the current fiscal year and the next fiscal year regardless of what the voters approve, the spending increase percentage will be lower and the tax increase percentage needed to pay for it, that is a significant change for Avon. And I don’t see that changing anywhere in the short, medium future. Now, every percentage increase in spending will require a larger percentage increase in the mill rate. Here is the chart of how this will affect us. It’s based on assessed value. We do this by percentile. The fifty percent that is the magical mystical mythical house right smack dap in the middle of the assessments. That means that 50% of the assessments are higher than that and 50% lower and
75 and 25, those percentiles are there. That’s what it will be. You can go to the website and we set it up the way we did last year. Just punch in your property address or your name and you can get right on the same page, a comparison of your current property tax and what you would be paying if the budget as submitted tonight are approved. And you can do it if you have Blackberry’s or something, you can do it as you are sitting here tonight. Peggy. Oh, that just gives you the details on how you can do that. Next one, please. You can see that in the adjusted mill rates, a couple of the previous board chairs have referred to that, yes, we do have a lower mill rate compared to several other Towns. Some people think that’s good and some of you think that’s not so good, but that’s the fact, that’s what it is. One of the questions that always comes up is, what do we look at. Well, we
look at a lot of things in deciding how to make our decision. But, one of them is a past history. My chart that I mentioned in the handout goes through all of the years, but I just want to point out a couple of them. You can see the highest mill rate every approved by Avon voters was nine point something percent. That is for 2000, if you can remember back that far, the economy was booming, the Federal government was running (inaudible), people felt good about themselves, about their retirement accounts and they did approve a 9% increase in the mill rate that year. In 2001, the next highest was a 5.7% tax increase and the year after that, at the second referendum came down to about 5.4. The first referendum that we had recommended, seven point something percent, that was defeated, and the second time around it got into the 5%. The last slide there is a separate situation. That was a time when we did initially recommend a much higher
tax rate increase; we were very close in supporting the funding level that the Board of Education requested. That went down in flames. The second referendum went down in flames. The third referendum that year had a 3.84%. That was also defeated. I mention this because there seems to be a reluctance of people in Avon to spend significantly higher tax increases compared to what they did in the first years of the twenty-first century. We done bind ourselves by that, but we can’t ignore it either. And like I said, the entire history is in there, but the reason for these problems is the changing demographics here in Town, that we don’t have room to build out anymore and we are largely filled and we don’t have, as a result, a growth of the grand list which affects the revenues which puts more and more onto the property tax. So, those are some of the challenges we face in looking at how we are going to fund these budget
requests. Peggy. Just some statistics here, you can see some changes in the consumer price index over the years. It hasn’t been particularly high, in fact, the most recent data, it was slightly under zero, 0.4 %. The social security COLA adjustments, you can see that there were no adjustments this year. Unemployment is a factor here that is affecting us in Avon, unlike many past recessions. As you can see at the end of February, the most recent statistics 6.4%. I don’t know if any of you saw the story in the Wall Street Journal front page this morning of how the changing economic situation is affecting middle income families. This involved a family down in Fairfield, Connecticut, two children in college, one in high school, with a job loss and such and the struggles they are going through. We’re not immune to that here in Avon. We aren’t living in a vacuum, so we have to be conscious of the economic
situation as well. Peggy. So, that’s where we are. We look at all of those factors and we welcome your comments tonight just to tell us what your thoughts are as I said before. We have a different role than the other two board; they are focused on identifying what they need and what they want, they present it to us and we look at that and we have to figure out what is a reasonable financial impact to ask the voters to approve and you have been very generous in the past as I said for providing tax dollars and we appreciate that. Now, that concludes my presentation. We do have some things coming up. This is something that has already been covered by two other speakers, its administrative services, where we are looking for ways to share services and do some cost savings between the Council and the Board of Education, but the other speakers addressed this, so I don’t have to go into it here. Peggy. And those are the
budgets, as I said, just to come up to the current year, $70.8 million, we would need a tax increase of 1.5%. To fund everything that’s on the table tonight, we would have to increase the mill rate by 7%. That is much higher than voters have been willing to do. This may be a very different year. We want to hear some of your thoughts on that tonight. What comes up after this, on Wednesday night, we will be meeting in what the Charter, I mentioned at the beginning, talks about, we have to confer with the other two boards. We do that in what’s informally called the workshop. That is not a public hearing. There is no opportunity for the public to speak or to ask questions, although it is an open meeting and you are more than welcome to come and observe. We have moved it from the traditional place which is the Avon Room in the basement of the Avon Town Hall. We are going to do it down at the Senior Center. It
makes it easier, for those of you who have seen us in the past where we used to work with a chalkboard writing in numbers and erasing them, we now have a very good strong computer program, Peg Colligan, the Finance Director, who is working the slides there, has developed this so we can put in various numbers and it will automatically change everything else so that you in the audience can get a sense of what the changes might be in terms of percentage of tax increase necessary, spending increases, so forth. But that meeting is not for public comment or question or discussion, but you are welcome to attend but it’s strictly for your observation. We hope to complete our work that night. If we don’t the backup date for that is the following Wednesday, the 14th. But for the last several years, we have been able to do it in one night and we are hoping to do that again. I think that’s the last one. Okay.
7. CHAIR, BOARD OF FINANCE: Thomas Harrison – Calls upon the audience for questions and comments on the Town Council, Board of Finance and Board of Education budgets
Chairman Harrison: So, that’s the presentation from the three boards. We will now get into the public comment period. And to reiterate the ground rules, everybody will be allowed three minutes and we expect you to adhere to that. You will be allowed to finish your sentence, but that is the extent to it. We also ask that you treat every speaker regardless of what their positions might be with respect, with courtesy. No booing or hissing or anything of that sort. If it’s necessary, we will ask people if they refrain, if they don’t refrain from that, we will ask them to leave the room. When you speak, please state your name and address for the record. We have two microphones here and I will alternate back and forth. If you are in the other room, please come in and get in on
one of the lines. Jaime DiPace just reminded me that we can’t hold everyone in this room at once. I see some people leaving, I don’t know if they are coming back or not, but maybe restrict it from the other room of just one or two at a time because of the need to comply with the fire requirements. All right. Now, we will begin with, let’s start with the microphone on, to my left and if you would be kind enough to give your name and address, that would be great.
Casey Donahue: I’m here with Dan Matthis. First off.
Chairman Harrison: Are you guys eighteen, I hope?
Casey Donohue: I’m sorry. We are eighteen.
Chairman Harrison: Great, congratulations.
Casey Donohue: (inaudible) First off, I would like to acknowledge the fact that there are still teenagers in the audience (inaudible) and if that’s not dedication, I don’t know what is. We are, there are a lot of us students that came out in the march that you saw earlier today. Several hundred of the futures of what our Town has to offer, came together to march from the middle school all the way to the high school all to prove one point. To prove that we, as a community and as a school recognize the consequences of this potential rejection of the budget and to say that we cannot afford to lose these teachers that we hold most dear to us.
Dan Matthis: He’s right. (inaudible) talking about how competition has gotten so crazy. There are kids that deserve to go to an excellent college, and they are not going because the competition is getting so ridiculous and to have the school system cut back on the stuff that we have now, we just can’t afford that as a Town to lose our edge.
Casey Donoahue: It is the enrichment of our education that is worth the investment of the preservation of the, what has been for so long, the defining quality of our community is worth this 6.91% increase. In a word, yes. We are not taxpayers. We live with our parents and it almost seems out of order to be speaking at a budget meeting, so all we can do, sincerely as we can, not to allow the alternative of our boredom of the outlet as opposed to our delinquency (inaudible) in a way that we cannot even explain. Thank you.
Dan Matthis: Thank you. We are the future. I am asking you to support this budget and what our future is. Just think about that.
Chairman Harrison: Thanks fellas. You are outstanding representatives, I’m sure, of the seniors and the other students in your schools and I wish them the best when they do have to face those college choices. Okay. On this side, please.
Robert Paine, 68 Tamara Circle: I am a taxpayer. I am a resident of Avon for over ten years. I have a few observations. First of all I think we are caught between what one would call a rock and a hard place. We are dealing with an entrenched bureaucracy over which we have no control. To give you an insight to that, sometime in your life, take a visit down to Hartford, go to the archives and take a look at the voter poles that have been put aside, thousands of pages of education protocols that a Town like Avon has to live with. If that doesn’t make you sick and bored and challenged, then look at the union contracts and what was once a professional association, which is now the union. Today, I am one of those who likes to go on the internet and just search around for stuff. And I ran across
an interview that was given at the (inaudible) School of Business to a lady who has spent the last twenty years supporting educational issues. And that is Linda Katz. And in her first paragraph, Linda Katz points out that a master’s degree in education has produced exactly the same results, I didn’t say that, she did, as having someone eat yogurt everyday for a year. They are zero to nothing. We have been handed a phony bologna program and we are sucked into it. No one can change your child’s IQ. Only a DNA operation or brain transplant, so we are stuck with what we’ve got and thank God we are because eighty something percent of the population is in that 85-110 IQ category. We have had presidents who weren’t even that great and they did a great job. And one of them was Harry Truman who was a total failure except being president of the United States. He was very good at being president
because
Chairman Harrison: Okay, let Bob finish.
Robert Paine: But anyhow, I have no argument with the budget except for reality. And reality is that we are in an extremely difficult financial downturn. The signs coming out of Washington (inaudible). They are worse and they project
Chairman Harrison: Bob, time is up.
Robert Paine: Okay. And it’s a deeper problem in the near future. Thank you very much and have a great day.
Diane Carney, 36 Rosewood Road: I understand that our school system has had to cut programs. I understand that there are needs at all of the schools. But I also understand that these are tough economic times and people cannot afford a heavy increase that we are talking about.
Chairman Harrison: Okay, let’s keep the applause down. Let the speaker speak.
Diane Carney: I don’t hear anyone offering a solution to this crisis. I only hear people making demands or threats instead of trying to find a solution to this crisis. The Board of Education has resorted to their usual blame game and scare tactics, getting parents into a frenzy about all of the programs that their children are being denied and the horrible (inaudible). The Board of Education resorts to misinformation to bamboozle the public. They are literally side stepping the truth. Teachers who were laid off last year are being put back in this year’s budget. They were rehired last year with stimulus money, knowing full well that the same money would not be available this year, so they previously laid off teachers who are now back in the budget. Not hiring more teachers? Sorry. All in all, 8 teachers are being hired this year. This practice of shading the truth is very disturbing. While students are denied basic programs, the Avon Board of Education continues to
spend much of its time appeasing parents and teachers. The results are an outrageously high budget that they knew would divide the community. What’s wrong with this picture? The Board of Education should be held accountable for creating this mess. We need some concessions from the teachers, not more empty rhetoric. We need to have confidence that Avon teachers have the best interest of our children at heart. Why should teachers be exempt? There are some solutions. How about increasing class sizes to free up some teachers
Chairman Harrison: That’s it. No more demonstrations please. Every speaker will be given the opportunity to speak without interruption or disturbance.
Diane Carney: How about increasing class sizes to free up some teachers and thus restore some of the classes that are being cut. Again, how about some concessions from the teachers like a salary decrease. Another option would be layoffs, just like many other Towns in our area are being forced to do. We have to decrease the operating budget.
Chairman Harrison: Diane, you’re time is up.
Diane Carney: I’m sorry. I was interrupted so.
Chairman Harrison: You have about five seconds. That’s it.
Diane Carney: Okay, one last thing.
Chairman Harrison: But five seconds for the disturbance, that’s it Diane.
Diane Carney: I’m done?
Chairman Harrison: No, you have five seconds.
Diane Carney: Okay. We can’t continue down this road. We must solve this problem, not just satisfy one particular segment of our population.
Chairman Harrison: Over here.
Ben Levine, 98 Cotswold Way: I am a registered voter as of Saturday.
Chairman Harrison: Congratulations.
Ben Levine: My name is Ben Levine and I am a member of the Avon High School graduating Senior Class of 2010. I cannot express the importance of the last four years in my journey towards maturity. The only way I can describe my education here over the last thirteen years has been indispensible. As an academic scholar (inaudible). I have firsthand experience with the lack of funding. I believe that it would be fiscally irresponsible for anyone to approve anything less than the 6.91% budget increase proposed. If you make any further cuts to the Avon Public School System, we are not ensuring the futures that future students will have the same well rounded education that I received. I now ask the Board of Education, please consider the message of all who marched today. Avon education system,
must, at a minimum, be maintained if not expanded. Thank you very much.
Chairman Harrison: Thank you.
Josephine Canella, 119 Old Farms Road: Programs are people. You can’t cut programs without cutting people and you can’t cut people without cutting programs. Teachers in Avon are neighbors. Most of them are parents themselves and many are taxpayers. They are not greedy. They are not happy that our taxes go up. We would rather see (inaudible). But in cost of doing this, of education in Avon, it’s simply not fair that the teachers are to blame. That’s what they want you to believe. They have had a study done by the Institute for Public Policy to make you believe that Avon apples should be compared to private school, bananas. The private school selects their students. They don’t have to follow State mandates. They don’t require that their
teachers be certified in education or they don’t have to take a single education course. (inaudible) decide what programs to have and then they can decide how much to charge for tuition. They compare Avon’s apples to those of Simsbury, Glastonbury and Farmington, you will see that our teacher’s salaries are indeed higher. Salaries alone are not the whole picture. Glastonbury teachers pay 15% of their insurance premium costs. Simsbury teachers only pay 13%. In a (inaudible) higher than those numbers. I haven’t seen them. And these insurance costs cost teachers and they far outweigh their hired salaries. In most Towns salaries are also enhanced by longevity plans as well. Avon teacher’s salaries have (inaudible) as well. (inaudible) teachers, recently have had to pick up administrative duties that have been cut by administrators, administrators have been cut. (inaudible)
Hartford County is also, compared to others around DIRG, Avon’s (inaudible) a drop of six spots on this list.
Chairman Harrison: Okay, that’s the red flag. Thank you. On this side, please.
Florence Stahl, 2 Sunset Trail: I am president of the Avon Taxpayer’s Association. To the students in the audience, here’s a civics lesson. Six hundred people who live in Avon have recently lost their jobs. Top executives, little managers, support staff. There is probably another 600 who are underemployed. They have nothing against education. This is their Avon too. To the Board of Finance and everyone else here tonight, more than 1,000 people in Avon are on fixed or declining incomes. They have nothing against Avon, but it’s their Avon too. But here is the point. Of all of these groups, the largest are the silent taxpayers who don’t hold rallies. They can’t afford the 4, 5, 7, $900 increases in property tax that many of you are advocating. They have nothing against education. The education budget goes over 30% over the last 7 years. I’m not making that up. I wouldn’t do that. Enrollment grows 9.45% or 15% in those same years. I’m not making that up. I can back it
up with statistics. Either way, that’s hardly an austere budget. These silent taxpayers who don’t hold rallies did not make the policy that beginning in the mid 80’s, a statistic already mentioned, I know that because my daughter was in the high school then. They didn’t make those policies. Those policies began to squeeze programs in favor of families. Who set these priorities? What was their choice? Their choice was the highest salary in the region rather than assuring the continuation of programs such as languages and up to date technology. These taxpayers did not make those policies, they just pay the bills. Year after year and decade after decade now they wonder with some justification how their hard earned money is being managed. And this is their Avon too. Avon has always been a community that balances. It is not any one special enterprise, however superior you may feel in
your cause to be. It does not allow one component to swallow up all of the others.
Chairman Harrison: Flo, that’s it. Times up. Before the next speaker begins,
Florence Stahl: Thank you. This is our Avon too.
Chairman Harrison: Before the next speaker begins, people seem to be facing more out toward the audience. Could the timers maybe move a little further out so the speakers could see them. Maybe out actually toward the front row. Okay. Thank you. Next please.
Shirley Moy, 7 Rexinger Lane: Good Evening. I work as a secretary at the Avon Middle School. I have served there for eight years and I also live on Rexinger Lane and I have lived in Town for many years now. I am also a member of CSEA SEIU Local 2001. My co-workers and I are here to speak out in favor of the Board of Education’s proposed budget. I am speaking on behalf of the secretaries, but before I do that, I would just like to say that, as secretaries, we are paid less than most Town employees as well as other Town secretaries. The reason why I am saying this is not for any reason except for a comment that was heard from an audience member. I just want to ask everyone in the audience to hear everybody at this microphone (inaudible). Anyway, we are concerned about the future of Avon
schools. The students deserve nothing less than a quality public education, but the reality is that cuts to the Board of Education budget puts their futures in jeopardy. We often hear students, parents, teachers, guidance counselors and nurses, that we are the engine that keeps Avon schools running. We are no longer the secretaries of yesterday. With the advancement of technology, parents and teachers expect us to work quickly and accurately. (inaudible) great advancement allowing parents instant access to the children’s grades and progress, but this does not happen by itself. Information must be uploaded and accurate and constantly updated with any changes. And this does not happen by itself. Secretaries are now on the phone often giving parents detailed instructions on how to use the system (inaudible) Then there are Federal and State report data questions such as DSIS, better known as no child left behind, strategic profile
reports, attendance reports, integration reports, discipline reports, stringent special education regulations, private high school and college applications, student records and transcripts, custody issues and restraining orders. These are all of the things that we take care of. Not to mention all of the daily things we need to do just to keep things running in our schools. Secretaries are also the first faces that parents and students see every morning. We proudly represent the school we work at. Secretaries take great measure in knowing how staff and parents and students (inaudible) questions are answered and their needs are attended to. We are the ones that sit with the parents when students do not return after school, waiting to hear from the police. We are also ones that remember when there are specific situations regarding child release and custody issues. It is our job to be more than paper pushers. We are the gate keepers
in our schools.
Chairman Harrison: Okay. Times up.
Shirley Moy: I would just like to say, I think all the students here would agree with me that the secretaries here do not do what we do just for a job, we do it because we love the students.
Chairman Harrison: Thank you.
Lindsay Racz, 18 Far Hills Drive: I speak on behalf on my 18 year old classmates and my 8 year old classmates. I speak as a scholar, a member of the hockey team, a student rep on the Board of Ed and a future business woman. At a time when jobs are scarce, education is crucial for advancement in the real world. While it may be hard to afford a tax increase, what we cannot afford is a drop in property values, a drop in teachers and an elimination of sports. To maintain Avon’s status we need every bit of the 6.91% budget increase. Avon public schools produce bright and dedicated students. Students that are accepted into elite and Ivy League institutions. Every year, an exceptional class of students graduates to leave their mark on the world. But what mark will you leave on them?
Their success is catalyzed by the tools made available to them, so please do not take away these tools. It is clear that the support for this budget is monumental with record breaking numbers here. This year is the year with only one referendum will be needed to pass the budget once it is brought to the citizens of Avon. Let them vote on the 6.91% proposed budget. Thank you.
Chairman Harrison: Thank you. You are certainly welcome to applaud, but remember, we don’t make decisions by an applause meter. We want to give all people a chance to speak, so that does delay the next person’s opportunity, so keep that in mind.
Susan Pereslugoff, 19 Delbon Lane: I have lived in Avon for thirty years. My children our third generation and am asking you to approve the budget. In these economic times, we cannot (inaudible) for our children. We cannot spend more than we have at home, I don’t know about you, but we don’t spend more than we have. We have to make do with what we have. I’m not asking for a zero percent increase for the Board of Education, but it needs to be a meeting of the minds. We have good teachers and they do a lot for their students, but there has to be a meeting in the middle. It can’t be all on the taxpayers. The thing is, we have to make some concessions; we have to find a middle ground that makes everyone happy and then we can all live happy for the next thirty years. So, I ask that you reconsider the budget. Thank you.
Chairman Harrison: Thank you very much.
Ann O’Brien, 11 Stony Way: I am an Avon parent and a third grade teacher at Pine Grove Elementary School. I would like to quickly thank all three boards for their endless hours of service to our Town. I am here because once again, the Avon Taxpayers Association is blaming Avon teachers and administrators for the problems created by years of underfunding. For the record, the group commissioned by the Taxpayers Association to write another report, besides this one, another report, is now circulating around Avon. That group is not an unbiased research organization. If you look at their website, you will see that they are a right wing anti-education attack group. Speaking of half truths and misinformation, I would like to say comparing Avon’s salaries to national teacher’s salaries is
simply not relevant. Connecticut schools perform at a much higher level than the national school average. If the Taxpayers Association wanted to be fair in their research, they would have used Towns similar to Avon such as Farmington, Simsbury, or Glastonbury rather than using Hartford or East Hartford. The Avon school system has grown by an average of 4.3%, I think that I heard Ms. Roell say, per year over the past ten years with increases and students with autism and in our immigrant population. However, Avon’s cost per pupil continues to be far below that of comparable Towns in Connecticut. Unlike Connecticut, many other States do not require teachers to obtain masters degrees, which are extremely expensive and time consuming. With regard to teacher salaries, any comparison should be considered total compensation packages for schools in our economic reference group. Avon teachers pay significantly higher insurance premiums than
most other Towns. We have a limit on prescription medication plus we were required to switch insurance carriers last year. The Town of Avon paid nothing for their social security or pensions for our teachers nor do they offer a longevity provision. Also, Avon’s teachers have minimal severance pay. It is not surprising that personnel is the highest cost in our school budget, just as it would be in an insurance company or law firm or any other people oriented operation. They key point is, when you look at all of the data, Avon teachers are compensated comparably to other Towns in our economic reference group. The most frustrating aspect of all of this is that Avon teachers are people who play by the rules. They are dedicated, highly skilled employees who are proud to work in Avon and who go above and beyond their duties every single day. Although we do not expect to get rich in teaching, we never though he would be (inaudible). Thank you very much.
Chairman Harrison: Thank you, Ann.
Tom West, 27 Lake View Boulevard: What I want to say is that I would like to ask, please, let the voters decide this. You have the power to put this to the voters. If it fails it fails. Let us make the decision. Thank you.
Chairman Harrison: Thank you. You have been very patience.
Dan Schwartz, 34 Oakengates: I am a proud Avon taxpayer, but I don’t support what the Avon Taxpayers Association has been doing in trying to divide this Town as it has done for many years. They throw out statistics and ask you to buy them. They say that Avon’s school enrollment has gone up 90%, which is true. And they also say that the Avon school budget has gone up in the last seven years, over 30%. Well that may be true, but they leave out one important point, which is you need to adjust for inflation. Do you want to know, when you adjust for inflation what that increase is? It’s not 30%, it’s not 20%, it’s not 10%, it’s .6% over the last seven years.
Chairman Harrison: Okay, please let him finish.
Dan Schwartz: That is not an increase as a Town we can support and that is not being truthful with your statistics. But, I want to address my comments to the Board of Finance tonight. You have a difficult time ahead of you. You all recognize that. But, I ask you to ask yourselves this. Is the Board of Education who was elected by these voters, they came up unanimously, republicans, democrats, conservatives, liberals, and they supported a 6.91% increase. Where are they wrong? Your job in this Town is to lead this Town. You were re-elected to do a difficult job. You point to the fact that in 2008, the voters rejected the referendum, as if that was something to rely on. But, I will say this, that is a failure of the Board of Finance to explain to the voters why the budget that
you approved was necessary. And if that happens again, it’s not the fault of the taxpayers, it’s the fault of the Board of Finance, who failed to explain to the voters why this is important. So, I ask you to please consider all of the options available, but put you full support behind the Board of Education and the Town Council. Thank you.
Chairman Harrison: Thank you, Dan.
Alex Simpson: I am 18 years old (inaudible) and I am a senior and I marched today. A couple months ago, Avon High School made history in winning our first hockey championship. I can tell you from personal experience, that that feeling is something that will stay with me. And I’m not just speaking about being a fan, I’m speaking about seeing them work as a team. That is something that we can’t learn in schools; it’s not something the teachers can give us. It’s something we have to experience. Along with that, I have learned that you can never put a price on education and that’s what my parents taught me. That is something you just can’t do. To say, it’s unfair, I’m not going to be in school next year, but it’s unfair to take away
the same opportunities that I had from the kids who are graduating next year. I just can’t even fathom that to be honest with you. That’s all.
Chairman Harrison: Thank you.
Ann Fitzgerald, 51 Byron Drive: I have lived here since 1991. I am very fortunate that I grew up in a well to do community in West Chester County. I began my French lessons in fourth grade. I am also very fortunate that I have retired from the Aetna (inaudible). In the last three years, between my Aetna pension and social security, my gross income has increased 4%. Four percent in three years. And my medical premium has increased 68%. I am not in favor of a zero budget, a flat budget. I am in favor of a compromise in the Town of Avon. I appreciate the quality education here in the Town, and hope that the voters will consider that in addition to the parents, which many of you have two incomes, there are many of us that are single income households. Thank you.
Chairman Harrison: Thank you.
Bruce Corbett, 171 Huckleberry Hill Road: My wife and I have been very fortunate to have had our three children go through the Avon School System. We are also very fortunate to now have two grandkids going through the Avon School System. I am also impressed with the number of people who are out making this meeting happen, who were directing parking and things like this, so it looks like a total Town effort and I would really like to thank the Board of Education for their numerous hours that they have put in to develop a budget that really needs to be passed.
Chairman Harrison: Let him finish, please, let him finish.
Bruce Corbett: I was here two years ago prepared, as Mr. Harrison made note of that, here a couple of times to speak against the budget, but this time, after listening to Mr. Goeler, I said, the cuts are going to hurt and it’s important that this budget gets passed in its totality. I have essentially here a letter to Mr. Harrison and the Board of Finance. I have had an opportunity to look at the 2010/2011 budget information. The first several pages are good. Pages 12 and the bottom of Page 15 and the top of Page 16, which is the judgment that came out a couple of weeks ago. I believe that I can appreciate the difficulties that this budget requests poses for the Board of Finance Committee as you try to weigh concerns of diverse elements of the community. I would urge your committee in its
deliberation and try to foster a sense of community as a result, I believe it would be disheartening and discouraging to the parents of school children, present and future, to have the Board of Finance cut, slash the budget requests before the parents have an opportunity to educate the community regarding current educational needs. As a community, we have come together to build and expand and renovate buildings. We have a very well paid staff. This year, we may have to lay off staff and cancel programs. This is not good for students. Patients. Why patients. I think of a hospital analogy that is appropriate, where buildings and fields that the patients are not permitted to pay to exercise. Some are required to wait in the hall until the doctor is available
Chairman Harrison: Okay. That’s the time limit, sir. Thank you.
Sean (inaudible): I am the assistant coach of the Avon Falcon high school hockey team. I am also a business owner and taxpayer in Avon, Connecticut, 35 Old Avon Village. I have been a coach at Avon High School for eleven seasons now. I came on board two years after the program began in 1996. The black and white hockey jerseys and Avon hockey jackets before you represent your school’s team as well as the Town’s hockey community. They represent both the present and the future. We have paid our dues to get where we are today. We began as a self funded program and remained that way for several seasons. The Board of Ed began contributing to our funding with 20% increases each season until we have reached the point where we are today with 100% funding by the Board of Education.
Each player you see represents a family that will have invested well over $10,000 in some cases, over double that amount, into their child so that he or she can play hockey by the time that they have reached high school. Most of these kids have been on the ice since they were four or five years old. When a kid reaches high school, opportunities are few and far between to play this game. Most programs do not have teams. But this team, if not here for them to play, who know where they would be or what they would be doing. They would lose out on the opportunity to compete. We need to continue to do what it takes to provide a place for kids to compete, learn, strive for excellence, not just in the classroom. We have had numerous scholar athletes on our hockey team since the beginning thirteen years ago. If you ask them, the opportunities to be involved in this great sport, helps them to achieve all of their academic goals.
Learning hard work and perseverance, being on the ice at 5 a.m. helps that. It pays off. We not only coach the game, but we also help teach life lessons along the way. When asked the leaders of this team would tell you that, although they may play other sports, nothing else compares to the unity of being on the hockey team. We had a player on our team this season who was a football player and he came out for hockey this season and he said to his parents who shared with the coaches, that the time spent in the hockey program and his brothers were second to no other athletic endeavor. This game of hockey continues to grow and be a part of more and more Connecticut high schools each year. Yes, it is an expensive sport and the costs may be tough now, but things will improve. Does it make sense in area Towns like Simsbury, Farmington, Newington, Wethersfield, and West Hartford all have hockey and Avon won’t? Many Towns are
joining other Towns to have co-op games and we at Avon have begun to explore this as well. I grew up in Boston playing hockey. That’s what you did. Both of my parents skated and taught me the game. I was never the best player, but the things I learned about life can be attributed to sports and more specifically hockey. Much like with our teams, over the past
Chairman Harrison: Sir, sir,
Sean: Can I finish my statement?
Chairman Harrison: You can finish your sentence, yes.
Sean: Hockey teaches our kids discipline, perseverance, strength, leadership, responsibility, teamwork, pride, confidence, laughter and lifelong friendships. Thank you.
Chairman Harrison: That was a very long final sentence.
Max Warren, 4 Sprucewood Lane: I have lived in Avon for over thirty years and have been a taxpayer. I am now on a fixed income. I have two daughters that have been through the Avon School System and have all done extremely well. They have graduated from universities with Bachelor’s and Master’s Degrees, thanks in part to the education that they received at Avon High. I originally moved to this Town because of the education system and I support the budget increase because I think it’s important; it will improve the education standards set in the past. As a senior, I realize that education is the key to success. The Avon schools need all of the support we can give them so kids can be successful to beat today’s global economy. I know families who have returned here to Town;
this is a good thing. Avon is a very desirable place to live and work and we should continue the tradition with an excellent school system because it’s the right thing to do and it makes good sense. Since I have been listening to these comments, it seems like we are just maintaining the system. This should be a no brainer to the Town. Thank you.
Chairman Harrison: Thank you. Again, you’re welcome to demonstrate, but it just takes away the time for someone else.
Robin Piper, Stagecoach Road: I support the 6.91% budget (inaudible). My question to you is specifically for Margaret Bratton. Over the past two weeks, I have heard over and over again throughout Town that you consistently support a zero percent budget increase. This shocks, surprises and saddens me. Unlike some of your colleagues on the Board of Finance who chose to send their children to private schools, you choose to send your children to the Avon Public Schools. Like you, I have three children in the Avon Public Schools. The Board of Education has published proposed budget cuts which includes music programs, language programs, sports programs, libraries, computers, books and many more items. Mother to mother, I would like to understand how you can want this type of school system for your
children. I have heard that you have senior citizen aged parents. That’s another thing we have in common. My parents are here today in support. They also support the school’s budgets because they want the best for their grandchildren. They also realize that they have been through the system and their children have been and now it’s time to give back. At AHS we have 25% of the student body in study halls due to a lack of electives. Surely, this is not what you want for the children. So, I want to understand in good conscience, as a mother, you are considering that the school should have a zero budget increase in their budget. The tax increase per day for the average homeowner will be less than a small cup of coffee at Dunkin Donuts. Please do what you know if right for your children, my children and all of the children of Avon at put forth the 6.91% figure that is required this year to keep Avon Public
Schools from being dismantled from the core. Thank you.
Chairman Harrison: That question is inappropriate for this particular meeting. This is a meeting where people can comment on the budgets. It’s not a time for any individual on the Boards to be asked to provide personal explanations, justifications, rationalizations, don’t interrupt please. And as I said, it’s up to Margaret should she choose to respond, but that kind of question is completely out of place for this meeting. It will be recorded in the minutes, but it does not add anything to what we are trying to learn tonight. It is a personal attack on a Board member and I have asked everyone here to try to be respectful to people who have opinions that are different from theirs. So, I will leave it up to Margaret, but that is not an appropriate questions and she should not,
personally, don’t think she should respond to it.
Margaret Bratton: I will just say, briefly, I think that was last year, but I have not made any decisions as of yet this year, but we will have our workshop on Wednesday.
Chairman Harrison: Thank you. For all of those of you who want to ask that kind of questions, I think I will rule them out of order going forward. It’s not why we are here and it’s not in keeping with the spirit of this meeting. Next. Over here.
Adam (inaudible): I am a Town employee. I am a police officer in Town. As of several of my co-workers also, I want to thank you, Mr. Harrison and members of the Board of Finance, for the work you do and the other members of the Town Council and the Board of Education. They don’t give you guys enough credit for the work you do. I have been here 13 years, and over those years, I have attended many of the budget information meetings. And going forwards from those meetings, what I have notices is that the Board of Finance sets a 2.5%-3% increase and the Board of Education becomes a victim of their own success because with the increase, the students thrive. My two children are fifth graders and third graders. They thrive. Every day they look forward to going to school. They love their
teachers. And, as an aside, the teachers aren’t villains. They are teachers. They are our children’s teachers. They deserve every penny they get. I would like to suggest to you, let the budget go through as presented. It is my understanding that the percentage of registered voters with children is only 30%, if that’s accurate, then there is a majority of 70% that can exercise their right at referendum. Thank you.
Chairman Harrison: Thank you.
Susan (inaudible): I’m here to express my support for this proposed budget and the sense of outrage that I feel that I might not get a chance to vote on it. I have lived in Avon for twenty-five years this month and that is half of my life. I have known or met most of you these past years, we live together, worship together. I know your children and you know mine. Together we have seen Avon change over the past decade changing the landscape of our Town, although one thing does remain unchanged. And that is Avon’s reputation for excellent schools. That’s why people move here and that’s why people stay here. To vote for anything less than the proposed budget will destroy that reputation and remove Avon from that preverbal map. And then what? What kind of Avon
will be left for our children and grandchildren? A Town of strip malls and large homes and low taxes? Consider the legacies of Farmington with its culture and history, Simsbury with community events and beautiful parks, West Hartford with beautiful architecture and Town Center that’s walkable. In addition, these Towns have excellent public schools that (inaudible) from academic components to variety. What does Avon have over them? Nothing. It used to be better schools, but years of cuts and underfunding have eroded our resources and our schools have declined. The fact is that without excellent schools, Avon loses a critical part of its identity and cutting edge. Will future generations remember that in 2010 Avon taxpayers saved one dollar a day to vote down the proposed budget? Probably not. Will they remember that that same vote destroyed Avon’s community? Yes. And our future children will remember
daily when they enter outdated, overcrowded under-resourced classes. I point no one finger here. Letting our schools decline is shared in Avon (inaudible) and apathetic voters who didn’t take time to come out and vote. In 2010, it didn’t work. Just eleven months after our last referendum, as many residents that voted last year rallied here today to show their support for this 6.91% budget. Times have changed and Board members, your votes should change too. Excellent schools benefit us all. Aside from the obvious, top rated schools sponsor student pride, something wanted and needed in our Town. It’s time to restore Avon’s identity. It’s time to make a legacy that we can proudly leave our children and future generations. Please give us a chance to vote for the proposed budget. Thank you.
Chairman Harrison: Thank you.
Joe Bartosiewicz, 5 Colby Way: I am a certified financial planner and I have lived in Avon for five years and I have two children in the Avon Public Schools. I am not against the budget, I just really want to give an observation in terms of vibrant (inaudible). We are getting destroyed, basically, by overseas competition and most of the schools or most of the greatest people are coming from India and China. And that’s no joke. Most of my clients, or many of my clients are getting laid off and being replaced by cheaper workers who are just as smart if not smarter than them. And, I just want to give a little statistic. CNBC came out with a study about a week ago. They showed the comparison between the private and public sectors. They stated that the average public employee doing the
same exact work is getting 34% more than compared to the private sector. They have 118% more in benefits than the private sector. Now, most private sector jobs have no pensions; most private sectors pay their own insurance. Most private sector jobs have very little or no matching contributions and no 401K. The average nurse, my clients, the average nurse makes $60,000 and they pay half of their insurance benefits and maybe get a little bit of matching. You said that you want a 6.91% increase just to maintain the status quo, but everybody who knows math knows this. With the rule of 72, your budget will double in almost ten years. So if everyone is paying, I pay, I live on Colby Way, and I pay $12,600 a year in taxes. In ten years, just maintaining status quo, your taxes will be $25,000 just to maintain what you have right now. Now, my brother owns a company, well I won’t go there, but the last thing, just like the private
sector, if you price yourself out of the market, you go out of business. I don’t want to see Avon go out of business. I want to get the proposed budget, or whatever we need to be successful. But, just a little warning, ten years from now, if you continue to increase your budget at a rate of 6.91% or 7%, you’re taxes will double. If you are paying $12,5000 now or $10,000, you will be paying $10,000 to $25,000. That’s it. Thank you.
Chairman Harrison: Thank you, sir. This side please.
Sue (inaudible): I am a 23 year resident and I would like to read a letter that I sent to the Board of Finance. I encourage you to listen with open minds and hearts to the citizens of Avon who are asking for the opportunity to vote on the Town budget as proposed by the Town Council and the Board of Education. There is tremendous support in the community to bring this budget to referendum as is. From my perspective and as a former Board of Education member, I can attest to the fact that this budget cycle can be a turning point for our community. In previous years when the Board of Education budget (inaudible) there was some flexibility for creative management and programs at Avon schools. One thing that I have learned about the Board of Finance during my tenure on the Board of Education was that
(inaudible). Please allow the voters of Avon to demonstrate this. If they are willing to support the current 1.01% increase and 6.91% for the Board of Education, I am confident that this year, the voters will get to the poles on May 12th and please give us an opportunity to say yes to pay these additional tax dollars in our Town.
Chairman Harrison: Thank you, Sue.
Ian Charles, 27 Stockbridge Lane: I have lived in Avon for 55 weeks. I only know that because I came to this meeting 52 weeks ago and heard the same conversation in a smaller room. I didn’t plan on speaking tonight, but I am pretty frustrated, and I don’t know where Bob who critiques the values, but I have overcome my fear of speaking in front of large crowds and I have prepared notes. The whole argument that teachers can’t add value to improve student’s capabilities is wrong. But I’m frustrated for two reasons. The first one is what appears to be a lack of leadership and I’m not critiquing any specific person or the Board of Finance, but with respect to civics, but as leaders in our community, you have to set a vision for what this Town is about. We want to
attract residents, which will increase the property value, you’ve got to set a vision for what this Town stands for. Does it stand for a good infrastructure, a good academic environment, good services towards community, or is this just a bare bones community that is just going to wither away and live off what was built over twenty years ago. You have got to set that vision. Our kids relate that vision to the community. If that’s true, what someone said earlier that 70% of the residents of this Town don’t have kids that go to the school district, you’ve got to sell them on the value of a strong academic environment for the children of their fellow community members. If you can’t do that, then we need to find someone who can.
Chairman Harrison: Let him finish. Let him finish.
Ian Charles: The other frustration I have is there is a subset of our community that just doesn’t seem to understand the relationship between an academic environment and property values, there is a silent taxpayers group, and I have a lot of respect of my elders, but it seems like they silently watch their values of their homes appreciate over 20 years and now have a much more valuable portfolio because people like me came in and drove up property values. Now, they want to speak their mind about paying an extra dollar or two a day to support my family and other families like my family. It just doesn’t make any sense and it seems like as a community we should come together and find solutions to some of these budget problems. If you don’t like it, it’s a competitive market, then leave. Sell
your house that’s depreciated in value and go. Thank you so much.
Chairman Harrison: Thank you.
Claire Henderson, One Keystone Circle: I’ve lived here for 32 years. I understand why many of you are upset and angry about the schools and school programs. I am also. For quite a few years, our school budgets have been increasing at a rapid pace, primarily at the expense of the Town budget. During this time, taxes have gone up and up and up and yet I keep hearing that school programs have been cut and the children’s education is being compromised. This is wrong, it shouldn’t happen. We have heard it tonight. We know the answer, and I know it. Avon has among the highest paid teachers and administrators in the State. What good is this if there are no programs, text books, computers, etc. I have not seen the Board of Education address these high costs as other
Towns have done, especially in the worst economic climate in eighty years. Instead, they are asking for a 6.91% budget increase and you the parents are asking me to support that. I believe that our teachers will be happy to teach in Avon if we had a state of the art program and technology and lovely school buildings without being paid at the top of the scale. It seems to me that we have put the cart before the horse and we need to get our priorities in order. I can support this increase as I have done in prior years just by paying my taxes. I shudder to think what this will be if this budget gets through. You are asking me to continue to invest in what I consider to be a flawed system and the magnitude of the increase is such that if you could tell me (inaudible) to pay my property taxes. Not until we realign the priorities will I make this investment and I hope that you all agree and join me in not supporting the tax increase.
Chairman Harrison: Thank you, Claire. Before the next speaker goes, if there are any of you still over in the old gym, you are welcome to come in here now. There are a number of empty seats, and if you haven’t already moved over here, please feel free to do so now. Thank you.
Sam Levine, 98 Cotswold Way: It’s a pleasure to see you all again. One of the things that I have a question and a concern about is the teacher’s salary. As it was laid out and as people have said, it seems to me that, like, well, let’s just throw money at teachers and let’s see what we do. But, it’s my understanding that the last time the teacher’s salary came up, they couldn’t come to an agreement and they were forced to go to arbitration. Is that correct? So, they went to arbitration and the arbitrator had to set the teacher’s salary. Nobody in this room set the salaries. Is that correct? Clearly, nobody here set the salary. And you all need to know that they didn’t set the salary on our willingness to pay, they looked at our
community, they looked at our books, and they set the teacher’s salary based on our ability to pay. Now, all of you on the Board of Finance, if you have this fixed amount that’s coming from an arbitration board that we cannot change in this community, it has got to come from somewhere else. And it comes from programs. And I think that this Town and the Board of Finance needs to have advocates for this community and part of this community and make them understand we are better to have this. So, understand that it wasn’t set on our willingness to pay, it was set on our ability to pay. The other important thing was that you talked about the reluctance of people to pay for the budget. Well, I say the numbers, but what you forgot to point out was that it was the reluctance of people to vote for the budget. You had a number there that there were over 11,000 eligible voters and only 2,700 people actually showed up to vote.
And I think that people are ready to come out and vote to show their strength and show their voice. So, I hope that you will preserve the Board of Ed budget as it is presented. Thank you so much for all you do.
Chairman Harrison: Thank you, Sam.
Charlene Fischler, 57 Lord Davis Lane: Twelve years ago, my family moved to Avon for the education and a sense of community. Tonight as we look around, it is the sense of community that brings us all here. Pay close attention to the students that walked the rally as an expression of how they feel about the reduction and elimination of programs because they are not formally permitted to speak. We need to listen as a community and respond appropriately by supporting the budget increase of 6.91%. I am here representing the Avon Falcon’s Ice Hockey Team and being a voice for many of the parents, players, and fans. I, like many people in Avon, believe strongly that sports are key to developing our children into well rounded, productive people. There is no doubt in my mind that involvement in
sports programs cultivates strong and moral work ethics, develop interpersonal skills and positive attitudes and also promotes giving back to the community. In our case, it is the learn to skate program. Studies have proven that teenagers that are left unsupervised after school hours leads to destructive behavior. It is interesting to note that 80% of our hockey players volunteered to help younger kids learn to skate and 50% of our players are scholar athletes. And, oh, they did this by getting up at 4:30 in the morning to attend a 5 o’clock practice and won the first State league championship in the high school hockey program in its 13 year history. Sports and school help kids to make healthy choices. They provide a sense of an extended families, they offer scholarship opportunities, they build self confidence and teamwork. And they allow athletes to get physical exercise to complement the intellectual exercise that they experience
today in our school system. How can we not mention the sense of community that goes along with the school? Hundred of Falcon addicts come out to support our team because they care and because they no longer have other activities that allows them to socialize in a meaningful way like we did when we were kids. Selectively eliminating certain sports is not a solution to the budget issue. Why are not all extracurricular activities subject to the same consideration for reduction. In sports, we pay to play, while in drama and music there is no pay to perform. If reductions need to be made, and I did say if, it should be done for all extracurricular activities. After school program, every after school program is every bit important as any other areas of education. We, our community, we need to support one another, let us be given the opportunity to make it work. Thank you.
Chairman Harrison: Thank you.
David Adler, 85 Deer Run: I am here to speak in support of the Board of Education.
Chairman Harrison: I think you may need to get a little closer.
David Adler: I am here to speak in favor of the Board of Education system for the 6.91% increase. The reason that I am here to speak is that, I am a general manager of an aerospace supplier and I get paid to look at the big picture. If you look at the big picture of what we are talking about, I moved here from Scottsdale, Arizona three years ago. There was one deciding factor of why we moved to Avon. Why do you think that was? Yes. You all said that. It’s the school. You have to realize that property taxes, and the Board of Finance, what was presented tonight that the 88.41% of Avon’s residents (inaudible) property taxes. Out of that, 80% are from single family homes and condos. What determines property values? It’s the law of supply and demand.
The more people that want to move to Avon, the more prestigious it is, the higher the value of the property is, which means we can collect more revenue. Unfortunately, because of Avon’s tax structure, we have to rely upon property taxes, we don’t have good shopping centers like other cities do. My point is simple here. That we have to maintain property values and we have to realize that this is a very competitive situation. When you look at other communities here and by maintaining our schools, it is a key factor to get people to move in here and to keep our property values up. Thank you.
Chairman Harrison: Thank you, sir.
Phil Lerner, 64 Scoville Road: First of all, I want to thank the Board of Education, the Town Council and the Board of Finance for this very difficult challenge that you all face. I really appreciate all of the time and effort that you put into this. I am going to turn and face you so I can see the people that I am speaking to and if the yellow sign goes up. Actually, my goal is to finish before I see the yellow sign. Anyway, I did not come prepared with remarks, but I just kind of took some notes while you were speaking, at which time I was in the gym. You know, you mentioned that one of your tasks is to balance out the spending for the services versus the taxes to pay for them. As I understand it for the most part, we are in a balanced budget, so for every dollar that you decide to spend, you have
to collect another dollar in revenue, with some exceptions like the library bond, the fire trucks and so forth, but for the most part, it is a spend as you go. Collect what you spend. You also mentioned that in the past, there was reluctance on the part of the voters to approve the budget referendums that they were presented, yet at the same time and I don’t want to quote you, but you said something to the affect that this may be a very different year. And I think that’s correct. If you look at the turnout tonight, there is support in the community for the budget that was proposed by the Board of Education with full understanding and recognition and support for the taxes required to fund that. I also say in the same breath that there are others in this room and in the community who don’t share that view and I respect that as well. I guess that the bottom line and again I don’t want to misquote you, but you said something
and there was a big round of applause and you said that you don’t make decisions by applause meter or something like that. And fortunately, we have a very effective way of making decisions, which is let the voters decide, so what I am asking you to do is approve the budget as recommended by the Board of Education at 6.91% and present that to the voters and I think you will be surprised. Thank you.
Chairman Harrison: Thank you and you did it in the time frame.
Ron Sutter: I am here to show my support for the Avon education budget. As a taxpayer, (inaudible) relationship between the kids and the parents. I just want to show my support for the education budget and it always seems like it’s the arts and music that’s the first thing on the chopping block. (inaudible) that people seem to forget why people move to Avon. People move to Avon because they want their child to have the music programs and other things. (inaudible) I grew up and I played hockey (inaudible) also play trombone in the band, in concert band. I always thought when I was in fourth grade, when I was taking trombone lessons, that I would go on to have a music degree and work for a music company and if kids don’t have that chance they will suffer in the long run. So, I’m in favor of the budget as it is proposed. (inaudible). Thank you.
Chairman Harrison: I can see that the Tax Collector welcomes and appreciates you, thank you.
Ann Marie Snow, 90 Secret Lake Road: I want to comment, I’m thrilled that there are so many young people and their families in the audience. But I do want to say that I feel that the children have been exposed in the schools to only one side of this budget issue. Literally, our children at the grammar school and middle school age are coming home and literally in tears asking their parents to vote for the budget because if they don’t none of the programs they like will still be in existence. Now, the reality is that you wouldn’t want your child to make a decision based on only one side or set of circumstances, one side of the issue. You would want that child to make a decision with forethought based on both sides of the issue. You know, the question I have for some of the younger people
here who have registered to vote, God bless you, that’s a great move, and the question I have is, do you know someone perhaps who has lost their job, who has been furloughed, who has had to take pay cuts, who is working longer hours? What I challenge the teachers in this Town to do is to say, yes we support and love these students and this economy stinks. And what we are going to do is we are going to look at it and not go outside our contract, we are going to say that we will give up our wage increase for this year which would save an enormous amount of money and save an incredible amount of programs. And in case you don’t think other Towns have done it, Farmington did it. Okay. So, one of the things that I think students should be aware of is that there are alternatives. And I challenge teachers of this Town who are, and everybody acknowledges is, that they are very well paid, and to step up to the plate and show commrodary and
compassion for the parents and the students. Thank you.
Chairman Harrison: Thank you very much.
Mike Listro, 57 Briar Hill Road: Seven months ago, my wife and I drove our family here to Avon from another Town. We did so in the interest of the education of our daughters. Our youngest daughter just began at Roaring Brook after we moved. I’m sorry, our oldest daughter. And what’s happening here is what happened in the Town we moved from. The Town was unable to pass a budget and the Board of Education became the centerpiece of controversy and the increase in that budget. What happened was it was being targeted by a citizen’s organization who was opposed to the budget increases, and unfortunately in that Town, they did not have a group like are sitting here tonight, and ultimately the Board of Education lost. Their budgets were cut and their strong teachers and strong
administrators (inaudible). That’s a fact and it wasn’t a scare tactic. They left. Soon after that, the schools began to deteriorate. The school deteriorated, the crime at the schools increased and the Town began to deteriorate. Strong schools helps build a strong community and a strong communities have strong schools. What I am asking here tonight is to let democracy happen, please, allow the budget to be presented to the community and allow us to vote. Let us have democracy and let us have say whether our taxes go up or not. Thank you.
Chairman Harrison: Thank you, Mike.
Eric Teixeira: I would just like to say that as a 25 years resident of Avon, I am in continued support of the budget increases. A 6.91% this year does hit closer to home considering the (inaudible). I graduated from Avon High in 2003 after exciting years of being a part of the ice hockey team. I went off to college that fall and played hockey and lacrosse. I had no idea of how things would change and not realize how thankful I would be for how high school groomed me as an athlete. I was lucky to have the teammates there. We would constantly reminisce about the early morning practices, the wins, the unfortunate losses and coaches. It has been almost three years since I graduated and I can’t say that I reminisce nearly as much about college hockey as I do about my experience with hockey
here. I think I’ve made every high school alumni game, even if it meant coming to Town for a few hours before going to whatever city that I was going to that year. I have yet to make it back for a college alumni game. I can say, and I hope to stress the impact that this program had on me. To be a part of this team now as a coach, is something that I can’t be any more grateful for. As a former player and as a present coach and continued supporting resident of Avon, I hope that my experience remains available to those who are here tonight. Thank you very much.
Chairman Harrison: Thank you, sir.
Abha Bernard, 2 Churchill Place: (inaudible)
Chairman Harrison: You are eating into her time, so please control it.
Abha Bernard: We came together as a community to show our support for the Board of Education (inaudible) that we the voters be allowed our right to approve the Board of Education’s budget. We understand that the Board of Finance has a duty to submit the budget to the Town (inaudible). With that, the opportunities the coalition that the Town of Avon has petitioned that has been signed by over 1,600 eligible voters in just ten days and we are still counting additional signatures gotten in the last four hours. This represents over 58% of total people who (inaudible). That is over 58% of the people. We submit these signatures to you as evidence that the community is ready to approve the full 6.91% Board of Education budget increase. Mr. Chairman and members of the Board of Finance, I implore you to
prove (inaudible) Board of Education. Thank you.
Chairman Harrison: Thank you. You can give the petition to Alison. Thank you. Yes.
Myra Frost, 55 Country Club Road: We moved here in 1999 and made a lot of good friends. Some of them are senior citizens. When I hear the senior citizens talk about wanting to stay here in Avon, but may not be able to afford it, my heart brakes because they are my good friends. I also have friends who are single parents and those whose husbands or wives have lost his or her jobs. I do not want to see them leave. My own family is being affected. We have been paying for two homes here in Town. The other one we had to do a short sale because we cannot afford to pay the debt anymore. My husband works in sales and his pay is based on how high he works. If our taxes go up, he has to work twice as hard in order for us to stay here in Avon. I love this Town and I want to stay here. My children are still young. It will be two years before my eldest goes to high school. If the programs in high school are cut, then my children are not going to be affected, so why should I care.
I can just say no to the budget, after all, why would I care. It’s not going to affect my children. Why should I care about someone else’s children? I am not even sure if my children will go to Avon High School. What if I have to move? But then when I lie down at night and ask myself what is the right thing to do? Is it really right for me to turn my back on these children, although they are not mine? I get sick in my stomach knowing that these children are listening to us bickering about their education. Those high school students who have three open classes and maybe even more. I know and everyone in this room knows that when kids have nothing to do, they are more likely to get into trouble. They say idle hands are the devils toys. It is about time that we all come together as a community. This is not only about ourselves, here we raise our children together. We need to start by
providing them the tools right now. Not tomorrow, not next year. (inaudible). We have to look at the bigger picture. I thank the Board for what you do, but I ask the Board to dig deeper in making decisions based on what is best, not for just us parents, but for all of our children and for their future.
Chairman Harrison: Okay. That’s the time, but you can finish your sentence.
Myra Frost: I just want to say, for the children also, when you are listening to the speakers, don’t forget about this opportunity that your parents fight for you and don’t take it for granted. You deserve this.
Chairman Harrison: Thank you.
Mitchell Piper, 129 Stagecoach Road: First of all, I would like to thank every single member of the Boards. You work extremely hard as well as volunteer countless hours to preserve the educational rights of our children. I think if you pass this budget in this economy by (inaudible) was unprecedented and I thank you. And I also think that you all have spent a great amount of time working on it, for those efforts also. I appreciate it. A few weeks ago, I wrote to the individual members of the Board of Finance regarding my support of the Board of Education budget. I pointed out that children live in a very different world and we can no longer rely on past status quo mentalities to solve these issues. Our children are going into very different workforces than past generations. Certainly
different than you and I are used to. We talk allot about maintaining the status quo. I would like to address the area that we seem to be missing tonight. And that is the area of growth in education for our children. Even with this proposed budget from the Board of Education, our children will not be educated in many world economic classes, business management classes, biotechnology classes, foreign languages such as Japanese and Chinese, that are so essential in this new world economy. Although it is certainly within your prerogative to change these budgets to a figure that you feel better suits the economic climate or better suits all of the input that you are getting here this evening, I urge you to remember that America was founded by our forefathers who fought to preserve the individual voting rights of citizens, of the concept of one person one vote. I urge you in this exceptional year to allow 12,000 registered voters to decide
the fate of these budgets.
Chairman Harrison: Thank you.
Alison Jackson, 23 Huckleberry Hill Road: I am a fiscally conservative republican. I am not a fan of big government and like most people, I am not fond of taxes. We moved here recently from California and our taxes are about double that on a home of similar value. I just had about a heart attack when I found out that I had to pay property taxes on my automobile. I am currently struggling with unemployment. I whole heartedly support the Board of Education’s recommended budget increase of 6.91%. I support this because it is the right thing to do. We moved here like many families have said to Avon because it has extraordinary schools, schools that foster a strong sense of community with family values. I believe that a quality public education is not a privilege enjoyed by American
children. It is a right. And supporting the youngest members of our community isn’t an option for us adults, it’s our responsibility. I have proudly paid into social security for over thirty years without expecting any personal benefit from it whatsoever. That’s not what taxes are about. I hope I never need the police to come to my home, but certainly I am happy to pay my taxes so that if any one of my neighbors do, has their health if it’s every in need. That’s part of contributing to a community and that’s what responsible citizens do. The children in our community have the most to lose in this debate and the least opportunity to have a voice. But I will assure you that they will have a voice in the not so distant future. The children of today will soon be voting, running for office, paying taxes and hopefully holding down excellent jobs. What are you teaching them about community
tonight when we are no longer in the work force and the children’s taxes are paying to support us and they are making the decisions that impact us, how will we have led them by example? I’m concerned about how the youngest members of Avon will fair in the global business economy and I’m even more concerned about how they are fairing now in our moral society. What are we teaching them? An eye for an eye? Or are we teaching them about responsibility, honor and family values. We elected our Board of Education to do their job and they are recommending this budget unanimously. We have elected our Board of Finance to do their job too and to listen to the community and to honor the legacy that we have in Avon. I’m trusting you, Board of Finance, to do the right thing, by our children, by our Town, and follow your conscience. Please to the right thing and allow the people of Avon to decide and let’s vote on the
budget as it’s proposed. I am Alison Jackson and I am for Avon.
Chairman Harrison: Thank you, Ms. Jackson.
Gina Aube, 68 Northgate: I have already written to you and I (inaudible). We are not a community that is divided. We are clearly united today and we are a community that wants to see our Town succeed. It is very important that we have the chance to vote. I have a four year old that, on my way to kiss her good night, she told me, mama 100%. All she knows is that we have a great Town, a great community. She knows that we come together in support. She knows many things in Town, her church, school, home. Give us the chance, all of us, to make the difference and the change that this Town so desperately wants. I just want to comment on the slide I saw earlier about the history, well, it does not matter (inaudible). I have been here for six years and I have written to you for six
years and I have been attending these meetings. It is very important that forget about this history; it doesn’t matter. We need to make a change tonight. Thank you.
Chairman Harrison: Thank you.
Sarah Calatayud,15 Wild Wood Drive: Actually the last thing she said was one of the points that I wanted to make because I do feel that these circumstances are entirely different than what we have seen in the past, so saying that historically they support the 3%, not anything more than the 3%, but I think this is entirely different (inaudible) There is much disagreement about whether to support the Board of Education budget is reasonable; it centers around a lot of controversy involving teacher’s salaries. I understand some people in Town want the budget reduced or will even vote no on May 12th to send a message to the teachers that they are overpaid and need to earn less compensation. The salaries that we pay for our teachers were contracted through arbitration as we all know. It is the third
year of a three year contract. Two years ago, when these contracts were finalized we weren’t exactly in these dismal economic times. I try to put myself in the position of these teachers, being asked to do much much more with much less year after year as the past school budgets have not kept up with the requirements for educating our kids. They have unreliable or outdated technology to work with. I have my own set of financial circumstances at home, some have kids in college, some with spouses facing tough job decisions themselves. I have heard from people in Town suggest that the teachers should be reasonable and we should renegotiate their salaries before the end of their contract. Take some money back in fact. I can’t image a job where my hard work preparing children to be competitive in future job markets would be rewarded by my boss sitting me down and telling me that because my pay was negotiated in better economic times
that have now gone bad, I may actually need to agree to a renegotiation in my contracted salary. Have we ever told these teachers in good economic times that they will get a bump in salary like some other professions? It seems to me that the proposed Board of Ed budget (inaudible) and beginning to dismantle this most reputable school system to get a message through to the teachers is the entirely wrong approach. And our kids will pay the price for this mistake. I personally know a real estate agent who has clients that, within the last couple of weeks, have decided to buy homes in other Towns specifically because they are reading in the papers that our schools are going in the wrong direction. I agree with teacher negotiations between the Board of Ed and the teachers to determine salaries needs to be more transparent to the community, and I will do my part to be an educated and involved parent. But that won’t change this year’s
budget. Please, do the right thing by the people and give us the opportunity to vote on the Board of Ed’s budget as proposed without cuts. Please let the voters decide what kind of school system we want in Avon. Thank you.
Chairman Harrison: Thank you.
(inaudible): As a republican and economist and researcher, it is very disheartening regarding our system. The Federal and State systems used to be our biggest bone of contention. By increasing (inaudible) with the local government and the Town. I do not want our hard earned money to go to the Federal and State government. Our money belongs here in our Town so we can make a different in our society and for the children. My biggest concern with the education budget is that we are increasing the discrepancy between those who have and those who do not have. This discrepancy stretches beyond the pay to play sports. Parents already pay for enrichment programs in the elementary schools. Thank goodness we have PTOs that come forth to offer these programs. With an increase in
(inaudible) we rely on a PTO for family sponsored educational events, we are moving away from the continental principles that that provide our youth with a good education. We also see problems in the high school. As a result, according to the kids, in each (inaudible) should have a study hall with the exception of sixth period. Having multiple open periods is the norm and not the exception in our high school. Are we properly educating our youth? We are jeopardizing the (inaudible) of our democracy. I strongly support funding of all after school programs and technology to support those programs. As for the teachers, I personally understand both sides, but we need to make decisions with the situation as it stands today, right now, we do not have a renegotiated contract with the union, which was said, the Board of Ed has not renegotiated the contract. This should not be taken out on our children. We can only hope and pray
that the next round of negotiations will be more favorable to our taxpayers. Currently, our (inaudible) protect the largest investment, which is my home. I can say, um, alright, let me say, lastly, I would like to remind everyone that the Board of Ed unanimously supported the budget presented to you today. It is time to listen to the concerns of our citizens and the Board of Education in order to make a decision that is right for our community. Thank you for your time.
Chairman Harrison: Thank you.
Leonard Oremland, 9 King Richards Court: Thank you very much for this opportunity. I am a resident of Avon where I live with my two school aged children, my dog and I am also the Vice President of the Board of Trustees for the Avon Public Libraries. I am here tonight to support the budgets as they have been proposed to you for both the school 6.91% and for the Town’s operating budget. I whole heartedly support them and of Avon. We have heard tonight quite a bit of facts and figures regarding the budget and all of the work that goes into making this Town the place that we all love and love to live in. And while we are faced with very very difficult decisions, we have tight school budgets and a lousy economy, I am going to ask everybody to take a step back and think about what you want this Town to
look like a year from now, five years from now and fifteen years from now. Do you want this place to be just an okay place to live or do you want this place to truly be the standard and place that most of us who have come to raise special families and a place in which to retire. I can tell you that I moved here 14 years ago from New Jersey, my wife and I scrutinized many Towns in coming to our final decision. In the end, we chose Avon because of the schools were strong and stable, housing was attractive and fairly priced, municipal services were meeting the needs of most Town residents and of course this place is a gorgeous Town in which to live. Now, (inaudible) with school aged children and, I want to point this out, to adequately fund the public schools (inaudible). If we don’t address this fact and the fact that we have hundreds invested in the schools and Town services, not just this year, we are surely going to suffer together as a Town in
terms of the competitive advantage, quality of life and the property values. I am going to call upon your sense of civic pride on behalf of our collective pocketbooks and think very carefully about what this Town offers residents versus surrounding Towns in the Farmington Valley and the Greater Hartford area. I would urge you to allow us, the taxpayers, to make the decisions on what to approve and what to pay and what we truly want the future of this Town to look like. Thank you very much.
Chairman Harrison: Thank you.
David Peak, 22 Coachmans Run: I want to thank the Boards first of all. I want to ask the audience, how many folks here know somebody who had to move out of Avon because of the recession? Anybody? Or do you know of someone who is unemployed? I know somebody and I bought his house in December of 2008. I moved here about 14 months ago. He was unemployed for about 8 months and I bought his house. And I want to tell you why I moved here and what will keep me here. I actually grew up in the Farmington Valley, not in Avon by the way. (inaudible) I realized that this was a special place so when we looked at Towns to move into, in late December of 2008, we put in an offer on a house in Avon. I could have picked any Town in the Farmington Valley, but I chose Avon. And the
reason that I chose Avon was because of you and you and all of you. Whether you agree or disagree, the fact that you are here and involved with compassion about your community is what this make this special. And I feel like George Bailey in Beacon Falls (inaudible) and George Bailey stood up and said that this is the time that prides men’s souls and this is the time that we will give to our community to make it what we want it to be. And for me, this is kind of how I see this moment. I looked at the budget and we haven’t even voted on anything yet, so I hope we get a chance to do that. I don’t agree with all of the things that are in the budget, but this is one of those times that we have to dig in and decide what you want this community to be. So, I speak to the point from someone who chose to move here, to make that decision. And I hope that we don’t chose to turn (inaudible) because it could happen. Thank
you.
Chairman Harrison: Thank you, sir.
Emily Buchanan: I am eighteen years old and I am a senior. I will probably cry, but I hope you will all hear me out. When I was in middle school I was really awkward and so was my speaking and I had a nervous stutter. And then I got to Avon High School and I joined the acting class, which is actually on the chopping block in this budget. But, every since then, I have so much more self confidence and it helped my self esteem and now I can come up here in front of all of you and make up this off the top of my head. And four out of five days a week I stand right where that podium is and I have fun and I laugh and I learn a lot of things and I gain a lot of life skills and I stopped twitching and I got rid of my stutter and it’s just been a really really great thing for me. Actually, one of my best
friends who is always in drama workshop has been accepted to an Ivy League school for theater and well, actually several Ivy League schools, and if she had never taken intro to acting she would probably be an English major or something like that. But, I just want (inaudible) and just the idea that there are people that are going to my school in the future that won’t have the same opportunities as me and they won’t get to be in the drama program and make friends and be a drama nerd like me and read Shakespeare at night, because that’s not what I do. That will make me so sad because the drama program has meant so much to me. We are basically self run and we just, because we just love it. Thank you.
Chairman Harrison: Thank you so much.
Melissa Gressier: I have lived in Avon since February of 2004. My husband moved here in 2000 with his two children and moved here because of the schools. When we married in 2003, we chose Avon over Manhattan where I lived and worked because of the schools. We have four children in Avon, one in Avon High, one in Thompson Brook, one in Avon Middle and a kindergartener in Roaring Brook School. I know how excellent the Avon teachers are and there are so many people who work so hard for our entire family. I look at Mr. Brandon Lynch who have a passion for education and for my children. And I am not going to ask you to take less money for what you do because you empower my children. Thank you. I am also one of the 600 people in Avon who are unemployed. I have been out of work since
2008 and let me tell you, it’s hard. A prior speaker was asking you if you knew anyone unemployed. I am unemployed and it’s hard. We have sacrificed and have given up a lot of things. One thing that I will not give up is their education. I’m not for raising taxes, I don’t think anybody here likes a raise in taxes, but what I like less is what I see happening to this community. I did not move here to have my children’s future decimated. Really, please allow us to vote on the 6.91% increase that will only minimally maintain what we have now. I do not like the pay to play, but I have done it. I have not liked no brush pick up, but I have done it. That’s all. Thank you.
Chairman Harrison: Thank you very much.
(inaudible) Murphy, 18 Goodwill Trail: I am a student at Avon High School and I am eighteen years old. And I am here to ask the Board of Finance, that they consider the drama program. There has been a lot of comments covering sports. I love sports and they are fun, but we forget the drama program. The drama program isn’t always noticed because we are small, but we are an intimate group and we loving doing drama. When I am on stage where most of you are sitting, I have the best time of my high school day. When I get up, I say, oh good, I have double drama today. It is the highlight of my day and I can’t image next year, people not being able to, I can’t image someone saying that there is no drama every again at Avon High School because it has been the best experience.
(inaudible) was phenomenal and I miss him every and Mrs. (inaudible) has done a good job and I think she should be able to keep her job. And all of our teachers should be appreciated for what they do for us and I don’t think that drama should be the first thing to go just because we are small and less appreciated and we don’t have the support that the sports do. So, please, don’t cut the drama program. Thank you.
Chairman Harrison: Thank you.
David Green: I am a ten year resident of Avon and have three children in the school system now, a freshman in high school, a sixth grader and fifth grader. I came here tonight to show my support for the 6.91% increase in the budget. (inaudible) that they should have the same opportunity. I think that, two weeks ago, four hundred people showed up in the high school cafeteria to show their support for the programs and to help get this message across to the Board of Education and to the Town Council and to carry that message to you, that we elected, to do what’s right and to make the right decisions for all of us. And to me, we had 2,000 people to show that same support. And I am here to help guarantee that on May 12th that 2,000 people again show up to show support for this budget and
for this Town and to show support for a unified Town. In the ten or eleven years that I have been here, I have never seen anything like that and I think that it’s really only the beginning of what we can all do together to preserve the legacy of Avon for excellent schools and for coming together and acting as a community like we all should. Thank you very much.
Chairman Harrison: Thank you very much.
Caroline Ostafin, 17 Old Kings Road: I have been in Avon since 1998. I have raised five children in this Town. My last two will be graduating this year and I have seen the programs that have been cut in the school systems and they never come back. It is very sad. We just had two young ladies come about the acting and theater. It was eliminated at the Middle school and it never came back, but it’s very sad. I wasn’t going to talk because I was sitting in the gym because I came late, but it breaks my heart to hear residents say things about the volunteers and you people and the Board of Ed. I have worked with the Board of Ed for many years. Right now I am working for a teacher in this Town, babysitting her children. Jody Goeler and the rest of the Board of Ed have worked
very hard, like you have, but I take issue with people who say that the Board of Ed is being untruthful. They are not. It is ridiculous to even insinuate something like that and that’s why I am speaking out. I am very upset by that. I think that these young people who came and spoke tonight were just so eloquent and they did a far better job than I can do, but I can tell you right now, I tip my hat to all of you. All of the volunteers, especially Jody Goeler. Thank you.
Chairman Harrison: Thank you very much.
Julie Mando, 54 Westmont: I am here to support the 6.91% and more to the point, I am here to request that you allow it to stand so the people in Avon can make the choice. I have lived in Town for six years and I have had three kids that have gone through the system. Currently I work in Farmington at the elementary school. I can see firsthand what is going on throughout our educational system. Today, currently, all of the students are under incredible stress. Teachers are required to do far more every year with far less. We have their, their resources are stretched. We are increasingly getting children to come in who don’t speak English. The spectrum of special Ed needs are vast, nothing like when I got back from California many years ago. Not even when my eldest was in
elementary school. To have anything less than status quo is absolutely unthinkable. The strain and stress that is on our current system is huge and unless you spend time in the schools on a daily basis, you have no idea. It goes so far beyond a drama program or a hockey program. We are talking about the very education that all of us had. Our school staff, our administration, our students, our teachers and faculty, our paras, they all give so much to raise the next generation. We must, at least maintain and if possible increase funding for the schools. You really don’t know unless you spend time, day to day. I thank you all for your hard work. You are great and it is truly great to be citizens of our Town. Please listen to the residents of our Town. I had just one other comment and that is a concern I have that often times residents see a 6.91% and they think that’s what their taxes are going to go up by,
which is not a fact. (inaudible) We know how tough it is, but we still support the 6.91% increase. Thank you.
Chairman Harrison: Thank you.
Laura Young, 57 Hitchcock Lane: I want to say thank you for all of you for listening and staying here tonight so late. I noticed that there are quite a few more parents here than there are here taxpayers, but I respect both of you. We moved here three years ago from Fairfield where I raised both of my children who started Spanish in the fourth grade. In the last four years, my husband and I have both experienced layoffs and periods of unemployment. I am currently waiting tables at a local restaurant. You can say that I am under employed. My salary has been cut by $30,000 a year in the last two years. Our income has gone down while the cost of living has gone up. We cannot afford to send our children to a private school so when we chose a community when we moved here three years ago,
in fact, because my husband got laid off, he found a new job here. We looked to the internet to find out what the community was like. And on the cover of the Hartford Courant there was a story about the new high school addition that was being built and a photograph of the kids walking in the hallways up and down the corridor and stairwell. And we said, wow, a community that is willing to do this in support of their schools, that’s amazing. But we didn’t know the facts and if we had known the facts back then, we might not have chosen to live here, in fact, I am quite certain of it. Programs that were available and classes that were available to my now 15 year old who is a ninth grader in the high school are not longer available to my seventh grader now. This Town needs to put forth a responsible and (inaudible) tax commitment. The past is the past. The future is now. Please, I implore you to put the responsibility to
the community this time, what is right and what the correct amount is that we can all afford. We live in a forty year old house with forty year old siding and a leaky roof and holes in the ceiling and we have had to sacrifice. Please, for the $500 that it would cost us roughly per year, I ask you, raise taxes. Thank you.
Chairman Harrison: Thank you.
Sonya Larken-Thorne, 5 Avondale Drive: I did not plan to make any comments tonight, but I am. I have listened to some of the people speak to the Board of Finance and to the long term residents in this Town. I am a twenty year resident of Avon. Our Town is challenged and so are all Americans right now in terms of their (inaudible). I am not going to attack the Board of Education but I will say that I think you have done some extremely poor planning for the future of the children in this Town. I am kind of tired of hearing every year at budget time, our house is on fire and we are going to cut this and we are going to cut that. Strategic planning would have ruled some of that out. We live in a Town right now where our Police Department is severely understaffed. I sit in Town Fair Tire in
Town and talk to some of the wives who are saying, I don’t want the overtime, I want my husband home to spend with me and my children. They are overworked. Our streets have potholes. Our Town employees are also overworked. In addition to that, we have no long term education goals to meet the future needs of the children and the staff. No one denies educating our children is a challenge with both the State and Federal mandates. And it’s also a top priority to educate our children regardless of whether or not we have children currently in school, whether they have ever used the school or chosen a different school. I encourage and support the Town of Finance Committee, do what you were elected to do, and that is to exercise your best judgment on what (inaudible) for this Town in meeting the needs. Our taxes are going to go up from the State and Federal level. And if any of you have read that there has been a
mandate for health insurance, which I’ve read, all 2,700 pages of it, your taxes are going to go up. They are going to tax your health plans and other things. I would just like to say to the gentleman who earlier made the comment that if you don’t like taxes then leave. It’s those thirty and forty and fifty year residents who built the Town of Avon and who were here with their kids when they were bused to Farmington High School to go to school. Respect the past as you move toward the future and make the proper decisions. And Board of Finance, I will support you either way when I go to the poles. Thank you.
Chairman Harrison: Thank you.
Chris Graesser, 28 Lawrence Avenue: I live a house that was built in the 1850’s and I really appreciate the history of this Town. I would really love to see this community come together and support each other. Something that hasn’t been mentioned at all, which is the tax relief that is offered by this Town to people with fixed incomes and people on disability. People who are afraid of taxes need to be (inaudible). Secondly, I want to point out that when times were good we’d still cut the school budget. I think at this point, we are at the tipping point. If we do not support it, the Town will not be the same. Thank you.
Chairman Harrison: Thank you very much.
Joe Bartosiewicz, 5 Colby Way: When I was here last, I gave a lot of statistics and I forgot about people. Is just want to remind everyone, when my daughter was
Chairman Harrison: Can you please restate your name.
Joe Bartosiewicz, 5 Colby Way: My name is Joe Bartosiewicz, again. And I was getting into a lot of statistics, you know, about tax and I just, people were reminding me of the open halls, and I didn’t understand that because when I went to school, we always went at seven o’clock. Haley, my daughter, she said, I said, well, why aren’t you in school. She said, well, I have open study. And I said, well, why aren’t you in school at ten o’clock. She said, well, I have two open studies. I said, are you supposed to be at school? She said that they eliminated one of her classes and I just remembered that when somebody said that and I just remember back, and I was listening to one of the kids talk about drama. And my brother has a huge studio and (inaudible) if
anything like that were to happen like that it would be absolutely awful, so I throw statistics around and I have to say tonight that I totally support the budget. Thank you.
Julie, Cold Spring Road: I wasn’t going to talk tonight, but no one is really talking about the tax relief issues and the fact that Avon does have tax relief and no one wants anyone to leave the Town if taxes go up, whether they are young or old or whether they are on a fixed income because they are a retiree or whether they have lost their jobs. No one wants that. And I don’t know if the tax relief, if anyone has, or even knows about, and maybe those people are saying that they would love to support the school system if they could afford it, but if not, I think it’s the Board of Finance and the Town Council’s job to find a way to make the tax system more aggressive so that we are not losing valuable residents of this Town. And I don’t know what kind of creative solutions that you can
come up with, but I would challenge you to come up with solutions so that some of our citizens can stay here. Also, if you leave Avon and move to another area, you are going to pay more taxes. We are one of the lowest taxpayers in the entire Farmington Valley area.
Chairman Harrison: Thank you very much. And just in case some of you are not familiar with it, there is an income based tax relief program. The State has it and Avon will provide a little bit for (inaudible) the best way to see if you qualify for that, is to go to the Assessor’s office in the Town Hall complex with your income tax returns and so forth, but it’s there for a limited portion of the population. It is publicized so every year, when people’s income levels change, they may not be aware that this is available, or could be available to them this year. So, if you are in that category, please call or visit the Assessor’s Office and you can get the specifics on that tax relief program and see if it works for you. Thank you.
Mark Zacchio: Tom, may I add something to that?
Chairman Harrison: Sure.
Mark Zacchio: We do have a tax relief program as Tom referred to. The Town Council right now is working on an index so that at the higher earning income amount there will be a (inaudible). In fact, today, our Director of Social Services and our Assessor did a presentation at the Senior Center talking about the tax relief program and letting the seniors know how to take advantage of that.
Chairman Harrison: Thanks Mark.
Angela Sum, 31 Ridgewood Road: I am a fifteen year resident and I am also a proud member of the West Avon Garden Club, which many of you are familiar with. The average age of that club is about seventy, I’m not kidding. So, but one of the previous comments here about bringing the Town together, this is so important. I have learned so much about the Town and the history of this Town through the members of the Garden Club. I am for this Board of Finance, Town Council, all members of all public board, to really dig deeper into solutions on how to bring this Town together. Looking at the other people here who are willing to pay more taxes and there are people who are unable to pay their taxes and want to stay in this Town. Let’s find some solutions, creative solutions, we can look at other
States. I know, as an example, California, there is a, what they call a “lot tax” (inaudible), but it’s a solution. With that said, I wrote down some things, although I know Karen here so maybe she will give me an extra minute. So, you know, it’s a double edged sword that Avon is as fine a Town as it is, it’s great reputation attracts people with kids as all of you have spoken here. They have monitored how the Town has grown in the past decade with its new houses and 2 ½ kids, but unfortunately, they do not have enough to pay for their 2/1/2 kids and the taxes that they pay, so this dilemma is a culmination of decades. So, I disagree with the notion that despite that it’s a difficult economic time that we live in right now, that we should cut student spending. It is like the idea that a company makes cuts during difficult times. Our children represent our future, so we do not scrimp even in these
hard economic times on the future. so with that, I ask you to please give the voters a choice and a chance to vote this 6.91 at the referendum and not to be determined by past performances. Thank you.
Chairman Harrison: Thank you very much.
Jeff Wolf, 61 Sunny Brook Drive: I was not going to speak to you, but I was born and raised in Avon and I just want to thank Jody Goeler
Chairman Harrison: Sir, can you please state your name and address please.
Jeff Wolf: My name is Jeff Wolf and I live at 61 Sunny Brook Drive. It was a home that I fortunately got to come back to and purchase from my parents and now I can raise my children here in Town. But I want to thank Jody Goeler who was my seventh grade English teacher for spending all of that extra time tutoring me and helping me be the person that I now am. (inaudible) and just the whole debate. I registered to vote only about a year ago even though I have been a resident all of my life and I would like the opportunity to vote on this and that’s about it. I’ve waited and I’ve missed my kids this whole evening just to come to this. And just for folks, you know, even my grandmother still lives in Town, she supports this even though she doesn’t have much money. My father
and my parents still live in Town and they will always do anything to help with the education for my children. That’s the reason why I came back to this Town, for the school system. Thank you.
Chairman Harrison: Thank you.
Jeff Wolf: And just to speak about the budget, (inaudible). And I am a hockey parent.
Chairman Harrison: Okay, let’s let the next speaker speak, please.
Jeff Wolf: (inaudible)
Jim McGeehan, 92 Avonridge: I know that it’s getting late, but I just want to say a few words. I moved here about six or seven months ago. One of the major reasons that I moved here is for the education. I moved in from Westport (inaudible). I am very alarmed (inaudible). I came here for a better life for my children. I let my job and I started a business to be home with my family and to raise my kids. My wife’s family lives here in Farmington and Avon. It is very important to me that this budget passes. I have four children and I have sacrificed everything to be here. We had two incomes and now we have gone from something to nothing. My income has gone in the negative. I started my business because I care about the Town and I want to live here with my
family. We keep talking about the 6.91 budget, it’s huge and I don’t want to make light of it, but to maintain the status quo with what the kids have, three study periods a day, no foreign language, potential sports cuts, it’s a shocker. (inaudible) I will say that I will work nights and weekends and get a second job to support the 6.91% budget, but it’s more than that. What are we going to do next year, it’s not going to be status quo. We need to get back to being a DIRG 1 school, or whatever that acronym means, all I know is that I can tell you this, (inaudible). Things need to get better here and I will tell you, I will work nights and weekends to make the money to pay the higher taxes and as people have already mentioned here in the past few minutes, let’s be creative about ways to do this. If someone is on a fixed income who can’t pay, maybe their taxes should be much lower. I’m
willing to make the sacrifice for myself and for my family to pay higher taxes to do that. I’m willing to do that and also look at the private funding options. (inaudible) Thank you for your time and let’s all help this move forward. Please consider the budget as presented. Thank you.
Chairman Harrison: Thank you.
Scott Bernard, 2 Churchill Place: I appreciate the Board of Finance listening to the different opinions. There were a lot of opinions expresses tonight, I don’t necessarily agree with them all, but I respect very much the fact that people are coming forward to share their comments so passionately (inaudible). I respect that. I respect the fact that the city has come out tonight to advise as to what (inaudible). There were 2,000 who marched here this afternoon in the rally in support of this community. (inaudible). People are coming out tonight to express themselves, so please give them a chance to vote on the budget as proposed. There are so many people asking for this chance. Thank you.
Chairman Harrison: Thank you, Scott. Anyone else?
8. CHAIR, BOARD OF FINANCE: Thomas Harrison – Advises audience that, there being no further discussion, the Budget, in its final format, will be presented to the Annual Budget Meeting on Monday, May 3, 2010, at the Avon Senior Center, 7:30 p.m. and will be submitted to vote at Referendum on May 12, 2010, at the Avon Senior Center Community Room, 635 West Avon Road, Avon, CT, between the hours of 6:00 a.m. and 8:00 p.m.
Chairman Harrison: Well, thank you all for providing a truly enlightening and educational and emotional experience for all of us. We all love the Town and we all want to see it grow and prosper and that’s not limited to just parents in the school, or senior citizens or any of the Boards. Our Board will do its best to come up with something that works. Thank you again and please drive home safely and be kind to each other. Thank you.
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