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BOARD OF FINANCE
MINUTES
PUBLIC HEARING MEETING
April 4, 2011
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
Thomas Harrison: Welcome to the 2011 Board of Finance public hearing. We really do look forward to these. Some of you do not believe that, but we really do. I think we will have a good program for everybody tonight. We are also not unaware that there is a certain sporting event scheduled to begin around nine, and depending on how gracious our speakers are, maybe they can accommodate that. I suspect, however, that many of you, we will probably be seeing a lot of people with phones trying to get scores. So, if there is some way we can work out hand signals, to let me know who is ahead, that would be great. All right, we begin these meetings with the Pledge of Allegiance. So, if you would all stand.
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 2011/2012
Thomas Harrison: We forgot to bring the nametags tonight, so I will introduce the members of the Board of Finance. Most of us all know each other, but in case there are people here for the first time, I’m Tom Harrison and I’m the Chair of the Board and why don’t you all give your names as you go through.
Brett Eisenlohr: Brett Eisenlohr.
Tom Gugliotti: Tom Gugliotti.
Bill Hooper: Bill Hooper.
Jim Speich: Jim Speich.
Cathy Durdan: Cathy Durdan.
Margaret Bratton: Margaret Bratton.
Thomas Harrison: And our clerk, Alison Sturgeon, soon to be our former clerk. Alison was looking for full time work and she has accepted what sounds like a wonderful position with the Town of Simsbury. She has already started but she has agreed to stay on through the conclusion of the hearing process because to find and train a new clerk in time for this is just not something, so Alison, we thank you for willingly staying on to do this. Again, if you have been here before, you know the routine, but let’s go through it again just for the record. We have, first we start off with slide presentations from each of the three Boards. I have asked the Board Chairs in the interest of advancing sports to keep their presentations to fifteen to twenty minutes. We alternate each year what Board goes first. This year is the Town Council’s turn. So, in a couple of minutes, Mark Zacchio will be giving that, followed by Peggy Roell from the Board of Education. After the three presentations
and we will get off this podium here as to not to block the screen; it’s not like we’re running out or anything. After the presentations, we begin the opportunity period for comments and questions from the audience. The procedure we follow, you generally know how that goes. Under the Town Charter, the opportunity to comment is restricted in a sense to electors and taxpayers. Those terms appear in the Charter; they are defined terms under Connecticut Statues. So, to be eligible to speak as an elector, you must be a United States citizen, eighteen years or over and registered to vote in Avon. So, those are the three qualifications. If there are any doubts or questions in your mind whether or not your registration to vote in Avon is current, Ann Clark is here from the Registrar’s Office. Ann, would you just slip up your hand where you are? Ann has the voter’s list and if you have any uncertainties please
check with Ann and she can confirm whether you are or are not a registered voter in Avon. The other capacity of eligible speaker is a taxpayer. That is a term of art. We are all taxpayers, but taxpayer for the purposes of the Charter means someone who does not reside necessarily in Avon but owns property here. And the way that works, if you wish to speak or to vote in the referendum as a taxpayer, you must be a United States citizen, eighteen years of age and own property in Avon that is assessed as of the October 1, 2010 grand list for one thousand dollars or more. So, you do have to be a citizen. I know that we have had some budget referendums when people showed up who were not citizens. You must be a citizen. So, when you do come up to speak, I will ask you please to state you full name and full address including the Town. If it is not Avon, I will ask you to identify what the grand list property you own is. And if you
have any questions about that or the assessed value, Ann Dearstyne and Caroline LaMonica are here in the front and they have the grand list with them and they would be happy to check the assessed value. The way that it will work, we will have a microphone in between the two aisles in the front. It is not there now because we don’t want to block access to view the slides. But, we will ask you to line up on either side of the aisle. When the first speaker finishes, just alternate sides. We’ll start with this side. The person finished speaking can exit on that side so we’re not crossing into each other. I think that will keep the circulation well. We will have it timed in the interest of giving who wants to speak the opportunity to do that. The initial remarks that you make, I will ask that you keep it to about three minutes. You can speak later again, but let’s give everybody the first chance to speak
and we will have someone there with color coded cards to let you know what the timing is. If the three minutes finish and you are in the middle of your conclusion or your thought, you will be allowed to finish that sentence or two, but not to go on beyond that. And the timer tonight will be our Assistant Town Manager, Steve Bartha. That’s it for the preliminaries. I will go over them again before we do it, but we will now get into the Board presentations and the first is from the Town Council. I will ask Mark Zacchio to come up.
3. CHAIR, TOWN COUNCIL: Mark Zacchio
Presents the Town Council, Sewer, Debt Service and Capital Improvement Budget for FY 2011/2012
Mark Zacchio: Unlike Tom, I was unaware that there was a basketball game tonight. I was in India and got hooked on cricket, so, I was able to watch the same game all week. I’m off of basketball for good. Welcome here tonight. I am Mark Zacchio, Chairman of the Town Council. Before I start, I would like to introduce the Council. I believe we are scattered about. I will just call you name. Pam Samuel, Bill Shea, David Pena, and Doug Evans, there you are. Thank you. I would also like to recognize Brandon Robertson, our new Town Manager and his staff, if you could, Peg, running the video and Steve, stand up. They were really instrumental in helping put together this budget tonight. First item, it’s an easy slide to talk about. It’s our mission
statement. It’s the same each year, to provide quality Town Services at a reasonable cost to all of our taxpayers. The following items are really what makes up the Town budget. All seven items, really all of our services fall into one of these seven items. The first three are general government, the Town services that we have that includes the Town Clerk’s office and all of the services that we have within the offices. The second one, public safety, which is really just the Fire Department, the operating budget, a small one, as well as our Police Department. And then third is Public Works. That’s highway, building and grounds. Those three make up about eighty percent of our budget. The remaining portions of our budget fall into either the capital improvement program or the, as you can see listed below, social services, recreation and parks. Education and culture is primarily the library and our
conservation and development program through planning and zoning. As we continue to adapt to the economic realities, you know, we are fully aware of the position that our State is in and the position of our Federal Government and as we put together this budget, we paid a lot of attention not only to, one of the economic indicators was where the Town of Avon is. Last year, you heard me say that we really wanted to retain all of our core services, which included public safety and social services as the two primary drivers for how we wanted to make sure our budgets were developed this year. We wanted to maintain or in some cases, reduce what we would refer to as non-core services, where ever those were possible. And then also we have a healthy balance of contracting out services, where we feel that there is a more efficient or effective way to provide these opportunities in Town. We also, a big part of our budget as you can see as I go through is really
properly funding the long term liabilities that we have. That really goes to funding the pensions programs for our retired employees that are part of the old DV pension program we have, as well as other post employment benefits. That is primarily the health insurance of the pension program. As many of you may know, we no longer offer the DV program here in Avon. Since 1996, our employees have been under the 401K program. One of the very few municipalities actually in the State of Connecticut that does not have a DV program today. However, we do have a fairly large funding component of the budget to take care of those liabilities, those promises that have been made to past employees. We also actively manage our personnel resources. The best way to talk about that is, when we have an opening, we first question whether we need it or not. Times have changed. Technology has changed. We look at opportunities to either
spread those job duties across different folks and different operations or we think about how to source it differently. Do we outsource it or perhaps a part time employee could cover something. So, it runs with how we fill our vacancies. And then on the capital improvement program, really if you try to fund only those essential programs, those are the big programs that I will talk about a little bit later, and the infrastructure. There is a lot more to talk about there. So, our budget snapshot here is pretty easy to get through. The town’s services increase is 2.77%. That is that $529,000 figure that you see there. That’s primarily driven by wages and benefits and part of that is going to be the pension liability that I just spoke to. The sewer budget is up 1.17%. While that is in the budget as both an expenditure and revenue source, those revenues are not included in the levy that we will talk about in terms
of the tax amount. They are collected for those of you who had sewer systems; there was a special assessment for that. Both the outlay of that sewer process comes to the town and then is recovered through the assessment process. The next item is debt service. The easiest way to think about that is that it’s really our mortgage. We carry, the other slide will talk about it a little later, about $5 million in debt interest and principle payment. That includes building projects, roofing projects, the library, normally it would go to referendum and would be approved by voters before we go out and actually do a bond. This year, we (inaudible) a decline in the amount of interest and principle because we just retired some older debts. We just paid off some of that. The last item on the list is capital improvement program. You will notice that that is the most healthy increase that the Council is asking for this year.
For those of you that were at the presentation last year, you will remember me saying that we really did take the capital improvement budget as low as we possibly could last year without hurting our infrastructure. We knew this year that we would be seeing a pretty healthy increase in that line item, especially around the road resurfacing program. For those of you who drive around Town, which I am assuming all of you do, you know that we have experienced a heavy winter. We have got a lot of road work to do in terms of the road heaves and potholes, so we have added some dollars in there to the best of our ability to be able to take care of the infrastructure. We definitely know that we are in some challenging economic times. One of the items that the Town really feels the pressure is in terms of our grand list growth. As you recall last year, we really had a very flat grand list growth. All that means is that the amount of value and
property on our levy did not increase at all. If they increase, you can collect more revenue based on the same amount of tax. Well, this year, we have a slight increase in the grand revenue. I’m sure that Tom will talk about it a little more. It’s about a .783%. That adds a little bit more on the revenue picture without having to touch the tax base, however, it is really not in line with what we experienced over the last even five, ten and fifteen year indicators. We have seen between three and a half percent and six percent over that time period, which really helped smooth the process of the tax increases. Second item there is our projected decline in revenue. This is a pretty big one for us. The $370,000 is the projected decline in revenues over the year before. $200,000 of that is anticipated shortfall in terms of State. And that is based off of what the Governor’s budget is as of today. I
know that that budget is not set in stone and there is a lot of negotiations with our State unions for givebacks. If all of that falls through with the Governor, then that number could actually grow and we have planned for about a $200,000 in shortfalls in terms of revenue over the last year from the State. You will see that of that 2.77% increase that I talked about earlier, $529,000, the OPEB funding, the other post employment benefits funding makes up about $188,000 of that. Salaries and wages based on our negotiated contracts for both our organized labor as well as our unorganized labor, $169,000 and change as well as the increase in our defined benefit pension contribution for our employees that are still in the defined benefit program of $69,000. So, we really continue to focus on our personnel management. We have integrated a based in approach in terms of filling vacant positions. In the corporate world, often times we refer to the
redundancy factor and all that means is that we have a salary pool of one million dollars. I’m making that number up. We haven’t really budgeted a million dollars during the year, we budget somewhat less than that, and our anticipation, there is a turnover. And when that turnover happens, there is a gap of time between when an employee leaves and stops collecting pay or stops accruing benefits and a new employee is hired. That gap of time nets us some dollars in terms of the salary pool, so we have built a redundancy factor into our budget this year. We were able to reflect, to the best of our ability, what our attrition rates will be. We have also implemented a lot of short and long term strategies to manage funds. Some of those include some of the outsourcing and some of the work we do in terms of street sweeping, basin cleaning, all of the grounds and maintenance and spring clean ups around the town hall are done by vendors,
so we looked at some of these issues and tried to use (inaudible) resources instead of a full time resource to be able to cap a little bit more within the budget process. We certainly have looked at reductions in staffing, where we have those turnovers. As I said before, we really look at, one, if we really need to position, two, how that position going forward should be structured to be the most efficient we can be. We also work to ensure that we have a competitive pay and benefits package through negotiations. We are currently in negotiations with two of our bargaining units. The police department, I think is coming up this year, which is the biggest portion of our operating. This next line gives a nice picture of the growth over the years. This is from 1970 through 2010, where we have grown at a fairly steady rate. I like this slide because you can see, in 1970 there was about 42 employees to support the Town, which is a ratio of
about .5%. As you go through time and do the math, I assure you, what it comes out in 2010 is, we are still at that .5% ratio in terms of growth to our employee base to the growth of our community. This year, actually, we are showing 406 folks there, but we will, in this budget, we actually, in 2011, went down one head count, so we will have about 405 in the budget that you will be voting on. This is the debt service line, so this is the amount of outstanding debt, that mortgage debt that we have for infrastructure buildings and roofing projects and other large projects in Town. As you can see in 2010, we are just over the $5 million, which you can see is that line that drops down to capacity. That capacity either turns into an opportunity to borrow more money for projects, for large land purchases, large building purchases or construction projects. These are projects that would make that bond curve a little bit more steady. This yield
curve, it corporate the library bonding that we anticipate going out in the spring of 2013, so that’s actually built into this curve. You will see three other items at the bottom, there is $5 million for a possible fire station training facility. There is about one million dollars for improvements to Fisher Meadow fields complex. There is also about $2 million for the rebuilding of Secret Lake roads, which are a little bit of a maze right now and would bring them up to Town standard. Those project, however, have not gone to referendum. Those projects have not been approved, but they are anticipated in the bond curve, just to give you an idea. The last thing that I will talk about is that capital improvement program. These are items that are within the budget that have a useful life of twenty years or more generally, and cost over, five years or more generally, excuse me, with a cost of over $20,000. The first item there is the
Haynes sewer extension phase, the Haynes Road connection. This is one of our highest failure rate septic system areas in Town. We have a number of those identified with some of the construction process that is happening with a new piece of land at the top of Haynes Road, we are in negotiations and discussions with the residents of that neighborhood as well as the contractors to be able to extend sewers through that area. And while that $420,000 is in our budget, it’s really paid for over time by assessments in that neighborhood. So, if these sewers go in, the assessments will happen on homeowners and to be paid to the Town over a period of years, so there is a smoothing process to the homeowner, but up front, those costs are born by the Town. The next item on there is, we have a high school boiler replacement, as I’m sure some of you have read, we have had some issues with our boiler. We are not entirely sure what the timeframe is or
what the mechanics will be around replacing the boiler, but we agree with the Board of Education that we think that it is prudent to reserve at least half of that. It’s about half of what we expect the cost of replacing the boiler to be. Then we will move forward in the budget and it will be added to in future years if we don’t replace it short term. The fire department has also asked for a new piece of equipment. We have two trucks that I will say, one has a chasse issue and the other has a body issue. Our new fire chief, Michael Trick is an old army guy. He introduced us to the term SLEP, which is service of life extension program. So, Mike has the idea that we will be able to shift the, on the truck that has the bad chasse, take the body off of that and put the body from the old truck on the chasse that is good and we will be able to get another ten or fifteen years out of one truck and only have to replace one truck, which
is actually a great idea and we are investigating how that could be accomplished going forward. As most of you know, I’m sure, the fire department is one hundred percent volunteer. We really rely on these folks to take care of us and be there in times of need with fires in our own homes. We try to keep their equipment as up to date as we can. We consider it a matter of personal safety to our volunteers as well as the safety of the citizens in Avon. And the trucks are certainly the big ticket items, but one that is important to make sure that they get good coverage in Town. In fact, Mike asked me to make a little plug here. He is starting the fire service academy, I believe it actually starts Wednesday night, so it’s a little late to let people know, but if you are interested in learning more about the fire department and more about the volunteers and what happens there and what those folks do for us, I would encourage you to go
to the fire department website and you can join that program at any time. The next item is our road resurfacing program to the tune of $293,000 and change. We think that gives us more than enough money than what we can actually pave. Often times we run into weather and this year, the high oil prices, which is a main ingredient in the pavement material, but we generally seem to pave 7-8 miles of road a year. We have a road management program; about 70% of our current roads are rated at 7 or above, ten being the best. We certainly (inaudible) the ones that are below that. Those are on the list to be repaved. Some of those have to be resurfaces; some of those have to be rebuilt. It’s very important that we keep up with that management program because a road that deteriorates too far cannot be paved over. For those of you who travel down Stagecoach realize there is a section there that really does need to be completely pulled
up and redone, but that could be a lot more expensive than keeping up with our road management program. It’s those extra dollars that will help cover a lot of the damage that was done this year. The last two items are year three of five on the removal of the underground storage tanks at all of the Town facilities. This is something that we have been wanting to do. Those storage tanks are reaching near the end of their expected life. They are about two to three years out from where we would be recommended to remove them. So, we have been saving over a number of years, this is year three of five, to be able to remove those completely. And the second is the second year of the ADMINS financial system for the Town. We are currently in an antiquated, it is so old I don’t know how to use it, the system of tracking our finance and our books. The ADMINS system upgrade will be able to help us do that and we are actually
talking with Gary Mala and other about how we can look at that system or find ways to use that system across with the Board of Education and find some ways to collaborate there. The last item there is the State of Connecticut. They go around and rate all of our bridges. The bridge on Old Wheeler Lane that leads us to Roaring Brook School has been rated poor. That means that it needs to be replaced in the near future. So, we have some money in there to do the engineering study and the facilities study to determine what the best course of action will be for that bridge. The Town and Board of Education, you might recognize this slide from last year, definitely worked together on a number of cooperative ventures. Everything on this list is a repeat from last year, save for number ten, which is the one I want to talk about a little bit. The Town and Board of Ed comprehensive energy program. The Board of Ed in Avon and the Town
Council work together to apply for a federal grant that some of our surrounding communities, they are Avon, Bloomfield, Simsbury, Granby and West Hartford, West Hartford, who is actually administering this program. This is a federal grant that gives us dollars basically to hire a consultant. That consultant works with all of these Towns, looks at our facilities and comes up with a more of a comprehensive energy plan for us all to follow. We are hoping that this leads to a more cooperative purchasing program and implementation of programs that are recommended by the consultant, across all of the organizations, not just within Town, but within the cooperative that was granted the funds from the federal government. So, we continue to work with each other on that as well as the clean energy commission here is Avon, which will be working and spearheading some of that work for us as well. So, in conclusion, our 2.77% increase in operating only budget
represents about a $529,000 increase. That increase as presented, the Town Manager was slightly over $1 million. We think that it was great that our department heads went through the process. We used some of that as a wish list, some of that that we fund each year, but as we looked at that, Brandon had made a number of reductions before it came to the Town Council. I believe it was around 3.5%. And through our Saturday budget meeting that I wish you were all there, it was a great time, we were able to reduce some of those dollars down to what you see here today, about (inaudible) came out, where the Council still felt that they were meeting the needs and the goals of the Town, yet being efficient and frugal as we could be. The sewers again, I’ve explained at 1.17%, the debt service down a quarter percent, and capital improvement again, 34% increase, but most of that in and around the road improvement program. If you would like to know
more about the Town and you would like to become a little more involved or aware of what is happening in Town, we do have a website that you can sign up for forced email. It will let you know what’s going on here in Town. I invite you to visit our Town website and all you have to do is sign up and those emails will be forced to you automatically. So, thank you for your attention tonight and I would like to call the Chairwoman of the Board of Education, Peggy Roell. Peggy?
4. CHAIR, BOARD OF EDUCATION: Peggy Roell
Presents Board of Education Budget for FY 2011/2012
Peggy Roell: It says thank you, Tom, but thank you, Mark. Good evening. I’m Peggy Roell, Chair of the Board of Education. I would to begin by introducing the Board of Education members here. If they could just stand or wave? Mike Egan our Vice-Chair, Jay Spivak, Stacy Bienat, Kathy Zirolli, Bill Stokesbury, Barbara Zuras, Houston Lowry and Ken Notestine are both working tonight so they are not with us. Also with us is Gary Mala, our new Superintendent, Jody Goeler, our Assistant Superintendent and former Interim Superintendent, Gary Franzi our Business Manager and Paula Schwartz who was our Interim Assistant Superintendent and she helped to prepare the budget so she is just here in an advisory capacity and as an Avon resident tonight. The Board of Education is very excited to have Gary
Mala as our new Superintendent. I’m glad that a lot of you have already gotten a chance to meet him. As of today, Gary has been with us for 32 days. He has already begun the extensive review and analysis of all of our operations. He requested and the Board of Education has agreed for both the Finance Committee and an audit committee. Based on Gary’s prior experience as a success in managing school district budgets and working on collaboration with both Town and district leadership, we are confident that over the next year our community Superintendent and his staff will be able to identify many deficiencies and cost saving opportunities that will benefit our entire Town. The Board of Education believes that our proposed budget is fair and responsible given the factors. As a result, the proposed budget was unanimously approved by the Board of Education. Tonight, I respectfully request that the Board of Finance please allow
the new administration of the Avon Public Schools time to continue analyzing specific strategies leading to both economic and human resource efficiencies rather than having to react to a significant reduction of the proposed budget at this time. It is my belief and that of others that the Avon Public Schools are at a critical juncture. If not managed properly, it will negatively impact the entire community. During this time of great uncertainty, it is prudent that the Town leadership and those of us on elected Boards to come together and put forth a responsible budget for the sake of all of our residents including our children. At this time, I would like to ask Gary, who tells me his Dad is Mr. Mala, to come forward and speak about the highlights of the proposed education budget.
Gary Mala: Thank you, madam Chair. I feel like I should be getting some kind of award after that wonderful introduction. Let me begin by saying to you, as the community of Avon, I appreciate the opportunity to have been selected to lead your public school district. It’s no secret that Avon public schools has the reputation of excellence that permeates not only this State but beyond. So, I view it as a great challenge and opportunity, but more importantly, a great honor to continue the fine leadership of this district. Now, with that being said, I am going to make sure this works. The theme of the Board of Education’s budget, and I want to stop just for a moment and thank the team of people who put this budget together. I had the unusual task of delivering the budget that was
assembled prior to my arrival, over which I have had about four weeks to review. But, the theme of this Board of Education budget is really revolves around three words, relevant, it’s respectful and it’s responsive. And the word that I would ask you to focus on throughout the evening and beyond is responsive to the needs of children in a responsible way. The rationale behind this budget, it didn’t work, okay, the rationale behind this budget proposal is a very (inaudible), but the district must meet its moral and ethical obligation to children. They must also advocate for the needs to all children, not just some children. The district must continue to operate in what Mark referenced as extraordinary financial times, an unprecedented economical decline as well as instability at every level. The district also must comply with the many specific unfunded mandates that are cast upon us. One that I draw to your attention is the
school districts in Connecticut are now the licensing agent for all certified staff for Connecticut without the assistance of any form of State aid or State assistance. That is just an example of the many unfunded mandates that we operate with. We also must redirect our focus to teaching and learning with is at the heart of public school’s work. And what I have done in the past number of weeks is that there is a need to provide curriculum, K-12 and also securing and integrating technology. It’s not a secret that technology has permeated almost every element of our workforce and every element of our community. And our dependence on technology continues to rise and our schools need to begin securing the technology to integrate and effect positively the fine instruction that happens each and every day. The district must meet its contractual obligations just as the Town. In this particular budget, with added positions, which is an
obligation of 2.7% of the 4.41 being proposed. The Board, the district administration and the Board has many many considerations when putting the budget together as you well imagine. One is paramount. It is a commitment to children and what the needs of children require on an annual basis. The impact of this proposed budget on the local taxpayer, which is you, is always thought about. It’s always contemplated and frankly, it’s agonized over as we make decisions about what programs and opportunities that we are going to provide to children and what impact that has on you as the local taxpayer. Another consideration is the capacity for reducing this proposed budget was very limited because there are certain things that happen to achieve this budget that are no longer available at the present time, one being the staff concession package, an increase of fees, one could ask the question, are the fees too high. Adjustments that help
account limits was an adjustment by going into reserves, which as many of you know, is a common practice when there is a need for revenue, but the district is at a point where that is no longer an option. And last but certainly not least, the federal stimulus money that came in two specific forms for public schools in Connecticut are no longer available. They are gone. And in some particular communities, you’ll hear people refer to the loss of that federal money is creating a funding cliff because those finances were in fact tacked to positions or programs that needed to be sustained over time, and now that the revenue is no longer available from our federal government, it affects the operating budget. Other considerations included reduced funding sources. While we did get some word in the governor’s budget, which is the level funding and the ECS money or education cost sharing money for the next two years, the costs continue to escalate
and level funding could be interpreted as a decrease. Excess cost reimbursement for providing for high needs to special education services continues to be an unknown variable and continues to be threatened each and every year. And this year it is more pronounced with our State facing a $3.5 billion deficit. The district itself has a limited alternative funding source, but it has a commitment now and a renewed commitment to pursue alternative funding sources in the immediate future. There has been a significant negative impact due to past reductions. And I can’t speak to past reductions that have been made in the Avon public schools, other than looking at a list of things that were here and that are no longer here. And I can tell you, having been Superintendent for eleven years in two other districts, there are services and positions that are not available here that are available in other places. That doesn’t make us a bad school
district; it just makes us a very lean school district. That’s a consideration when developing this budget. There are various ongoing preparations for accreditation process at Avon High School. Some people believe that might be over used. Their accreditation is probably the most significant process a high school can go through and frankly, an accreditation process is really an accreditation of a school district as opposed to a singular building such as the high school because there are a lot of things that have to be in place in the middle school and at the elementary level to create a positive outcome in that process. So, that’s a consideration when this budget was put together. There was a commitment many years ago in Avon to, what’s called the Tri-State program evaluation that is ongoing and that was considered, the recommendation, the specific recommendations were considered. There is no current district curriculum
alignment system in place. There is a need for technology acquisition and integration, which I referenced in the previous slide. There is also a need to reorganize our district business functions to create efficiencies. Much of the criticism that I have heard in my career directed at public schools is that we don’t run as a business. The teaching and learning aspect of schools cannot really be run as a business because predicated on relationships and the instructions, the relationships between instructors and children and then the quality of instruction that is being delivered, but I can tell you as I present this to you this evening, the operational nature of schools can be run as a business, and that’s a commitment that I bring to you. Just, and there is an impact of the 21st century learning skills model also was considered when developing this budget. This budget also did reduce two teachers due to decreasing enrollment
at the two elementary schools and there is a reduction of a point five teacher due to a staff returning from approved leave. There were various rumors in the community about wide scale downsizing, so I chose to include this in the slide so I could quell whatever those rumors might be. How was this budget developed? Jody Goeler as the Interim Superintendent and the team delivered a message that all lines should be leveled funded between this fiscal year and fiscal year 11/12, for all discretionary line items. The budget was also achieved by reducing fixed cost, particularly in the area of utilities and I’m very excited about this. The last point that Mark made with the shared services; there is an opportunity in the area of utilities, largely for savings and we don’t realize it. There has been a commencement of streamlining. As I said before, the district business practices, to achieve efficiencies and then naturally lead to cost
savings. We have now established district standards and a system for acquiring things such as text books, library books and technology on an incremental basis as opposed to asking for it all at once. I believe in incremental growth and this budget reflects incremental growth. And keep in mind that when proposed budgets were submitted, there were large scale reductions to what was requested to achieve the 4.41% increase that is being requested in this budget. There is also a review of the minimum requirement for providing services for children. Both that are dictated by federal and state laws to ensure that the services are being delivered in the most efficient way and they are not excessive in any way. Another item used to develop the budget was to identify immediate, an immediate need for collecting and analyzing and warehousing student data. That’s a mandate that is imposed on us by our State department. We have to track
student performance data long term to comply with that. We also considered immediate need to align all curriculum areas commencing with English/Language Arts and considered the need for planning, again, for the integration of technology and teaching and learning. This proposed budget is $47,945,179, a difference of a little over (inaudible), so an increase of 4.41%. This is a summary of the major expenses. The expense column shows major categories in this budget. The right hand column shows the percentage of the 4.41% each of those categories. This slide shows us the proposed budget and then the number under it, $44,257,297 is defined as the total of nondiscretionary cost over which the district has no control over, such as things like employee contracts or settlements and so forth. So, the nondiscretionary costs that are accounted here are salaries and employee benefits. Also mentioned by Mark, the major drivers on the Town side of
the budget, transportation which we must provide the children to get to and from school, building operations and maintenance, utilities and then tuition. When you take all of those categories, it leaves you with a figure of just under 93% of the budget that is nondiscretionary. This again is a summary and it shows you the dollar difference by major category and you have the presentation in front of you, so I’m not going to go line by line with you, if that would be okay. What I want to point out, this slide really represents, that the first, some people are cheering that I won’t go through each item because UCONN is on, but what this line does speak to is that public schools are labor intensive. And if you look at the first two lines that make up over $1.8 million of the difference between the two budgets, this one that we are operating in and the one that is being proposed. And you compare that against a little over $2 million, you can see
that most of our expenses are in personnel costs and providing the benefits to them. So, this is another way to compare operating budgets, again, by major category. It’s just showing you, again, the first two salary and benefits, if you look in the middle column. Again, it just makes the point that this organization, the Avon public schools, is very labor intensive and much of the costs are salary and benefits. This is for those that are visual. It’s a pie chart. It represents the information (inaudible) instruction and part of this, and I apologize for the quality of the copy. They are not color copies. Many folks ask about enrollment. We anticipate at the present time and have projected 2% change in our enrollment. And for those of you who like to see the specifics of where the enrollment is located, and I will draw your attention to the red boxes. You may recall that earlier in the presentation I
referenced that we reduced two positions. Those are the two that were reduced and the upcoming budget is an elimination of a section in each of those grades because of a decline in enrollment and then the little box represents a needed increase in the number of pre-school sections. We have a mandate to provide a pre-school service to disabled youngsters and we have an increase in that population for next year. The next slide shows you the class size average. Five and six, we did intentionally leave this slide blank in the middle school and high school, but if you understand scheduling in middle schools and high schools, you know that you really can’t get a true class average because it’s based on what classes certain students are taking during which periods of time. What’s new in this proposed budget and why is it needed? We received a number of questions and I will move through this quickly. In this budget, in the
proposed budget, there is a non-administrative position to coordinate K-12 language arts in our library media programs. This, again, (inaudible) needed to impact favorably upon the accreditation process and it also goes back to the need of the district as identified to revise curriculum areas, in all content areas. Human resource curriculum assistant, again, is a non-administrative position. It’s a .8. It’s less than a 1.0, full time equivalent. I was getting the high sign. I’m past my 15 minutes. Just bear in mind that Avon public schools has 523 employees, without a services of a full time human resources director. We have certification and license share requirements. We have different types of leaves and a host of other things that happen, and that currently is deemed, is done in different forms and in different ways. The 25 SRBI coordinator, the SRBI is a coordinating approach to create referral
strategies. What we do with the children when we see them experiencing difficulties, SRBI is the scientific name for intervention. It is a State mandate. We have to have a program in place by July first of this year, as every other school district. And we need a coordinated effort to make sure that all of the needs of the children are being met in the same way in each of our buildings. There is a music teacher in here. That is a restoration from past reduction, in the middle school, there is a .2 virtual high school teaching position included in this budget to introduce the use of online learning at our high school. Also, there is a coordinating teacher stipend to oversee the athletic and student activity programs in our younger grades. There is a guidance counselor position being requested at the high school to reduce the case loads and to meet the needs that our high school students continue to exhibit and there’s a rationale
included in your packet. There is a need to include in this budget, there’s a need to fund a 1.0 special education teacher position that was in fact funded with federal stimulus money, those that I referred to earlier as not being available to us any longer. The need for the position and the need (inaudible) has not diminished. Just because the funds have decreased, the need is still there, so regular operating budget needs to absorb that. I referenced the .8 pre-school teacher position because of the increase that we’ve seen in the anticipated preschool population. The additional .5 EL tutor certified staff position, we have a significant number of students who speak something other than English as their native language and we have to assist, transition them into our schools. Special education clerk typist, that’s a half time position, again, this is a position that was funded with federal stimulus dollars and again, those
dollars are gone, and a .5 school psychologist position was requested to create an equitable service delivery model in each of our schools. A .2 nurse, we had an increase in nursing needs, and frankly this position, the district has incurred more costs without this position than if it were to be included. What I mean by that is that we have been paying overtime for two part time positions that cost more than .2 addition to that position. The reason for that is, again, the numerous needs and the frequency at which students seek health services in our schools. Last but certainly not least, there is a request for a director of technology to coordinate those efforts to secure and integrate technology into our schools. My assessment and again, in 32 days that I have been here, is that we’ve started the process to secure and integrate technology, but we have a long way to go. And in order to do that, we need someone who is able to create a
comprehensive plan with our staff so we can articulate an incremental plan to do exactly what I have referenced, and that being to integrate technology into our schools. Much has been asked of me over the past couple of weeks, what happens if this budget does not, is not successful. Rather than sit here and discuss that with you, what I can tell you, given my assessment of doing the superintendent’s work for eleven years and have built reduction lists, we are at a critical juncture. A critical juncture because the decisions here will be more difficult for us to realize because we have less to work with. And I’m not saying that to drive any emotion into the crowd. The reality is that there are some things that other places have that we don’t have any longer. So, the challenge of reducing will be significantly greater. Some of these areas that will be impacted includes staffing, some delays in curriculum work that I
mentioned, reduction in some of those appropriations that have been requested for the tool, the teacher’s need to provide instruction could lead to incremental reductions of certain programs, and it could lead to increased participation fees on top of where they are now. Again, again, it could be a postponement of the implementation in comprehensive acquisition of technology and it could lead to an operation of reductions in the custodial maintenance, work on our buildings and such. What I concluded, and again, I want to end where I started, I appreciate the opportunity to be here with you and presenting this proposed budget for your consideration. I appreciate the work not only of the Council but of the Board of Finance. We have commenced a proactive system to look for efficiencies within our schools and within the model of the school district and we are committed to run the business functions as a business. We must continue, in my opinion, to
have open and honest conversations and dialogue of what we want for school and what we want for our community. I come here with my eyes wide open, being one of the most objective in the audience and hope that I can contribute in some little way that may help us all come together to realize the benefit of that cooperative work. Obviously, I have chosen this profession and this budget is geared toward not only understanding the significant impact any spending package for the school district has on a local tax base, but also I view it as an investment. An investment in children and the return comes many years from now. It is in fact what Bill (inaudible) we have to continue to make a difference at the State level. I have had some past experiences that I can hopefully bring here and use here, having conversations at the State level and it restored my faith in the Democratic process, frankly, and are voices are heard. So, I think some of what we
should do is to work together to advocate for our needs at this level. The reductions, it’s not a secret, the reductions made in the past budgets have been made. The staff is a complement that Avon public schools reflect is a reality. And our hope is that as you consider this budget, that you look favorably upon some of the small incremental growth that is included within this budget. It provides what’s needed not only to open doors of the Avon public schools, but again it does also include some small incremental growth in what I believe, and our Chairperson said the same thing, it leads to a fair and responsible budget, given all of the factors that had to be considered when developing it. So, I appreciate, again, the opportunity to present this to you and look forward to our continued work together and I am going to turn this over to Mr. Harrison, the Chairman of the Board of Finance.
5. CHAIR, BOARD OF FINANCE: Thomas Harrison
Presents Board of Finance Overview
Thomas Harrison: Thank you, Mark, Peggy and Gary. We appreciate the hard work that you put into these very thorough and detailed and excellent presentations. Now, the sequence of these things, the Board of Finance presents a sort of financial scorecard or report card, maybe, on the condition of the Town and its finances and how that financial condition will have some impact on the budget. So, are you ready, Peggy? Okay, good. These slides are in your packets as well. This is just a summary of the requested budget. And I would like to point out something here. This column shows the adopted budgets. For example, the Town’s operating budget 19 or a little over, the Board of Education 14.9. In all the years that I’ve lived in Avon and the shorter period that I have
been on this Board, neither the Board of Finance nor the voters of Avon have every recommended or approved operating budgets that are less than what was approved the year before for those two categories. So, it may be somewhat misstating things to say that budgets have been reduced. Budget requests have been reduced, but even with reductions in their requests, the actual amount of the budget has increased every year, certainly the operating budget. It varies with debt service and so forth as Mark explained. It has never happened before. I certainly don’t anticipate it happening this year. The question before the Board of Finance will be balancing these requests to see whether if they would want to make any reductions or revisions to the amount of the requests, but I am very confident in saying that neither the Town operating budget nor the Board of Education’s operating budget will be less than the amounts for the current fiscal year. Looking at some of the emails that I
have been receiving and some of the things in the press, I think there may be a lack of understanding of what exactly it is that a Board of Finance does and why do Town’s have it. Approximately 110, 112 other Towns than Avon have them. The Town’s that don’t, the same functions still exist, except it’s provided by the Town Council and the Board of Selectmen, whatever it’s called, which is an awkward situation when you have the legislative body then performing the balancing role between its requests and the Board of Education’s requests. So, most Towns have gone with a Board of Finance as a basis to provide a separation of powers. Our role is very different from the two presentations and the two Boards that you heard tonight. Our role is a balancing role. On one side, you have requests for increased funding. On the other hand you have to face the fact that those come from taxes and we have to provide a
balance. We are not an advocate; we are not a cheerleader for either the Council or the Board of Education. We are somebody who sort of stands in the background and tries to evaluate the requests and consider the financial condition of the Town. So, we have a very different role and some of you may not be really familiar with it, but that’s clearly what it is. Peggy? Now, just to express this one, I will talk about how Connecticut Towns raise revenue in general, and then specifically how we as a Board of Finance will look at raising revenues to meet the budget requests. I see a few people standing in the back. There are seats up here near the front, about a third of the way down from the front row. If you would like to sit down, there are many seats available in the front. I know that it goes back to the school days; nobody wants to sit in the front. I think we are all afraid that we are going to be called on or something,
but if you would like to sit down, there are a number of seats up here. Please feel free to do that. Peggy, next one please. This one is what the Connecticut Supreme Court has said, years ago, there hasn’t been too much going on recently, but Boards of Education and Boards of Finance used to routinely engaged in suing each other. It seems silly now, but that was it. In any event, in 1952, it sort of spelled out exactly what the difference in the roles. It just reiterates that our job is to see to it that spending requests are reasonable and within the ability of the Town to raise them. So, that’s how the highest Board in Connecticut defined them both. Peggy? This is what the Charter says. I think some of you might be a little more familiar with that. We have to make those revisions and budget requests that the Board deems desirable and then submit the revised budget to the voters for approval.
Peggy? We do have, by looking at revenue sources, and unfortunately, under Connecticut law, we don’t have a lot of options. State law is very restrictive. In some States, New York for those of us who are familiar with it know, New Jersey too, municipalities can have an income tax. Here in Connecticut, we cannot. We do not have a sales tax that is available. New York City has its own sales tax on top of the New York State sales tax. We don’t have that option here. No taxes that Towns can impose on tobacco, alcohol and so forth as you see there. So, that somewhat restricts and limits our ability when we go to look for sources to pay for the items in the budget requests. We don’t really have a lot of tools that are available to the State, but what do we have? Well, we do have a problem, as a couple of the previous speakers mentioned, but the State is looking to increase its tools. That may
not help us particularly. We are all aware that the State is proposing to raise the income tax, the gasoline tax, which is already pretty expensive as we all know, looking to increase the sales tax, property tax on certain things that were not previously taxed, in the sales tax area, looking to eliminate those days that you have there in the summer when you can get tax free when purchasing clothing and things. The other significant thing, which is not on one of these slides, however, is the property tax credit is being proposed for elimination. Most of you know, you can, on your Connecticut income take a credit of up to $500 to reflect the property taxes you paid. The amount is defined by your income, but the Governor is proposing to take away that credit and that will affect a lot of people here in Avon, that you won’t get that up to $500 credit on that tax. So, what do we look at for funding budget requests here in Avon? Really two
categories and they are really with great originality, they are called property tax sources and non-property tax sources. That’s the two places we have. The non-property taxed portion of the revenues that we look at to fund these budget requests are things like State reimbursements, which is, as Mark Zacchio said, are down this year, licenses, building permits, there is not as much building activity as we had here during our years of growth, but that is a source of revenue, permit fees, grants, things of that sort, but the rest of it comes from property taxes and the assessments that go with that. Peggy? Now, if you look at the current budget, we get about 12% of our revenues from the non-property tax. That’s declining. These budgets that we are dealing with now, we look at the non-property tax to give us a slightly lower amount, eleven and a quarter percent. So, you can see that the portion of our revenues that come from
property taxes are going to go up from year to year, almost a full percent, 88.75% is where we estimate our revenue can come from. And that trend has been steadily increasing, unlike Farmington, our good neighbors over there; they have the malls and those business and commercial developments. We don’t, so we have to rely very very heavily on property tax and that’s the reality of what we have to work with. Peggy? This shows you the breakdown on the non-property tax sources. It just gives you the comparisons. You can see some of these declined, the grants are probably going to be down, licenses, building permits, that sort of thing, down a little bit, charges for different services, other small items that we had, so we don’t have any growing source outside of the property tax and that makes it much more difficult to do the job that we all have to face. Peggy? Within that property tax category, the 88.75% portion
of our likely revenue sources, here’s the breakdown, 66, almost 66.5% comes from the single family homes. So, those single family homes are paying 66% of the 88%. So, you are paying a little over half of the property tax revenue, comes from the single family homes. And the other categories are in descending order there. But, that’s the breakdown of where that 88% will come from. It’s all coming from the single family homes and the condos. Peggy? And this is the rest, you can see, the State and Federal grants of 4%, licenses and so forth. Not a lot of loose change there. Peggy? So, again, this shows the year to year comparison. I have already given that to you, but this just shows in bar form. Now, this shows, we have two charts, this shows where that money is going. You can see the Town operating portion of it, school operating budgets, debt service and so forth. And you can see
the continuing upward trend in the portion of the budget that goes to the school operations from year to year. Same thing, this is just in bar graph form. Now, about 71% of our total budget requests, that’s on all sides, 71% of that is school related. Now, that includes the Board of Education’s operating budget, plus that portion of debt service that is paying principle and interest on school construction bonds, plus that portion of the capital improvement program that is school related. So, when you combine that with the operating budget and these other capital costs, about 71.5% of all of our expenditures are school related. Peggy? Mark alluded to the grand list. It’s just not growing the way it used to. This year is a distortion because that was the year that we had the five year cycle revaluations, so it did take a jump that year, but it’s misleading. It’s really down below 2%. If you
recall throughout the 90’s and the early years of this decade, we had very significant grand list growth from year to year, 5,6,7%. We’re not likely to see that again. I think the current census puts our population as of last year at 18,000 and the best estimates that we have now with the zoning laws and undeveloped property, we probably won’t get up to much more than 20,000, so we’re not looking, that’s 20,000 people, not 20,000 houses. So, we’re really not looking at future growth possibilities from the grand list. We are pretty much built out. Peggy? Okay, some of the things that we look at when we consider taxes, we look at some changes. As you can see, the consumer price index did not go up last year, it’s going up again. Peggy? The other things we look at, the social security COLA, two years in a road. I’m on it. I (inaudible) two years. I don’t if
there will be one this year, but from what I (inaudible) likely to be offset by increases in the Medicare payment deductions. Peggy? The unemployment situation in Avon, you can see, it is still not as good as we would like it to be compared to a few years ago. It’s almost double what we’ve seen, so that’s a factor that we have to look at. Peggy? We look at other Town, and this will always be controversial depending on how you look at it. Our equalized mill rate compared to some neighboring Towns. You can also look at it from the tax levy per capita. I don’t know why some people prefer one over the other; they are both there for those of you who want to have fun looking at it. But, we compare very favorably with other Towns in terms of the tax burden here. Peggy? If you want to check what the proposed 4.09, let’s call it a 4.1% increase in the mill rate and how it will affect you, as
always in the last couple of years, we have had the Avon Assessor website, you can go there. I think the next page, Peggy, you can go there, I’m sorry, that’s not it, go to the website and there are prompts that will get you into your particular property address. You can search for the address and you can punch in the numbers and see if the budget is approved as requested, how much that will increase your property tax. And just finishing up, we have, this is the public hearing portion of what the Town Charter requires. We will be having, the Charter directs us to have a consultation with the other two Boards. We are informally calling that the workshop. That will take place Wednesday night in this building. It is not a public hearing. There is no opportunity for the public to speak or questions or anything of that sort. Many of you were here at the same thing last year, but at that meeting, we do consult among the
three Boards and we try to look at all of these factors that I looked at, inflation, cost of living, revenue streams and so forth and try to come up with something that we believe is in the best interest of the Town taken as a whole. From there, once the budget is recommended by the Board of Finance, then it’s publically noticed, there is a Town meeting on the first Monday in May at which we will be available to discuss what the revised budget, if that’s the direction we go in. And then we adjourn it to the referendum on, I believe it’s the second Wednesday in May. So, that’s the process and we are right in the midst of all of that as we go. That concludes the Board of Finance presentation. We will now get ready to go into the comments and questions and so forth. We will need a little help with logistics. If the Board of Finance members will come back up here and we need to move the podium. We will have the
podium and the microphone here in the front between the two sets of seats. Steve will sit there with the timecards. Yellow is what, Steve? The yellow card tells you that you have one minute left and the red card says that your time has expired. I will remind you, please, that the Charter does restrict you as eligible to speak. Please give your full name, full address, state whether it’s in Avon, and if it’s not in Avon, tell us where it is and tell us what property (inaudible) in Avon that is the basis for taxpayer status. We look forward to the comments. I would like to, as we are still getting ready here, I would like to take a minute here, imagine a group sitting around in your home, friends, neighbors, associates, whatever. You’re sitting say in your family room and you’re talking about the Avon budget. Maybe a little bit of wine is flowing and maybe some of you kicked off your shoes. We can all
imagine that kind of thing. What would that conversation be like? Would it be rational, calm, friendly? (inaudible) We would like this, if you could imagine sitting in your own home with a group of friends and try to make your presentation in that same vain. For example, let’s respect each other. Let’s not revile the presentations, you know, respect the speaker. Listen to the message. You can attack the message, but don’t attack the messenger. Let’s avoid that. Let’s not question the motive. I know some of you think, you know, the school spending is going to drive all of the seniors out of Town. Others will say that the seniors are not getting enough money, whatever. Let’s try to avoid that kind of questioning and suggesting motives. What I would really like to have you do in your presentation and comments, is invite more thought rather than inciting anger.
We are not looking for politicians to get a (inaudible). Don’t try to incite the reaction, but just try to invite thoughtful contemplation of what you’re saying. And finally, we really welcome sound ideas, not sound bytes. We get a lot of sound bytes in these presentations and that’s probably partially unavoidable, but we really are more interested in your ideas. Let’s just keep this a friendly conversation, in your home, shoes kicked off, glass of wine. And I think that will be better for everybody in Town and I look forward to working with you on that. What we would like to do know, I think everything is set up. What I would like you to do is to line up to speak along this wall to my left. When you finish speaking, exit to my right and work your way back to your seat that way. Whoever gets up here first gets to speak first. The rest of you just wait. Okay Bob. Oh, okay. Let’s just keep this nice and friendly and low key. Everybody will be given a chance to speak.
We will stay as late as we have to, game or no game, but please try and remember the way that I would like to see this, like we are in our homes. Again, full name, address, Town and piece of property. So, we are ready to go. You get to go first.
6. CHAIR, BOARD OF FINANCE: Thomas Harrison
Calls upon the audience for questions and comments on the Town Council, Board of Education, and Board of Finance budget presentations
Richard Maine, 42 Far Hills Drive: I have lived here for twelve years and have participated in this process for 6 or 7 years. Now, I am a little confused
Chairman Harrison: Is that turned on? It might not be on. Okay, you might need to stand a little closer to it. That will help.
Richard Maine: First I would like to thank everybody that’s involved in this process. This is heavy lifting and all the work that goes into it is much appreciated. My observation is that we are now into another budget year and again we are approaching it in an incremental fashion. Year after year increases really in the hopes that what we have been going through in terms of the economic climate is now we are at a juncture. My view is what we are dealing with is a major structural problem that affects the country, the State of Connecticut in a very severe way and to a lesser extent because Avon has been responsible and prudent in the way it’s managed itself fiscally. It faces its own challenges. So, I would like to make two suggestions, and they are both aimed at the Council. From
what I can see, between the Board of Education and the Town, everybody does a good job, but I think the Council has to step back and give some (inaudible) to the fact that the problems faced are structural and in the long term, severe. There is no State in the country that can’t go bankrupt. Every Town, municipality and city has that option. So, Avon has to get it right. It needs to maintain its independent status. So, I would recommend suspension of this year’s budget process and request, by the Council, to initiate a (inaudible) exercise that is done with integrity this can produce significant savings without cutting any core services. What that would result in is no tax increase this year and probably a savings and possibly well into next year. You can then use that time out, if you will, to tackle the long range structural problems, get honest with ourselves, that we are not going to grow our way out of it, with an 80$
dependency on the single family homes and a built out residential community and the near term prospects are significant in the grand list. I said that long term solutions have to be found and they can be found through a variety of different processes. So, those are my recommendations. Short term and long term.
Thomas Harrison: Thank you. Thank you. There are still seats up here in the front on both sides if your, I see several of you still standing back there. Bob, I think you’re up. Again, full name and address and so forth. Most of us know you, but we still need it for the record.
Robert Paine, 68 Tamara Circle: It’s just off Country Club.
Thomas Harrison: And that’s in Avon?
Robert Paine: That’s in Avon. It’s been there a long time, since about 1916, well the building has anyway. And what I have a really a positive statement. One is, I think, as I did a little bit of research, surrounding Towns have gotten rid of, have tried to get rid of one of the contentious parts of our economy, which is the difference between seniors who are living on a fixed income, who incidentally have seen their CDs drop from about 5% to less than one; that’s how they get their bread and butter on the table. What they have done in one Town near us, West Hartford, they have a property tax freeze. That is by Town ordinance in 2007. And then we have another Town close by, that is up in Granby, that had provided for married, up to a 35% tax credit against the property tax and for single
people for some reason a 45%. I guess they assume that the single person is going to bring in as much money as the married couple. And (inaudible) have two working parents. But, in any event, the criteria are of cut off, you have to have a limited income, roughly around 30 some thousand dollars in order to qualify in either of those two Towns. In fact, Granby before they implemented theirs, they ran a survey and 22 Town responded and 11 which indicated that they had a program and the others didn’t. The other idea that I had is, that long term wise, the schools of education, is the seat of what drives us and the way that the public school system is run in this country, dictates how and what we get and how we get it. Now, fortunately, (inaudible) around the world as well as (inaudible). We are using technology to get things done and we reduce the labor intensive portion of what we are delivering in services and perhaps that, from what I
understand, is beginning to take hold in the educational process and hopefully public education process. So, for the long term-wise, we can have a cap on the most expensive portion of the system and that’s about all I wanted to say. Thanks a lot.
Thomas Harrison: Thank you, Bob.
Sam Levine, 98 Cotswold Way: Good evening. I’m talking a little bit early tonight because of a game that I’ve got to get to.
Thomas Harrison: For one of your kids?
Sam Levine: No, for the UCONN game.
Thomas Harrison: Oh, okay. Okay.
Sam Levine: I’ll make it short and sweet so I can make it home on time. Anyway, my biggest concern is that I have never heard anyone from the Board of Education speak of the budget in such dire need. The fact that we are sitting on the precipice that we are waiting for the accreditation coming up and that we need to present ourselves in the best light and that these, you know, as we say, these are the things that generate, you know, the sales price of your house. That’s the one thing that’s going to go forward, the price of your house, and there are new families moving into Town and they do move in because of any other services, great plowing this year and all that stuff, they move in because of the school system. So, as soon as, if you continue to cut them, that won’t exist. You won’t have the market coming here seeking out the school system. The other thing is I just have a question for all of the Board of Finance members. Did anybody last year vote for the budget as it
stood? The two on the end here, and the remainder did not vote for the budget as it stood. And Mr. Harrison?
Chairman Harrison: It was a 5 to 2 vote. The two supported the original and the other 5 voted
Sam Levine: I just urge everybody here when the election comes up that you keep that in mind, that you maybe cross party lines and do whatever you need to do to make sure that the people see the budget. The snickering is not very nice. The people who see the budget, you know, put it forth and realize that these are the people who are deciding things about your community and your children and just think twice about that. Thank you and go Huskies.
Richard Whipple, 26 Gatewood Drive: I would like to acknowledge all of the effort that the three Boards do on a continuous basis and what they do for the Town. First, I would just like to, I would like to put forth some comments for your consideration of the budgets. First, I remember Mark Zacchio’s comments from last year and the Town has done a great job on trying to cut back spending for the capital infrastructure and I would like to strongly encourage you to fund what Mark has put forth. In driving around Avon, the roads are terrible and I think we should support that. Second, I would like to talk about the school budget and our desire to restore programs in the schools that are neglected. This was a big issue, I believe, last year as far as the extracurricular activities, music, sports,
etcetera. I think that’s extremely important and should be encouraged. With that being said, however, I think in these days of having worked in private business, we are continuously asked to do more with less. I really do not understand the need to add administrative staff to the school budget. It seems that the enrollment is basically flat and we are increasing our administrative staff, which doesn’t seem realistic to me. Lastly, I would like to say, at least in my neighborhood, I see the residential housing crisis is certainly flat and more likely declining, so the real estate agents that support my area do say that that is because of the tax structure in Avon, so I think that should be part of your consideration. Thank you very much.
Thomas Harrison: Thank you, sir. Oh, you want to respond?
Peggy Roell: Sir, I just want to clarify, there are no administrative positions being added to this budget.
Barbara Shuckra, 78 Deepwood Drive: I have been here for 37 years and have four children who were educated through the system. They went to regular colleges and universities, not Harvard or Yale and they all have jobs and they have great work ethics as well as social skills. So, I am very proud of them, but I was there almost every day. I have a question that has been bothering me for a long time. When a teacher takes a day to take his or her child to college and a substitute comes in, does the teacher pay for that substitute?
Thomas Harrison: Peggy or Gary?
Gary Mala: Ma’am, there are, is that better? Ma’am, there are certain things that teachers and other staff members are allowed by contract, so they have personal days, so depending on how many they have used, they can in fact take a personal day to
Barbara Shuckra: And the school system picks up the tab for that teacher?
Gary Mala: (inaudible)
Barbara Shuckra: Has anybody taken a look at how many substitutes have been paid, has anybody done a study on that, by any chance?
Gary Mala: I’m looking at Board members and I’m looking at some staff, but they are saying yes, but we can also look at it again.
Barbara Shuckra: Okay. (inaudible) and taking the buses, they are playing sports, they are paying for sports. It’s okay. You have to pay for this sport because sports aren’t costing $25 a year anymore; they are into heavy duty prices like the hockey. With that, I have a question about having a special person to teach children with English as a second language. Real quickly, my family, Polish, Buffalo, New York, east side, all of my parents, my mom’s uncle’s father’s grandfather’s, they went to Saturday Polish school, or English school or else they would have lost their jobs. Why aren’t these parents paying for Saturday classes so they can learn English rather than put that burden on the Avon taxpayers? I don’t need the applause; I’m just saying
that this is the way I feel in my heart. I don’t have much to say other than, has anybody requested an audit, can I go into any one of these school systems and sit in a classroom and actually watch them teach?
Thomas Harrison: Gary or Peggy? Would you like to reply to this and the previous question?
Peggy Roell: Yes, you may go in. Also to the other question, the English language learner, there is a federal mandate that we supply that education.
Barbara Shuckra: Does the federal government give us any money to do this?
Peggy Roell: A little bit, but not much.
Barbara Shuckra: Right, exactly. I have a question for you to, it was said that we don’t have some programs that other school systems do
Thomas Harrison: Please, let’s give the speaker a chance to be heard.
Barbara Shuckra: Our school system doesn’t have some of the offerings or classes that other schools have. I bet any teacher in New Britain would love to have the salary and benefits of the Avon teachers. (inaudible) Thank you.
Thomas Harrison: Okay. Thank you.
Sue Henneberry, 488 Huckleberry Hill Road: Good evening.
Thomas Harrison: All right, please. Let’s quiet down the buzz. Remember, you’re in your own homes now, so please.
Sue Henneberry: This evening, we heard from the Town Council and the Board of Education and they have identified the needs of our Town. Their budgets were developed over many months by the elected officials that we chose for the job. Tonight, they clearly described the reasons for their requests, spending increase, and I believe that they have done so in an ethical and responsible manner. Now, the Board of Finance has an opportunity to adjust these budget requests as they deem desirable. Frankly, in the past, I have felt that some members of the Board of Finance appear to arbitrarily make cuts to the requested budgets. The Town Charter does not provide guidance when it comes to what may or may not be deem desirable. If the members of the Board of Finance deem it desirable to reduce the current budget
requests, I would hope that they will be able to articulate their reasons for doing so in an ethical and responsible manner similar to what we have heard in the presentations tonight. As a citizen of Avon, I believe it is my ethical and responsible duty to pay my taxes to maintain a certain standard of living in my Town. This year, my proposed tax increase, based on the website, will be approximately $200. I believe that this is a fair and reasonable increase and I would like to have an opportunity to vote for this proposed budget as presented, at referendum. Please let the citizens deem what is desirable.
Thomas Harrison: Thank you, Sue. Okay, the next speaker please, sir?
Bill Buell, 18 Foxridge Lane: I feel like I have to follow Martin Luther King. I have lived in Avon for 35 years. Thank you for this opportunity. As an independent businessman and entrepreneur for 30 years, I think that what we are actually in is a new economic reality. There is not going to be complete recovery, because, as the other countries around the world become more successful, countries with older economies like ours, are going to have to adjust to a standard of living that we are not really used to. I think the requests for money this year, and in past years, is not really sensitive to this new economic reality. Thinking back to the last 20 years or so, a lot of, there just hasn’t been the kind of fiscal responsibility looking forward and that’s kind of what has gotten us into
this situation where, frankly, teacher’s salaries are so high. We are all required to do more with less. We have to transition from a situation where 25-30 years ago, teachers were under paid and we couldn’t keep them to the opposite situation we are in now, while there’s plenty of good teachers, there’s also a lot of teachers who are, frankly, hanging onto their jobs because of the benefits because they will not be able to get nearly as good of a job for pay in the private sector. There is a considerable amount of complacency there. There has been a lot of studies that show that there is not really any correlation between teacher’s pay and student performance. Teacher performance is a management issue; not a salary issue. So, how is it that the Town has gotten caught up in contractual obligations to teachers that soak up the resources that could be going to the students in the form of tech ed., sports, language,
science, and so forth. I think that the process of the union getting a Town’s pay (inaudible) and negotiation budget process is out of sync and the bargaining unit maybe doesn’t have the skill or the courage to be tough on the teacher’s union. Not only that, but we are not able to deal with the teacher’s salaries directly. The only thing that we can vote on is the 7% that’s left over and made to feel guilty if we vote it down. I don’t mean laying off teachers, I mean getting (inaudible) for the taxpayers and kids with the number of teachers we have. It’s a buyer’s market for hiring and there are plenty of teachers out there in other Towns in bad situations that would like to opportunity to teach in a Town like Avon.
Thomas Harrison: Thank you, sir. Linda, it’s all yours.
Linda Merlin, 48 High Gate Drive: Yes, after all these years, I do live here.
Thomas Harrison: And we are a better Town for it.
Linda Merlin: Thanks. The mission statement. I think this is new for the Town Council. Is it new?
Thomas Harrison: No.
Linda Merlin: No? Okay. I never saw it. To provide quality Town services, quality Town services at a reasonable cost to all citizens and taxpayers. Well, you can say that that’s what we do, but you can’t maintain and you have not maintained quality education and services in the Town on the taxes we have been allowed to vote on. And, I agree with Sue, it’s our ethical obligation and I view it as my ethical obligation to pay for taxes to support this Town. Now I’m going to read a short statement that, for those who think that we don’t need administrators or teachers are overpaid, you have no idea how lean are system is and how hard those that remain in our system work and what they pull off every day in our schools. Taxes, it’s a dirty word in this day and age. The tax is nothing more than a bill for services. Services rendered or services to be performed. I said it a few years ago, but it’s worth saying again. To paraphrase Oliver Wendell Holmes, with taxes you find
civilization. What kind of civilization do you all want to be a part of right here in Avon? What kind of Town do you want to live in? What kind of services do you want? Do you want your roads plowed and paved? Do you want your buildings maintained? Do you want your children educated in such a way as to be able to compete in this every more challenging world? What kind of future do you want for you and your children? And your families? What are you willing to pay for it? Tom, I know that you said that, you quoted some law on what you are allowed to do, but nothing is required of you to lower this budget before it’s put to a vote. So, if only the Board of Finance would let us answer these questions for ourselves rather than substitute their judgment for our own, we would really appreciate it. So, I’m asking you here tonight, please trust in the process. Trust in democracy and let the Town
decide. Please do not cut the proposed budgets that the Town Council and the Board of Education worked so hard to put together. Let us vote it up or down on its own merit. Thank you.
Thomas Harrison: Thank you, Linda.
Raymond Berti, 5 Wild Flower Terrace: I listened to the presentations and I want to thank the volunteers and the people here on the staff that manage the Town budget. I appreciate the fact that I believe that they have done a wonderful job managing our budget. The school system is a wonderful system and I applaud that. As a senior, I also support that, but I think it’s kind of unbalanced here. There are not too many seniors here tonight or that want to speak up, so I am doing it for them. Of all the presentations that I heard tonight, we have been responding to 75% of our budget or 70% of our budget on education. I haven’t heard anybody here discuss how this affects the vulnerable citizen, the citizens here in Town. If you want to know what this is doing to seniors, you have
to consider what’s happened in the last three or four years that’s devastating to many seniors. Our income has been devastated. We still are nowhere near where we hoped to be at this late stage in life, I think from tonight’s discussion, we need a study of how this Town provides tax relief for the most vulnerable people, our senior citizens, who are on fixed incomes. I think that what we need is a study to measure the needs at this particular time, which is unprecedented. I think we need a study to determine how the Town provides tax relief in Avon. Right now, I think the tax relief program we have in Avon is a very small amount. Do we have any idea of how tax relief, how these figures are toward seniors? Do we have a number?
Thomas Harrison: If we don’t, we can get it for you. If you give our Town Manger, do you have it? Harry?
Harry DerAsadourian: (inaudible)
Thomas Harrison: Thank you, Harry. That is Harry DerAsadourian, the Town Assessor.
Raymond Berti: (inaudible) is a small amount for our seniors. What I think we need is a study to see how the present needs of this Town, the seniors, in order to survive. It has been devastating. It’s not like in times past. I believe that you need to look at it and see how the tax relief is. The big factor is that you look at the gross income. You don’t look at deductions and especially seniors who pay their medical and all of the taxation. Let’s not ignore it, assess it and achieve tax relief for the Town of Avon should be looked at. It should be considered. Thank you.
Thomas Harrison: Thank you, sir. Sir, Mark Zacchio would like to respond.
Mark Zacchio: Actually, it’s not a response. Is it on? We do have
Thomas Harrison: Do we have a budget item for microphones?
Mark Zacchio: There are two types of tax relief programs we have looked at. We do look at this each year. We will certainly take this under advisement; we will talk about it at our next Council meeting. As a matter of fact, this Thursday, there is a circuit breaker program, that’s the one we implore through the Town today, it basically gives relief to taxpayers over a certain age that meet a certain requirement of income. I believe that income index is up to $45,000 a year and you still qualify for a variance for a percentage tax relief program. If you are not aware of it, I encourage you to contact Harry. If anyone is not aware of it and would like to think about it and contact Harry, you can talk about the program. The other type of program, as I understand it, the one Bob Paine spoke
about earlier tonight, where you can actually have a freeze program. I am unaware of what West Hartford does but have been on their website recently in the past couple of days and I told him that I would look into it, however, our understanding of how that works is that you could freeze seniors taxes at a certain level, but then you lien the difference against their house over a period of time and collect that at such time that house is sold. That is not a program that we sought to put in place here over the past years, but it is something that we can look at.
Raymond Berti: (inaudible) Times has changed over the past three years and seniors have in a bad place.
Mark Zacchio: Agreed. We actually looked at the program each year and we did actually review the program this year. I will look at it.
Raymond Berti: You need to consider more of the income that is being spent by seniors and with medical benefits (inaudible)
Mark Zacchio: I understand.
Thomas Harrison: Thank you, sir and thank you, Mark. You’re very patient.
Robert Starr, 10 Stockbridge Drive: I have lived here with my family for about a year and a half.
Thomas Harrison: Sir, could you please face toward us?
Robert Starr: Okay, I was addressing the crowd. Okay, Robert Starr, I reside at 10 Stockbridge Drive in Avon for about 18 months. I think the budget is a very important issue. This is my first time really getting involved in Town budgets.
Thomas Harrison: I hope it’s not the last.
Robert Starr: Oh, it won’t be. I think, really a couple of things. One, my family and I relocated here 18 months ago. We had a number of choices in Towns that we could have moved to. We have three young boys, our oldest is 6 and he just entered into the school system last year. We have another one coming in this year. The single most important reason why we chose to live in Avon was the schools. Period. It wasn’t the location. Avon is 20 minutes from a highway. It’s beautiful and scenic, there are nice people, but it was the school that attracted us to the Town. And when you look at the school budget, 90 plus percent of the increase relates to salaries and benefits for our teachers. I do think we have wonderful teachers and I think they do a great
job and it’s wonderful to watch my older son grow, you know, he’s in first grade and the learning that goes on is just tremendous and it is critical that he is in the right environment. And it’s very disheartening to think that you would consider cutting the school budget on account of the fact that the teachers, which are getting benefits and salaries which far exceed what’s in the private sector. My company recently had to cut the budget because we couldn’t afford it as a company. That continues with teachers unions, to continue granting benefits and no one in the private sector seems to be able to have. That the children would bear the brunt of this is very disheartening and I would ask, similar to the other woman who said earlier, that the budget be put to the full community and let the community decide if it makes sense to us as taxpayers. I empathize that these are difficult times and people are restrained. I
don’t even care to have my taxes increased more than the next person, but it’s for our children’s education. It’s critical. They are our future. Thank you.
Thomas Harrison: Thank you, sir.
Roy Schwartz, 26 Buckingham Road: I am a senior in Town and I have children that live in Town and their children who are in the school system here in Avon. And I just want to speak as the senior who is in support of the education budget. As the previous speaker mentioned, I strongly strongly believe that it is the school system that determines the reputation of the Town and is what attracts people to our Town. The problems of seniors in the Town, I think, are relatively few. We are a relatively well off Town and I think the budget increase that is being asked by the school system is not, by any stretch of the imagination is excessive. I also believe that the complaints about the addition of administrators or senior staff relative to the school district is well justified, and that, I’m sorry, that
criticism is not justified but the additions are well justified. If people expect the school district to improve, then change, the change comes from leadership. Change will not come from abandoning the future of the school system. And I think that in order to accomplish the type of change we want to improve the schools, we need tight leadership and I think this new Superintendent is the person who can do it. Thank you.
Thomas Harrison: Thank you, sir.
Julie Tacinelli, 212 Cold Spring Road: During the presentations that were made, you said that the Board of Finance’s role, is that you need to see that the fund requests are reasonable, which I think most of us feel that the whole budget is reasonable. They are not asking for things. It has been cut so much to the bare bones that it is reasonable and within the ability of the Town to raise it. Avon still has one of the lowest mill rates in the area of all comparable Towns. We are in the bottom e 60% of the State for mill rates; we are in the top 10% per capita income; one of the wealthiest Towns not only in Connecticut but in the country. I totally agree that there should be more tax relief, not just for seniors, but for low income residents of Avon. But the fact is that Avon is a very wealthy
Town and it is definitely within the ability of the Town to raise this money, whether you would (inaudible) by giving taxing relief to people who can’t afford the increase or not is the tough decision and that I would urge you to do it equitably, but I don’t believe that it’s not within the means of the Town to pay. Secondly, on the administrator issue, we have the lowest number of administrators in both the district and at the individual school level compared to all of the comparable Towns in the area. One to 239 administrators in Avon compared to 1-172 to Simsbury. If you look, we are up for accreditation. I, just sitting here was looking at the accreditation standards on the web and what it says under curriculum, according to, let’s see, my reading of it, Avon would currently be deficient or limited in this area because we don’t have (inaudible) review and development, materials, technology and it goes on and on and on.
We have cut so many curriculum positions that we are down to basically the curriculum being managed by the Superintendent, where all of the other schools have specific staff members across the board and across the different school levels. So, it’s an area that needs to be picked up, not cut.
Thomas Harrison: Thank you.
Robin Schwartz, 88 Harris Road: No relation to Roy. That the economy is a factor is a decision that, it’s certainly one that we have heard a lot about because they are commenting on, although I am supposed to pretend that I’m in my living room, I will spare you what has happened in our home and what we have stretched. But, despite that, I would vote to pass the budget as proposed by the Board of Education and the Town of Avon because I would prefer to vote in favor of each proposal then to leave things up to chance. And I think that’s what the alternative sounds like it is. I prefer to vote on this budget than to, for example, have a chance that the high school accreditation will not be compliant. I would prefer to vote on the budget the way it is than to take the chance that another Town
bridge might deteriorate or a road might not make it through the next winter, let’s hope it’s not as bad as this one was. The chance that we might not be able to comply with some of the technology needs Town wide, I think it’s a concern. And other chances. And I’m not a gambling person in that way and I think that a lot of you that I know on the Board of Finance or on either Board. I do agree that maybe we need to dig deeper to see what’s going on with seniors and other people in the community that are in need and I would pay more taxes for someone else to get relief. But, I think we need to have a budget that takes into account all of these things, but so much of this budget is what is required, not what is necessarily desired. That’s one of the realities of things these days, and I can appreciate that. But, I also agree with Mark Twain when he said that the health of our country is based on the system
of public education. And I think that we need to be careful at this time when considering alternatives and not devalue the process that makes our Town the one that we call home. Thank you.
Thomas Harrison: Thank you, Robin.
Gina Aube, 68 Northgate: Thank you so much for having us here tonight. I am in favor of you allowing us to vote on the proposals. Having been coming to the presentations for seven years, I think I have seen the slide many times, the slide, I think it’s slide number three, the Board of Finance’s role is to balance. It is each of our jobs to balance, to make sure what we are doing in our households reflects the money that we have, reflects the desires we have in our children and our families. That’s why we moved to a Town like this. All of the elected officials and sit behind me or next to me are doing a fabulous job. I read the minutes, I follow the Board of Education and I follow the Town budget. They are doing a great job. We are blessed to live in a community where we
have such hard working qualified, dedicated, fabulous, parents and teachers, students and elected officials. When we don’t let our Town vote on what they recommend, then we are doing what is reflected in this picture. Everybody is not working together. We don’t teach this in our schools. We don’t teach this in our churches. We need to work together. We are all on the same team here. And when you have this dollar bill stretching, you’re not respecting what we are supposed to do. You are the Board of Finance and need to determine what is reasonable to make sure that every dollar spent is spent (inaudible). It is truly a bare bones budget and to me, it should reflect the efforts of the months of meetings and commitments of all these people. I think we should take this into account. I think we should reflect on the minutes, they are all on the website, to see how hard and how much effort has gone
into these. (inaudible) to make sure we have that here. Please give us the opportunity, for each household to make the decision that they want to give up, vacations, meals, whatever it takes to pay the taxes to make sure the school system remains strong. Thank you.
Thomas Harrison: Thank you very much.
Andy Wert, 41 Buckingham Road: I have been attending these meetings for the past 7 years or so and I appreciate the hard work that everyone has put in to this. But, having participated in this process for the last few years, I have seen the schools cut programs. I have seen the strings programs being cut. I acknowledge that there are unfunded mandates that are an increase burden on the teachers and administration. One of the things that were mentioned, coordinating the curriculum. There was a lot of discussion about that. I know our children are introduced to the American Revolution several times in the course of their time at the school and there is a lot of work that is required of the schools to mold those activities together. One of the things that happens, a lot of the people feel, they
ask what happens, they feel that their voices are not being heard. I know that even last year, there were a lot of people who came out in support of the budget process to have their voices heard. Many people did not even come out because they felt that their voices, that would be presented to, I believe that the people here who have a vested interest and they are watching very closely with what is happening, are not doing it in any negative fashion at all. I am asking that you just allow the voices to be heard and you allow that there be an up or down vote. Thank you.
Thomas Harrison: Thank you, sir.
Mitchell Piper, 129 Stagecoach Road: Good evening. Before I read my statement, I think I speak for a lot of people of parents in this Town, that I am willing to pay more if it means that the senior citizens on a fixed income can pay less. JFK said that the world’s most valuable resource and the best hope for our future is our children. That statement rings as true today as it did 50 years ago. Since moving to Avon in 2003, I have been continually disillusioned by the declining state of our public schools. We have an innovative and tireless administration, some of the finest teachers in New England and yes, each year our students excel in standardized test scores in the area of math and English. Many of you look at these scores and say where is the decline? The decline that I am referring to is
in our ability to prepare our children for the 21st century. Too many people appear to have an education that is strictly 19th century. A 21st century education is bold. It breaks the mold. It is flexible, creative, challenging and complex. It addresses a rapidly changing world filled with fantastic possibilities in the areas of global warming, green technology, globalization and the challenges of a media society. As many of you know, Avon lags behind our neighboring schools in these areas. While we debate adding another section of French to our already limited language offerings, Glastonbury provides Manderin and Russian in their middle schools. While we seek approval of a part time virtual classroom, our neighbors in Simsbury are adding courses in biotechnical engineering and aerospace technology. But Avon has lost all of our course offerings in the area of family and consumer sciences,
Simsbury offers culinary arts one, two and three. Some in our community call this a myth of starvation. They see this objective and even claim that it is not true. I would say to those people in our community and to this Board, to go online and read the curriculums of our neighboring schools. You will see that it is not a myth, it is not subjective and it is indeed true. The debate is no longer whether Avon schools have declined over the past decade, but how far. We can no longer ignore the fact that we spend $1,000 less per student than our neighbors in Simsbury. We need to start comparing dollars spent to dollars spent as it is directly related to course offerings. And we need to stop bickering and stop misleading Avon residents about things that we cannot change such as State and Federal mandates and contracting teacher’s salaries and benefits. Tom, you asked us to speak respectfully this evening. I would ask that
you would return the respect by allowing us to vote on the proposed budgets without cuts.
Thomas Harrison: Thank you, Mitch.
Florence Stahl, 2 Sunset Trail: How can you have one of the lowest per pupil cost in the region and at the same time have the highest salaries in the same region? What does that say about diverted resource? Where is the shared sacrifice? Endless repeated myths such as starvation don’t make them true. It’s in the eyes of the beholder. Did the Board of Education get everything they asked for every year? No, but darn close. Avon’s education grew at an annual rate of 4.5% in the past five years and in the years before that, it grew even more. We have invested more than $100 million in new school construction and remodeling to keep pace with student enrollment. That record could be put up against any school district. If you want to call that starvation, then go
right ahead. How about this? Year after year spending increases will bankrupt Avon in the not so distant future. Again, where is the shared sacrifice? Not enough money, programs? The Board of Education knows exactly what the budget drivers are, how to allocate resources are policy decisions. Are they trying to make those decisions our problems? Where is the shared sacrifice? And don’t tell us about the concessions made with great fanfare just before the budget referendum last year and don’t tell about feeling the pain of senior citizens or reduced services throughout the Town. Where is the shared sacrifice? Major increases in this time of the recession, large tax increases that far exceed inflation in this time of the recession? Financial restraint, not hysteria and not myths of starvation should govern our fiscal policy. Thank you.
Thomas Harrison: Thank you, Flo.
Karen Cianci, 21 Volovski Road: I just want to point out that that I saw a Town Council person leaving at 8:30. I know that he’s a sports fan and I too am a sports fan and there are a lot of people in this Town that are UCONN fans and I know, I don’t know who booked this meeting, this important meeting on April 4th. And April 4th was a date certain in the NCA playoffs. But, I would like to mention to Flo that there is shared sacrifice every day in the school system when the teachers make it to work on time every single day, they are charming and looking great and they are on target every single day and I think what I want to say is that there is really no need for any shared sacrifice. And we now have a new Superintendent who I am sure will work closely with the Assistant
Superintendent to partner and cut costs in the school budget which we do need. This is not an either or situation. I don’t think people realize this. I think we are trying to cut costs, but also provide the best education for our children. I think everyone is in a frenzy thinking that we are on a spending spree. Tom, I would appreciate it if you would not cut me off only because I practiced this with my daughter tonight to make sure I stayed within the three minutes.
Thomas Harrison: Do it as close as you can, please.
Karen Cianci: I will. I moved to Avon 17 years ago from Boston by way of Newington, CT and the reason I suggest Avon to my husband is because I am a strong believer in the best education possible. I went to a very selective magnet school in Boston where we studied Latin four years. And I will tell you we had one of the highest SAT scores in reading. But, for nine years, I have been attending these public hearing, much of which are a formality dictated by the Town Charter. I understand this. Avon residents who attend the public hearing are all on different levels of the learning curve. The learning curve of the budget is a steep learning curve because of the lack of transparency regarding the budget, the lack of education and I’m not talking about the education, when you put up the
numbers, Tom, but I’m talking about the education of the policies of the budget where you read each line and you understand really what happens. And, I’m going to run out of time, but the goal for the citizens of Avon is answering this problem by providing transparency and education regarding the budget. It is a welcome resource. (inaudible) and by posting them online. Why don’t we change things up a little bit
Thomas Harrison: Okay, just one final thought.
Karen Cianci: Why don’t we change things up a little bit and have the Town Manager speak at a public hearing or the Superintendent. I just found out that the Superintendent did speak. But, why not get some input and ad another dimension to this public hearing, this all important meeting that we have once a year, why not have the (inaudible) for Avon get up and speak as a group. Why not? Let’s take a wild and crazy chance on doing that. And then
Thomas Harrison: Okay, that’s about it. Just one final
Karen Cianci: Okay. I am really opposed to the fact that the Board of Finance arbitrarily cuts the budget simply because the Charter gives them that authority. I am so angered at that because it is condescending to us. It’s like telling your children, because I told you so. When you tell your child because I told you so, it’s okay to say that when they try to push the envelope, but when it’s because they don’t understand what it means, and people don’t understand the rules of the budget, Tom. And I think you’re using that almost abusively and you’re using that as an abusive authority, I think. Do not cut the budget. Let us go and vote. Everyone is doing their part to cut costs. Let the budget go as it is. Thank you.
Bill Hooper: Karen, you just said arbitrary, cut.
Karen Cianci: I haven’t heard any explanations.
Bill Hooper: I offered you to come to my office last year. I spent 80 hours going through that budget book and at the end you agreed with me. When you say arbitrarily cut something, that’s a person attack and insult to me.
Karen Cianci: Well, okay, I expect all Board of Finance members to be able to get up and present their explanations at a meeting such as this.
Bill Hooper: We are right here.
Karen Cianci: Why not
Thomas Harrison: This is not the time. There are still other people here that would like to
Karen Cianci: Just one more thing. I saw on TV that the Mayor of Waterbury personally took it upon himself, which would be equivalent to the Town Manager in this Town, to
Thomas Harrison: Karen, Karen, you’re at the end of your time. Karen, you have made your points very clearly and
Karen Cianci: (inaudible)
Thomas Harrison: Thank you, Karen.
Scott Bernard, 2 Churchill Place: I get tired. I get tired of advocating for mediocrity. I get tired of debating of how much our curriculum and resources have been cut. I get tired of apples and oranges comparisons with other school budgets that ignore Avon’s spiral student enrollment. I certainly get tired of people saying (inaudible) education but not good teachers. And listening to folks tonight, it seems like the debate is no longer, has Avon’s school system declined in the last decade, but it’s really how far. Today, 87% of the school systems in the State spend more per student than we do. Last week, the budget that you saw in the paper that got a real black eye when Simsbury’s School Superintendent was using Avon to describe, in her words, gutted. Our
curriculum and described the $1,000 less in student spending, is really a sign of a school system in decline. I think people would agree that the reputation of our schools to attract the residents and businesses to expand their tax base and to raise property values. Right in front of you, you have the proposed budgets for the Town and the schools. They went through months of expert financial analysis and rigorous public scrutiny and media. I have to ask the people, Mr. Hooper, last year you did a great job here, and how you went through the budget very carefully and that was impressive, but I am going to ask the Board, do all of you have the same time, resources and expertise to really go through this budget line by line and really understand it and appreciate it enough so you could challenge the budget that are exceeding the amounts that are reasonably necessary to run our schools in Town. If you don’t find glaring errors, if you don’t
find big gaps in the judgment of the people who delivered it to you, doesn’t it make sense to go ahead and put it forward to the public? Don’t substitute your own judgment, let the public vote it up or down. We have heard in the past years that the Board of Finance tries to avoid failed referendums by lowering the amount proposed. In truth last year, we had a very significant record breaking yes vote and it was the fourth largest budget increase in the decade. I think that’s proof that our community is ready for a larger budget increase. And when the Board of Finance says that they are afraid of a failed referendum, what I think it’s possible that you are worried that it will pass. I think everyone needs a fresh start. I think we need confidence in our school system and our infrastructure and you claim our reputation is a shining community and residents and businesses will be drawn. We need to vote and show our
support to Town leaders who share the same vision. I think we are very fortunate. We have a couple of great Town leaders this year. We have Gary Mala, the Superintendent, and we have Brandon Robertson, the new Town Manager. Both have been here about a year or less, in Gary’s case not as much, but both have excellent track records of turning around communities and giving them a fresh start. But, we have to support that by giving them the budget they need. If you are ready for a fresh start, I would encourage people to ask the Board of Finance to support these budgets. Thanks.
Thomas Harrison: Thank you.
Richard Burkett, 40 School Street: I have lived here for almost 40 years. I have no children in the school right now, but it seems that the taxes keep rising in this Town.
Thomas Harrison: Excuse me. Could you please keep it down? It’s distracting to speakers.
Richard Burkett: Some people here (inaudible). It seems like the Board here is looking towards our interest. Many people here have talked about money increases education. When I first moved here in Avon, the little school on Huckleberry Hill was still working. It was about a four room school. And that school, people came out about that school and people said that their children were not getting the education they needed. The thing was that they shut down the school. But, the kids in the Huckleberry Hill had the highest grades of all of the district. That goes to show you that providing special education (inaudible). I worked on a lot of these schools. Almost every school in Avon I have worked on. I don’t know what department that falls under, but they spend a
lot of money on special stuff that they don’t need. (inaudible) You don’t need a contractor to come out for $150,000 to tell you what you need (inaudible) and I can’t qualify for that because of my social security. I think I make too much. If I figure in my social security, and I think other people got the same letter, we didn’t get a raise this year and we didn’t get a raise last year because of inflation. So we are stuck. (inaudible) the same way we have to spend. Thank you.
Thomas Harrison: Thank you, sir. Did you speak previously? Could you just wait? There are still a couple of people who haven’t spoken yet.
Anya Bernard, 2 Churchill Place: Thank you Mr. Harrison and thank you to the Board for giving us the opportunity to stand in front of you tonight. This time last year, the Board of Finance hesitantly approved a 4.4% budget increase, noting their reluctance on the fact that the community has not historically supported a (inaudible) increase in many years. However, the community proved your hesitation wrong by approving the historic 4.4% increase. The largest increase in many years. The record number of voters who came together to support the increase was clear evidence that Avon is ready for a fresh start. There is no reason to believe that a similar budget increase would not be supported this year by the community. Over 1,600 petitions were signed last year and over 3,200 voters came out to support
the budget. The same is likely to happen this year, therefore, we assert that the Board of Finance is obligated to support the will of the people and allow the budget to be voted by the Town’s people in full, without any cuts from the Board of Finance. Thank you.
Thomas Harrison: Have both of you fellas? Okay.
Greg Jackson, 26 Old King’s Road: I am going to read a few things. My family and I moved here three years ago. Just like one of the gentlemen earlier, we selected Avon was because of the schools. That was the primary factor. We came from California. Huge difference. And we came from a good school district in California. The size of the classrooms and the opportunities that the children had in the curriculum was dramatically different. I would ask that the Board of Finance to give the people the opportunity to look and to vote on this budget. We live in a community, Avon is a special community, yet we don’t have businesses, so we don’t have an opportunity to raise that tax income. The income for the schools has to come out of the people that live here. And that’s one of the special things about Avon, too. It’s a real community. What this community offers, as well as the school system. So, we have to pay that and I accept that. And I think that sometimes we forget that
we live in a democracy and I would say, please let people speak and let the people decide. The budgets were not put together arbitrarily. There is a lot of thought put into it. A lot of experts and a lot of people who went over the books a lot. They cut these to the bone, I believe. So, please let the people decide what they are willing to pay for that increase. Thank you.
Thomas Harrison: Thank you, sir. Have you spoken? Okay, thank you. You’re very patient.
Charles Tuma, 31 Lexington Road: You have heard a lot of comments tonight (inaudible) and let the people vote. I just want to remind the Board that the United States is a democratic republic. Okay? It’s not a pure democracy. You were elected to represent the 90%, the 90% of the population of Avon that isn’t here tonight to speak out. Okay? So, while they are all in favor of a 4 or 5% increase, if you want to do a two or two and a half, I think that’s reasonable. But, you don’t ask for (inaudible) and a budget with declining enrollment. I just don’t see how that makes sense. If using an out of salary (inaudible) new equivalent FTDs, that’s 60,000 a year, it’s over a half of a million in new staff that you add to the budget that, you know, the
steady decline of students, I don’t understand why you need to spend that extra money when you’re still getting a good bang for your buck from the best teachers in the State but yet, they always have to go for that little increment to get more. If you could live with a two or two and a half percent increase, I would support that. Thank you.
Thomas Harrison: Thank you, sir. Do you fellas want to flip to see who goes first?
Raymond Berti: I want to thank you for allowing me to speak. I would like to talk about long term affect for where we are going and then I would like to give you records so you can look at it
Thomas Harrison: Sir, sir, could you just state your name again for the minutes?
Raymond Berti: Raymond Berti.
Thomas Harrison: Okay, because it will be in the minutes.
Raymond Berti: There is an article in Business Week this week that talks about the (inaudible) and also there is another article on the front page of the Wall Street Journal today that discusses the plight of senior citizens and what’s going on now and in the last two years. You should read those articles to get a feel for the long term (inaudible) Thank you.
Thomas Harrison: Thank you. And again, please repeat your name.
Robert Starr: Robert Starr. A couple of things. One is I think we tend to look at the budgeting in a short term view on a year to year basis without truly taking a longer term view on the value that education plays in our society. And I really believe, as a father of young children, that I am putting my trust in the school system in Avon. I am really putting a huge stake in the education quality that my children receive. If you look at a 4.4% increase, yes, I know it’s difficult, but folks like myself who have moved to this Town and are bringing jobs to the area and are spending tax dollars and spending responsibly. If you degrade the education system here in Avon, young families are just going to cease to move here. And what is going to happen is an accelerated decline that will create
far greater longer term issue for Avon than it currently has right now. And I think that we really have to look at the education and I think that Superintendent Mala said it best, that it’s an asset of the Town. This is not an expenditure. We are educating our children. Another question that I would like to ask, two questions, the Avon Town Charter. When was the last time that was updated, in terms of the role of the Board of Finance having the, basically the leeway over the budget. When was that last updated?
Thomas Harrison: The last charter revision was in 1999 and implemented the referendum. The definition of the role of the Board of Finance predated my arrival. I don’t believe, does anybody know? Phil Schenck would know. Does anybody know when Avon adopted the form of government?
Robert Starr: Okay.
Thomas Harrison: 1959?
Caroline LaMonica: 1959.
Thomas Harrison: 1959. Okay.
Robert Starr: Okay, but in all fairness, the Board of Finance does do a lot of work and they are under appreciated, but it’s probably time, in my view, that the Charter gets looked at again regarding the ability of the discretion of the Board of Finance that they have over the budget process. I think a lot of what you are hearing tonight is (inaudible). The other question I have, and we don’t have a lot of other options in terms of revenues, but my question is, should we be considering more businesses to set up shop in Avon on Route 44 or elsewhere to improve the commercial pace? (inaudible) single family homes are bearing the majority of the burden. Are we doing all that we can to create, to bring businesses here?
Thomas Harrison: Mark Zacchio, do you want to respond to that?
Mark Zacchio: Sure. This time it’s on. We do a fair amount of recruiting businesses in the Town here. I think what limits us, unlike some of our surrounding Towns like Farmington, is Avon’s geographic properties at 22 and a half square miles, is the very limited space in order to actually have a commercial base here. So, retail base up and down Route 44 is what has grown over the years. Commercial based, however, are reserved for those areas that are set aside. There is Avon Park South, Avon Park North. We do have some vacancies in Avon Park South, the old Hartford building at 38 Security Drive. But we are working with some builders on what might becoming a mixed-use community or might become something with retail or could perhaps be more industrial based. But, really
the geographic limits of Avon, I think is what limits our ability to attract more businesses. Reflexite is a major anchor in Avon Park South on, near the Pond Place entrance. It is actually currently doing renovations, moving part of the operation from New Britain to Avon because of the tax advantages in Avon and because they want to make Avon their permanent home in terms of a corporate presence. So, again, the geographic limits somewhat restrain us from other businesses, but we do, Brandon, you can speak to it if there is more to say.
Robert Starr: Thank you.
Thomas Harrison: Thank you, sir. Have you spoken yet?
Bob Bullis: I have been a resident for over 30 years here. My kids went through the school system, at least part way and then we elected to go to private school. Tonight, I am a little confused. I heard a lot of people come up here and say you didn’t give us a chance to vote on a budget that was originally proposed last year. But, if I understand things right, if the budget had been voted down, then it would have gone to a second referendum and have a new vote and a new proposal. Is that correct?
Thomas Harrison: Yes, the Charter allows three votes total through referendum.
Bob Bullis: So, I guess the finance committee has taken a beating tonight for no reason at all. That’s my number one. Number two, what also concerns me is that you take 4.4% increase over five years, incrementally over each year. That amounts to a 25% total increase. In other words, for the dollar your spending today on the budget, you’re going to have to, it’s essentially $1.25 and if you pay it out in ten years, you can see what happens. And, by the way, I don’t know where everybody is, but California seems to have a $3 trillion problem with their finances, which is the finances of what we promise people that we are going to give them when they retire based on their salaries. And we are building the same problem here and I think it’s dishonest to continue that process. We have to contain this in a manner that the Town can really handle. There aren’t too many other options. I hear all of the cases for the school system but we’re not looking at the big picture. And the
big picture is going to kill us. Thank you.
Thomas Harrison: Thank you, sir. The people who haven’t spoken first.
Barbara Ausiello, 11 Fall Brook: I just have a question. With all of the numbers that we received, someone was talking earlier about the senior tax programs in Avon and I don’t see anything. Is there any information on how that program in Avon compares to other Towns?
Mark Zacchio: Most of the Towns around us have the same circuit breaker program that we have. We can tax by the total amount of salary or income that can come into the household as qualified. We are right around the middle range of communities around us. We are slightly outpaced. I think we are at an index of $45,000. Am I right? $45,000 right now. Simsbury might be around 50 and Farmington is around 42. So, we are right in that range. I hit them? We are right around in the middle. We do look at the program each year and if we index them higher or lower and we left it where it was.
Thomas Harrison: Okay. Thank you. Sir, were you going to speak?
Joseph Bartosiewicz, 5 Colby Way: Okay, Thank you. I am here last because I think I have a lot of experience in businesses. I manage more than $440 million with over 1,200 clients. One of my top clients is, I’m not supposed to tell you this, but I will tell you, that one of my clients will be moving out of the State of Connecticut next year with 16,000 employees gone. And you won’t find out until next year. The reason why is because the tax base is just too high. They cannot compete. So, you watch, next year, 16,000 employees will be gone, more than 70,000 families in the State. Not that I don’t care about anything else, but you know, I do. But I just want to tell you that I am here tonight to speak about the concerns that the private sector have with the
continuing growth of teacher’s salaries and the total inequity between the Board of Education workers, including teachers, principals, support staff, that are paid mostly in the private sector, and according to Kipplinger magazine, as of 2010, less than 11% of all private corporations have defined benefit plans. 80-90% do not. The public sector, state workers, teachers, police, more than 85% of all public workers have a pension, most based on the highest three years of all the overtime they can pack in, including all of the private work, sleeping at McDonald’s, working at watching the hole. (inaudible) have received dramatic inequalities in salaries, benefits and pensions that CNBC said that growth in the public sector is a tsunami that can destroy viability in this country. I’m not done yet. According to Kipplinger, CNBC, a comparison between the private sector workers who had the same education, the same general experience,
and the same degree, found out that the public sector makes 40-44% more than the private sector. 118% more in benefits and more than 600% more in pension benefits than the private sector. Why? Because of binding arbitrations, unions will it, Towns pay it and the people grin and bear it. The private sector can’t go to Bill Gates and say, listen Bill, because of binding arbitration, we want to get a salary raise or we are walking. He said, there’s the door. According to, it says, do you think Avon school system teachers will leave the salaries if the benefits were frozen? No. The best school teachers are not in Connecticut. The average teacher’s salary outside of this State makes $56,000 a year. We pay between $80,000-$95,000 plus 70-80% of their highest three years plus full health care. One thing, my health care just doubled this month. It went from $1,250 per month to $2,500 per month with a
$5,000 deductible because of Obama. If you don’t stop the rise in the public sector, this State is gone.
Tom Gugliotti: Do you think we can affect Mr. Obama here?
Thomas Harrison: Thank you. Is there anybody here that has not spoken yet but would like to? Okay, Karen, back to you.
Karen Cianci: The last speaker spoke about the public sector and included the teachers in the public sector. I would like to not include teachers in the public sector because I don’t see any teachers sitting around in the donut shop. I see them working extremely hard. Their salaries may be similar to the public sector, but they are not sitting around in the whole. But, I want to say, Tom, as the Chairman, the Charter has not been revised since 1959?
Thomas Harrison: No, 1999.
Karen Cianci: Oh, 1999? I though, no that was just the portion
Thomas Harrison: No, there were two parts to the question. When was the last time it was revised, which was 1999 and when did the Board of Finance, that was 1959.
Karen Cianci: All right, so, okay, so,
Thomas Harrison: Intermediate revisions
Karen Cianci: That was just to do the part for the referendums.
Mr. Gugliotti: The Charter was reviewed in 1999. The entire Charter was reviewed in 1999.
Karen Cianci: It was opened? And the only change was to put in the referendum?
Mr. Gugliotti: That’s correct.
Thomas Harrison: Correct. When you open the Charter, anything goes.
Karen Cianci: I would suggest opening the Charter again.
Thomas Harrison: There is a process to do that. You can petition the Town Council to create a Charter Review Commission. This was discussed last summer and about the conflict of interest policy of the Board of Education (inaudible) the Charter. You can petition the Council to create a Charter Revision Commission or you can
Karen Cianci: How many signatures do you need?
Mr. Gugliotti: This is out of order for the budget hearing.
Thomas Harrison: Yes, we are really getting beyond, Karen, but it’s a legitimate question. You need a certain number of signatures, do you recall? I think it’s a certain percentage of registered voters. I don’t, you can get the answer, Karen. But, I do agree with Tom, this is really germane to this hearing.
Karen Cianci: No, I just wanted to make it as a suggestion.
Thomas Harrison: Okay, final? Okay, one more? Are we saving the best for last? How’s the game going? Have you heard?
Neil Livingston, 120 Craigmore Circle: I think the Board of Finance, in my opinion is the stewards of our taxes and tax increases. So, I support them. There was a little bit of talk about a bare bones budget, but I think I thought I saw some increases of 3% in salaries across the board. So, bare bones to me would be to sustain the salaries at what they were. That’s about all I have to say. I have sent a lot of emails to a lot of you, so I just wanted to give you a chance to take a look at me and who I am. Last year, I didn’t do it because I didn’t expect the budget to pass, but so what I did this year, I kind of sent it to you privately, Tom, instead of drag it out into the wide open, but I just wanted to let you know that, the Board of Finance, I look forward to see what will go to
referendum.
Thomas Harrison: Thank you, Neil.
Susan Davey, 11 Edwards Road: I have a brief statement prepared but Mitch did a much better job than I am going to do, so, I am just going to read the last paragraph. (inaudible) I believe are the key to the Town’s economic viability along with parks and library, they are the soul of a community. Communities like Simsbury, which we spoke about this evening, after hearing the cutting words from their Superintendent, Simsbury residents understand this and are willing to invest accordingly. Their tax dollars are helping to prepare future leaders by expanding curriculum to meet new and evolving realities, not gutting it to appease the short sighted. And just a little not there, Simsbury offers four times and maybe even five times the electives. They have whole subject matters that don’t even exist
in Avon. They start foreign language in 6th grade. They have more offerings than we even have in foreign language. It makes a difference. Avon’s teachers and administrators should be admired for having academic excellence in spite of scarce resources. But we can do more than perform well on standardized testing. The test scores do not equate to a good education. Our children deserve better and our future depends on it. And, Gary, I was hoping that you would say your line, Mr. Mala, at the Board of Education meeting, a line which I has written down and, hopefully I remember it, and he said, he believes that it is time for Avon to begin to consider education it’s single greatest investment and not it’s single largest expenditure. And I think that’s really where we are right now. And I hope that the Board of Finance will listen to those who are speaking this evening and give us the
opportunity to vote on the proposed budget.
7. 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 2, 2011, at the Avon Senior Center Community Room, 635 West Avon Road, Avon, CT, 7:00 p.m. and will be submitted to vote at Referendum on May 11, 2011, 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.
Thomas Harrison: Thank you, Susan. Going once, going twice. Anybody else? Where you standing to say something else? Oh, just stretching? Okay, well, thank you all very much. This was a very enlightening and informative meeting and we appreciate you coming. The meeting is adjourned.
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