Minutes from the Special Meeting of the Legislative Council held on Wednesday, April 1, 2009, in the auditorium of the Newtown High School, 12 Berkshire Road, Sandy Hook, CT. Chairman William Rodgers opened the meeting at 7:34 pm.
PRESENT: Joseph Hemingway, Patricia Llodra, Jan Brookes, John Aurelia, Sr., Francis Pennarola, William Rodgers, John Torok, Po Murray, Joseph DiCandido, Daniel Amaral and Jeffery Capeci.
ABSENT: Gary Davis
ALSO PRESENT: First Selectman Joseph Borst, Finance Director Robert Tait, Police Chief Michael Kehoe, and 25 members of the public.
DISCUSSION AND POSSIBLE ACTION: Review of proposed 2009/2010 Budget as presented from the Board of Finance and possible use of newly created right add local questions t to the referendum.
According to Mr. Rodgers, the Council members do not anticipate changing the bottom lines of either the Town Budget or the Board of education Budget. The Council will be dealing primarily with line item changes on the Board of Selectman’s budget, and with the issue of advisory questions and whether the Town will have any.
PUBLIC PARTICIPATION:
Marianne Jacobs, 65 Mohawk Trail, Sandy Hook, presented Council members with a copy of a letter the Newtown PTA Presidents sent out to all the school parents.
“We are concerned this budget may not pass on April 28th due to division among education supporters; this will only result in further reductions,” the PTA Presidents noted in the letter. “Our Superintendent has publically stated and the Board of Education has stated in a recent letter that they support the passage of the budget. There is no precedence to suggest that a no vote will result in raising the budget. In fact two years ago a “Vote No” campaign was initiated to reduce the Selectman’s budget. Unfortunately after the budget was defeated, the education budget was further reduced. Additionally, our ability to borrow, and the rate at which we borrow are both affected by repeated budget votes.”
The letter went on to discuss facts and monetary amounts related to the budget which have been addressed at prior legislative council meetings.
“We believe that a passable budget needs to appeal to a wide range of voters. Education is an essential component to the budget: however, additional aspects also need to be addressed in order to gain acceptance in the community,” the PTA Presidents summarized.
Kevin Fitzgerald, 24 Old Farm Hill Road, expressed his concerns regarding the school’s unknown insurance financials and the underfunded budget for education.
According to Mr. Fitzgerald, it’s no secret that thousands of yes votes are made every year not because all the voters want the proposed budget to be defended, but they fear that the only result of a defeated budget is more cuts to education and town services. So they go ahead and vote yes, possibly not knowing that a no vote can lead to the Legislative council restoring funds if they so chose.
To help the public better understand, he posed the following questions to the Council:
- Is it your intent, if the budget is defeated on the first attempt, to reduce it further, including making additional cuts on the education side, or does depend on whether the budget did or did not pass?
- If you believe the budget failed overwhelmingly because the majority of voters wanted to see more education funds restored, don’t you have the authority to increase the budget accordingly?
A “no” vote does not mean more cuts to education, Mr. Fitzgerald stated.
If the Town uses the advisory questions, he asks that they be used to help the Council understand why a budget fails.
Mr. Rodgers asked members keep those questions in mind when they are voting on whether or not to have advisory questions on the ballot.
Sarah Beier, 7 Yogananda Street, only wants to have an advisory question if it will do what people are asking it to do.
According to Mrs. Beier, the issue that is so perplexing to her is why people are advocating putting $1 million back (into the Board of Education). So many people are losing jobs – and will be even harder to get a vote passed.
She emphasized that it is very important we get the budget passed the first time.
LeReine Frampton, 6 Pebble Road, raised a few points concerning questions she overheard other people asking.
With the town budget, she stated. The police department, specifically the police union, was asked to take cuts or positions would be cut, the police union turned it down. People are having trouble understanding that we’re down a police officer and there are two officers in the academy which we paid foe already. Why put the officers in the academy if the Town doesn’t need them? If were cutting these police officers were down three. Is that going result in b overtime because they are not there nor is it going to mean services are cut? We just started the speeding program does that mean it will be lost. And with usually with economic problems we are facing an increase in crime rate and a higher rate of domestic violence.
People moved into Newtown for the education and want to be safe.
The Highway Department is down one and another is to be laid off.
Will these projects (such as the work at Fairfield Hills and the High school) be able to be done if we’re down three?
Trim back hours at the dump, close early or on a Monday.
Budget for Community Center was reduced to $45,000, when the town hall moves they will have no place to be that we know of.
In addition to services being cut were going to have a large percentage of taxes that are not paid because of the cuts this year and people losing their jobs. Need a little leeway in the budget for unpaid taxes.
Need to think outside the box.
Take donation people put them into contingency account now so that way we can see how our collections are going.
On the revenue side the senior center is initiating a membership fee which would be like an additional tax on them.
Have the Children’s Adventure Center raise their rates to make them more competitive with the other daycares in Town, than they would reduce their dependence on the town.
MOTIONS REVISITED
Mr. Rodgers indicated that he would like the Council to vote on the amended totals of the vote they approved at the Council’s last meeting (Thursday, March 26, 2009). The motions were two separate things. The main motion was approved with the amendment, but the amended base totals were not approved.
Mr. DiCandido moved to accept on Board of Selectman side a budget of 37,335,099 and on the board of education side $66,181,990 for a total of $103,516,694. The motion was approved 10-2. Voting in favor of the motion were Mr. Aurelia, Sr., Mr. Torok, Mr. Pennarola, Mr. Hemingway, Mrs. Llodra, Mrs. Brookes, Mr. Capeci, Ms Murray and Mr. Rodgers; and Mr. Davis who indicated to Mr. Rodgers he would vote in favor of the motion as presented despite his absence from the meeting. Mr. DiCandido and Mr. Amaral voted against the motion.
Although the Council was approving bottom lines they were reserving the right to go back and look at individual line on the Board of Selectman side. There was a difference in opinions between a half a dozen line items. There is a motion to address those differences.
Mr. DiCandido proposed via Motion 2, without changing the bottom line to the Board of Selectman’s Budget total that was approved last meeting, to change the following Board of Selectman line items from the recommendations of the Board of Finance as follows:
In 650 Building Maintenance
Restore $104,410 to 01650 4060 Contractual Services
In 870 Fairfield Hills
Restore $56,220 to 01870 5000 Fairfield Hills
In 310 Police
Restore $89,790 to 01310 1003 Sworn Personnel
Restore $25,000 to 01310 1005 Overtime
Restore $95,000 to 01310 5002 Patrol Cars
In Contingency
Add $66,667 to 01570 2000 Contingency
Mr. Capeci seconded the motion. The motion was approved by a roll call vote of 10-1. Mr. Aurelia, Sr., Mr. DiCandido, Mr. Torok, Mr. Pennarola, Mr. Hemingway, Mrs. Llodra, Mr. Amaral, Mrs. Brookes, Mr. Capeci and Mr. Rodgers voted for the motion. Ms. Murray voted against the motion.
Prior to voting on the matter, Mr. Rodgers called for discussion on the motion.
Pension
According to Mr. Borst, as far as the Pension is concerned 2009/2010 Board of Selectman considerations we added $99,916 to the 2008/2009 Pension Fund total of $422,195 for a total of $523,111.
Mr. Borst said the Board felt that was sufficient money to carry the pension fund until Selectman had a meeting with the pension committee sometime between April 14 and 20 to discuss the future over the next five years.
According to Mr. Borst, the Board of Selectman took the $250,000 and redistributed it. So that looking at the required adjustments of change, it came down to total adjustments of $32,165 which left $66,667 that selectman wound up putting in contingency which makes up the $250,000 reduced from the pension fund.
Buildings and Maintenance
As far as contractual services for Buildings and Maintenance, Mr. Borst said that the Town has the responsibility to maintain all the facilities, except the schools: the multipurpose center in Sandy Hook, Town Hall South, Town Hall on Main Street and is getting involved in the care of Bridgewater Hall.
In regards to Bridgewater Hall, the First Selectman said the building is coming along very well.
Fairfield Hills
To provide more information on the projects at Fairfield Hills (FFH) and the Project Manager, DeMarco Management, were Robert Geckle, Chairman of the Fairfield Hills Authority, and Jill DeMarco, Principal of DeMarco Management.
Mr. Geckle began with a brief history of FFH.
According to Mr. Geckle, FFH historically had an annual maintenance fee of $1.3 million. This year they budgeted $515,000 for maintenance. He added that 2009/2010 is a transition year. FFH will be handing off expenses to the Youth Academy and Veterinary Hospital. They will help to reduce the expense. Mr. Geckle’s goal is to reduce the FHH maintenance fee to $250,000 a year. The original budget cut of $56,220 would have been a 16% cut and would have been very difficult.
According to Mr. Geckle, there are misconceptions relative to what the property management is at FFH. He addressed three particular areas:
1) Current operation issues
2) Variety of activities
3) How Maria DeMarco and her company got involved.
To address the areas better, Mr. Geckle passed the microphone to Ms. DeMarco.
According to Ms. DeMarco, she has been the Principal of DeMarco Management for 16 years and prior to starting the company worked for Aetna. She has been caretaker of FFH for the last 6 years. Ms. DeMarco said that they coordinate everything that happens at FFH on a daily basis including: opening and closing the campus, providing security, arranging for access to facilities, traffic control, meeting with anyone on the campus, overseeing all grounds maintenance, coordinating uses of all the buildings, taking care of all special functions, and making sure everyone at FFH is covered by insurance.
According to Ms. DeMarco, her role as Principal is writing checks, preparing bids, numbering all the expenses, preparing all annual budgets, taking care of all repairs and maintenance, and taking care of utility bills.
She also highlighted several special projects DeMarco Management has headed for Newtown, such as: renovation of the old engineers cottage; the preparation of two homes on the property for sale; repair of a major sewer line that caved in; a major building mold project; and cataloged everything from furniture to art - removing and saving it – prior to shutting down the buildings at FFH. Currently, they are preparing the old HVAC plant behind the Canaan Building for the Town’s new Emergency Management Center scheduled to open in April.
Ms. DeMarco indicated that two future projects include: the major relocation of the town employees to the new town hall and renovations of the Green between the new town hall and Woodbury Hall.
According to Ms. DeMarco, DeMarco Management has 130-employees all over the state.
Mr. Amaral questioned the management cost of $2500 provided by the town for 16 hours per week.
Ms. DeMarco said yes she did work two days a week (16 hours), but was available 24-hours a day.
After providing services for the State, Ms. DeMarco said her company was asked by the former First Selectman, Herb Rosenthal, to stay on when Newtown took over in 2003.
According to Ms. DeMarco, the contract is subject to annual renewal and the fee has not been raised in six years.
Mr. Torok expressed his concern that FFH is a large campus with a lot of work happening and a large amount of money running through it; and he wanted to know what kind of a “checks and balances” system was in place.
Furthermore, Mr. Torok expressed his concern that the contract was not very clear and appeared to be an automatic renewal; and he was not sure how DeMarco Management is subject to financial audits. He urged that the contract be more clearly written.
In addition, Mr. Torok said it was nice that DeMarco Management has a fee and it’s never been raised, but felt that when contract was originally made it was probably overpriced.
Mr. Geckle urged Mr. Torok, Council members and everyone else in attendance, to come to one of the FFH Authorities meetings which are held once a month.
According to Mr. Geckle, they report on bond and capital money and work closely with the Town’s Finance Director Bob Tait. He added that they are also subject to the review by the Board of Selectman and Mr. Tait.
Proper checks and balances are in place, he added.
Mr. Geckle disagreed with the comment on the contract being overpriced since the beginning.
There is public money being spent here, he said. And, in spite of public comments, he thinks FFH authority does a pretty good job of being transparent.
According to Mrs. Llodra, there are perhaps misinformed people that assume the Town is spending an excessive amount of money for the services provided. One of the ways to test that is by putting it out in the market place. It provides the credibility that people might need to have that there is a rationale of checks and balances when granting a contract.
Mr. Geckle agreed that bidding is always good business practice.
Mrs. Brookes said the motion was to restore $56,222 to FFH and asked what that pertained to.
Mr. Geckle replied that the money would be restoring the monthly bills to the FFH campus. The $56,222 is the total of all the items.
Mr. DiCandido asked when this year’s contact with DeMarco Management ends.
According to Ms. DeMarco, the contract ends June 30.
Mr. Torok asked if Ms. DeMarco had ever considered renewing the contract with the Town for more than one year and indicated that if he was them, he would want a guaranteed contract for more than 12 months. He added that if he was in Fairfield Hills Authority’s position he would not change the management for the next one or two years.
Ms. Murray asked Ms. DeMarco how long the bid process takes for property management.
Ms. DeMarco replied that the Town generally gives two-weeks for people to respond.
According to Ms. DeMarco, her contract with Newtown is very generic because the Town didn’t know the services that would be needed.
You can cancel me in 30-days for any reason whatsoever, she said.
However, Ms. DeMarco says she has never had a contract cancelled, but conversely she has cancelled clients who have done things that are unethical.
I am audited annually, she added.
Mrs. Llodra questioned what the $82,341 was for in the Board of Education Budget.
Mr. Geckle and Ms. DeMarco replied that it was for a combination of utilities and maintenance such as: heating and electrical maintenance, sewer and water, and fire alarm and elevator maintenance.
Police
To discuss the three line items for the police was Selectman Paul Mangiafico.
In regards to the sworn personnel, Mr. Mangiafico said the police unions’ contract expired June 30th of last year and that they are currently working on salaries and benefits that have not changed since last year.
According to Mr. Mangiafico, the $89,790 that was removed from the Sworn Officers line was a mistake for two reasons:
1) They have no increase to give back
2) If two officers – which would be the new hires currently in training - were to be cut back the Town would lose the money they spent on the nine months of paid training and benefits.
According to Mr. Mangiafico, the $95,000 line item is to purchase three police cars to replace cars #13, #14 and #2. The cost of each car includes all the police lights and electronics. If the Town doesn’t purchase the three cars now we may have to purchase seven or eight cars in a year, he added.
Mr. Mangiafico noted that car #2 is the worst of the three and by the time the Town purchases a new car it will have 135,000 miles on it. Those miles do not include the extra engine wear by extensive idling time.
In conclusion, Mr. Mangiafico urged the Council to accept the proposal before them.
According to the Board of Selectman’s response to the Board of Finance 2009/2010 Budget Adjustments, the $66,667 line item for contingency would give the First Selectman flexibility in this tight budget. Possible uses include additional funds for winter maintenance; additional medical funds; additional insurance; additional unemployment; etc.
Mr. Rodger’s indicated that the Board had recommended adding in $66,667 into the contingency last week. The reason for the different recommendations is essentially new information or information that was not presented to them. The Board of Finance is not being faulted in any way.
Mr. Capeci stated that this was a great recommendation.
Mrs. Llodra asked about the $25,000 line item for overtime.
Mr. Mangiafico responded that the proposal had a 6% reduction in over-time already and then the Board of Finance took another $25,000 off in over-time even after reducing two police officers.
According to Police Chief Michael Kehoe, the department can never predict how much over-time they will have. They can’t count on officers being injured and right now they have an officer in Iraq. The department based its budget on prospectus. If they go over $125,000 in over-time, they will have no money left.
Mr. Rodger’s added that this is event driven and they are not attempting to maximize over-time for the officers.
Ms. Murray stated that she was inclined to vote no for this motion because many departments in town have to make significant sacrifices.
Mrs. Llodra said she was inclined to vote for the motion because she was reluctant to push any costs to next year’s budget.
Pension Fund
Mr. Mangiafico stated that the Town’s investment people have done a great job and the Pension Fund has had really good returns until this year.
According to Mangiafico, the total portfolio decreased 20%, dropping from $25 million to $20 million.
There was no reason to believe we needed more money other than the fees, he said in regards to the original addition of the $250,000 to the pension fund to help offset the losses.
Ms. Murray said she was concerned that the $250,000 could have been used to save more jobs in the school system.
Mr. Torok added that he wouldn’t count on the money being talked about in the pension fund in these unstable economic times.
Mr. Pennarola added that money needs to be shared between the Board of Selectman and the Board of Education.
Mr. DiCandido proposed, via Motion 1, without changing the bottom line Board of Selectman Budget total approved last meeting, to change the following Board of Selectman line items from the recommendations of the Board of Finance as follows:
In 260 Pension
Reduce $250,000 from 01260 2001 Town & Police Plan
In 650 Building Maintenance
Reduce $30,573 from 01650 2017 Utilities - Fuel
Reduce $57,070 from 01650 2018 Utilities – Electricity
Reduce $204 from 01650 2019 Water
Reduce $408 from 01650 2020 Sewer
In 500 Highway
Reduce $32,165 from 0150 5080
Ms. Brookes seconded the motion and the motion was approved 10-1. Mr. Aurelia, Sr., Mr. DiCandido, Mr. Torok, Mr. Pennarola, Mr. Hemingway, Mrs. Llodra, Mr. Amaral, Mrs. Brookes, Mr. Capeci and Mr. Rodgers voted for the motion. Ms. Murray voted against the motion.
Following a short break the Special Meeting of the Legislative Council resumed at 10:15 pm.
Advisory Questions
Mr. Pennarola made the third motion. He moved to send the budget to voters without any advisory questions. Mr. Aurelia, Sr. seconded the motion and following a lengthily discussion the motion was approved 10 -1. Mr. Aurelia, Sr., Mr. DiCandido, Mr. Torok, Mr. Pennarola, Mr. Hemingway, Mrs. Llodra, Mr. Amaral, Mrs. Brookes, Mr. Capeci and Mr. Rodgers voted for the motion. Ms. Murray voted against the motion.
Prior to the vote Council members discussed the motion.
There are limitations to the kind of questions we can ask, Mr. Pennarola said. We will not get useful information by asking the question if you felt the budget was too high or too low. The Town has a track record of multiple budget referendums.
According to Mr. Pennarola, the last charter revision did not choose to divide the budget. It is something that’s allowed if that’s the direction the town wishes to go.
My recommendation in the future is to empanel another charter revision commission, he suggested. Have them look at it and put it to the voters.
According to Mr. Pennarola, he doesn’t believe this is the way to go and thinks it tends to promote division.
We want to present a budget that all constituencies can buy into in town, and a bifurcated budget isn’t the way to go, he added. I don’t think the questions would be useful.
Ms. Murray stated that she wanted to the advisory question up for discussion because of the economic climate we are facing. Furthermore, she believes the Board of Finance made some specific recommendations about what budget the Council should present to the voters making an assumption the voters would accept a very low budget even if it drastically affects the services of the Town and schools.
We can’t assume voters want drastic cuts to services, she said. We should ask the voters what they really want.
Mrs. Llodra said she wishes the Council had the capacity to craft the questions in such a way that they could be confident that the information they obtained is not only useful but could be interpreted to guide future actions.
Mr. Capeci stated that he shares all the concerns that are being vocalized about getting all the information and not being able to use it or use it in a way that would help the Council to better serve the voters.
He added that he was afraid if they use the questions today it might give people a reason to vote no.
That being said we really need to pass the budget on the first try, Mr. Capeci said.
Aside from not getting all the information we need to, make the right decisions, Mr. Hemingway said. We are going to be splitting the people that vote yes and making more reasons to fail.
In other places, Mrs. Llodra said. There is a concern that having advisory questions actually acts as an invitation to vote against the budget in the hopes that message would be sent; and, that some subsequent action would be taken to remedy that.
According to Mr. Rodgers, points that have been made to advisory questions are that given the limitations we have on them they don’t significantly help us in that analysis.
I was really struck in our public hearing that every speaker when addressed the question of advisory questions was against them and they were all from the education corner, he said.
According to Mrs. Brooks, in her heart she wishes she could raise the budget, but in her head she is saying its’ not going to work.
If put an advisory question on the ballot it is going to divide this town even more, she said.
Mr. Torok offered his comments stating that we can send a man to the moon but we can’t ask common sense questions because of restrictions and the restrictions won’t change the divisiveness right now.
According to Mr. Torok, his big fear is not passing the budget on the first “go-around,” and said he supports the motion of not having an advisory question on the ballot.
With no further budget related business, Mr. Rodgers indicated that there was no need to have the Special Meeting scheduled on April 8 and moved to adjourn the meeting at 10:40 pm.
Ted Swigart, Clerk
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