By Sarah Opdahl

On Saturday, March 1, New Fairfield’s Boards of Selectmen (BOS) and Education (BOE) presented their proposed budgets to the Board of Finance (BOF). The annual three-hour meeting serves as a time for the official budget presentations, in addition to a vehicle for the first round  of questions from the BOF members. At $14M (BOS), a 3.99% increase over last year, and $50M (BOE), a 3.75% increase year-over-year, both boards conveyed their attempts to present needs-based budgets, while keeping an eye on the future.

First Selectman Ms. Melissa Lindsay walked through the highlights of her budget, including payroll obligations, non-payroll operating expenses, and capital and non-recurring expenses. Payroll increases are proposed for her administrative assistant, “to bring her more in line with similar positions as her workload has drastically increased over the past few years.” In addition there is a proposal to raise the registrars salaries by $10K each due to added workloads with early voting and more, plus smaller changes to the pay for the fire marshal and two part-time animal control officers. Operating expenses are proposed at a $299K increase for a variety of factors, chief among them are increased utility costs, Public Works’ vehicle maintenance, and fire company needs. Capital requests of $763,890 were proposed to be funded with $75K from taxes; $420K from cell tower revenue;  $150K from the Unappropriated Fund balance; and $5K from Town Clerk document fees. The list of capital needs include a mix of two dozen Public Works projects, town building repairs, copier replacements, police department needs, and an animal control building heating/cooling system.

The bulk of the questions were asked by Mr. Wes Marsh and Ms. Cheryl Reedy following both presentations, with other BOF members chiming in on specific topics. Lindsay received pointed questions on the low ask of $75K from the taxpayers for capital projects, with Marsh pointing out that they may need to add to the budget, which is a deviation from the norm, “I don’t remember since I have been in this world that we have ever added money back,” he said. Looking at the original requests from the various departments that amounted to $2.7 million, which was boiled down to the requested $763K, there is also fear of a capital needs cliff. In light of that BOF members were curious about tier two items that may make sense to complete sooner, or larger projects that the Town should start saving toward. Reedy agreed, saying, “Town capital needs are much greater than the educational capital needs because of all the equipment that the town owns and the need to maintain it and buy new and so forth. And so I just feel like  we have to be a little bit more equitable in our distribution this year, that we have got to focus more on the Town capital.”

More questions from the BOF members included the staffing numbers at the police department, in particular about retirements, and elected official salary increases. There were also concerns expressed about using the Unappropriated Fund Balance in squaring up capital funding needs. It was pointed out that the fund may be relied upon in bolstering financial needs for the future bus lot.

BOE Chair Mr. Dominic Cipollone and New Fairfield Public School Superintendent Dr. Ken Craw presented the education budget, which was described as “fiscally responsible” and “forward-thinking.” Cipollone began the presentation with a series of accomplishments for the school, from joining the elementary schools in name, following its physical joining, and the New Fairfield Middle School (NFMS) library revitalization to the Strides expansion and district-wide STEAM program efforts.

Craw explained that, overall, the proposed operating expenses are planned around near identical enrollment, they meet the contractual obligations for the school’s employees, which is the main budget driver, and they meet all federal and state mandates for IDEA, 504, and Bilingual Education. For the capital budget, Craw pointed out that it addresses the lack of classroom space at the NFMS in the capital plan and completes the abandonment and replacement of the NFMS oil tank.

There are specific budget drivers behind the ask for a 3.75%, or $1.8M, increase to the total budget. One includes a new position to serve multilingual learners at the elementary level. He explained that in New Fairfield, “the population of students has changed over the past 10 years—73% of our students are white and the largest subgroup is Hispanic and Latino at almost 20%—and so it is important that we think about, how do you meet the needs of all of our learners?” Of the approximately 2,000 students in the district there are almost 100 multilingual learners. In terms of special education, he said, “we have seen an increase in our prevalence rate. In terms of our K-12 population, 17% of our students have Individualized Education Plans (IEPs).” They are also seeing an “increase in intensity of some of those needs,” and the resulting services and requirements. Given the large contingent of those students moving into transition services at 18 years old, there is also a request for another part-time teacher in the Strides transition program. There are staffing reallocations requested to support the orchestra program as it moves into the high school, including staff and some musical instrument purchases. In addition, there are funds requested to support a school-sponsored NFMS full theatre production.

Beyond grants, there are two main revenue streams, the Early Learning Center tuition and the Sherman tuition, for which Craw is requesting an $80K offset to transport the 33 students who are enrolled at the high school from Sherman. This offset is unprecedented and raised some eyebrows among BOF members.

Regarding the capital requests, Craw highlighted final plans to address the NFMS oil tank that requires removal , classroom and office needs at the same school, an HVAC unit for the pool at NFMS, a truck for the Buildings department, and some school safety and security improvements. Classrooms and office needs are proposed to be addressed over two summers, largely in-house to keep the costs in check. The move would establish offices for the Pupil Personnel Services department in what was the old lobby of the high school (they are currently in the NFMS basement) and create spaces for the gifted and talented program (which is currently on a cart that gets rolled around) and music spaces. The music plans would include light renovation of the current NFMS cafeteria, moving their cafeteria to what was the old high school’s cafeteria.

BOF members were curious about the two-summer plan for construction, especially as it was noted that some items would need to be purchased earlier than the second summer. There was a question about the pool HVAC and whether that can be delayed to hopefully ease some capital costs. The BOF agreed that they would like to see metrics on how the students are doing, which has formerly been included in the budget presentation. Test scores, grades, post-secondary destination percentages, college placements, etc. were among the categories that were detailed in the past. In addition, they asked for more information on the plan to reduce the reliance on the retirement/turnover savings by another tick mark this year and the increase in pension budgeting.

Marsh pointed out that the encumbered and non-encumbered lines in the education budget are often the same, without tracking what was spent, which makes it hard to justify going forward with approving future requests. Director of Business and Operations Ms. Carrie DePuy explained that it has been handled this way in the past, but she is hoping to implement a better way of tracking outside of a spreadsheet she is using, such as using budget transfers..

Reedy mentioned that “one of my goals for this year’s budget time is to find a budget spot for the pavilion. I want to find a budget home for it and money to go along with it,” for maintenance and repairs. The pavilion is the building with restrooms near the fields.

The BOF will now meet weekly in the month of March and will focus on specific topics each evening. At their first meeting on Wednesday, March 5, they will discuss all revenue and medical budgeting. It was agreed that nearly all budget meetings will be held in person this year.