In a marathon, five-plus-hour meeting on Wednesday, April 12, New Fairfield’s Board of Finance (BOF) reconvened to consider and discuss scenarios for the 2023-2024 budget. There were moments of collaboration and frustration among members, with most holding firm in their stance on the budget. Ms. Cheryl Reedy, who often serves in a peacemaker and mediator role, presented a path that would have delivered significant cuts for the education and Town budgets, but the cut requests that ultimately passed 4-2 were tripled at $1.775 Million for the schools and $300,000 for the Town.

The budget process is particularly fraught this year, with a perfect storm of financial complications and all parties attempting to do what they believe is right for the Town and taxpayers. BOF Board Chair Mr. Wes Marsh was largely silent for the bulk of this meeting, though he has previously made clear his thoughts on the damaging effects of deep cuts. With the board majority not aligned with him, Marsh was disappointed with the state of the budget after the vote on cuts, saying, “I was hopeful tonight that we would get a stake put in the ground as to where we all thought we were going to be. But the stake in the ground that was put in tonight was not what I expected.” He expressed hope that the “stake will be able to move in the next couple of weeks after we get numbers from medical and Board members think about how drastic those operational cuts will be and what a mess it will le ave.”

Reedy weighed in on the evening’s meeting, saying, “I still think that the proposal that I made was reasonable…I felt I was being pretty conservative, but we will agree to disagree on that.” She stressed, “I appreciate all the public comments. It is long and hard and difficult to listen because I hear your frustration. And I wish that we had more to offer in our toolkit of what we could do to make this budget better. We have fairly limited options, but I personally think that we could make better use of the options that we have than what is being proposed.” Mr. Kim Hanson said of the requests for cuts, “It’s not a matter of trying to reduce the schools or trying to reduce the Town. It’s the situation we have gotten ourselves into over the last X number of years, and it just can’t continue. We cannot continue to ignore our obligations for the safety of our financial situation. I don’t like cutting teachers. I don’t like cutting anyone.”

In describing her multi-year proposed plan that ultimately morphed to higher cuts, Reedy acknowledged, “we cannot put a 13% increase out to the town of New Fairfield, we can’t put a 10%, I’m embarrassed to put almost 7% out but, to me, that’s the very best I can do and we have to consider the people in this town who are unable to afford what maybe the majority is able to afford.” She went on to ponder that maybe the old BOF standards of pushing the increase as low as possible is not what the town wants any longer. She said, “they’re saying that they want these services, and we have to let them vote on it. And once we get to the point where enough people have said enough already, I can’t afford it, the budgets will start to get voted down and that’s when we’ll know.” She apologized to voters for “not making the tax increases larger” in recent years to reflect the higher services and infrastructure they were supporting. She pointed out that if residents want to build new schools, have increasingly sophisticated programming at the schools, and support maintenance of current infrastructure “and not kick the can down the road, as we might have done in the past, the increase in taxes need to reflect that.”

Reedy and Hanson worked through the particulars on the way to the ultimate requests, deftly and rapidly negotiating figures. Reedy created a spreadsheet that allows them to quickly analyze potential tax increases by inputting a variety of factors on the fly. Hanson, along with other Board members, differ in opinion from Reedy on how to space the bond premium, how much to dedicate to the Medical Reserve Fund, whether to ensure funds are earmarked for the fire department, and how best to project and trust the end-of-year surplus revenue figures. The absence of March medical numbers and projections made it more difficult for BOF members to gauge the impact of medical costs on the budget at this meeting. Marsh plans to send those reports to the Board as soon as he receives them.

Explaining his thoughts, Hanson pointed out that for “10 years the BOE budget has been almost exactly matching inflation, which is good.” However, he said, “Pupils are down 25%. So, realistically, that’s a 25% increase over 10 years in per pupil costs. But the SATs scores have not moved significantly one way or another, ranking on any general tests within the state have not moved significantly one way or another. Our college graduation rates have not moved significantly one way or another. I just have to have that in the back of my mind. I’m sorry, but it’s in the back of my mind and I can’t make it go away.”

Reedy was passionate in her remarks, saying, “I want to fix the problems with the Medical Reserve Fund, but I don’t want to screw our kids and I’ve heard enough, I listen to the people who are in the school, dealing with the children who have come through COVID telling me over and over again you don’t understand how difficult it is. I don’t understand that either. I quite honestly don’t understand why COVID affected them so much. But I am willing to give the benefit of the doubt to the dozens of educators.”

Lengthy public comment sessions bookended the meeting with many of the same parents, faculty, and residents from previous meetings speaking passionately, with almost all for and a handful against the proposed budgets. Several New Fairfield Public School students also spoke up in favor of the education budget. Emotions ran high and there were people who said that they would consider moving if large cuts were instituted for the schools, while others expressed fear of needing to move if large tax increases go into effect. Animosity was evident in the division of opinion on the budget in public comment, with some residents speaking over others when they had reached their three-minute time limit.

There was agreement among BOF members that at their May meeting they will discuss Town official salaries, whether they are set at the correct rates, and possibly eliminate longevity pay.

There was a discussion about the creation of columns in this newspaper for each Town Board, with any board member’s letters being allowed to run under the column. Marsh fears that this is confusing for residents who may believe that the letter is speaking on the full Board’s behalf, given that the letter Mr. Dave Coleman submitted to the newspaper expressed his opinions. Reedy agreed that she is disappointed with the decision for how to handle the columns, and there was communication confusion among board members, with her saying, “90% of what Dave wrote I agree with, my only complaint is that I felt he was a little disingenuous with the way he and I left our conversation,” explaining that she thought he was clearing it with Marsh. Coleman responded to say, “I’m sorry that you feel that way, Cheryl. I did, in fact, attempt to contact Wes right after.”

The next Board of Finance meeting is scheduled for Wednesday, April 26, 7:30 p.m.

By Sarah Opdahl

Editor’s Note: To clarify the above NF BOF meeting discussion regarding this newspaper’s column space, the NF BOF column, which ran on April 6, was submitted as an opinion piece and not as a letter to the editor. Had it been submitted as a letter, it would have been rejected for not meeting the letter to the editor guidelines.  The Town Tribune has always offered monthly column space for the Board of Finance and Board of Education. This is not a new option. Column space is made available for any Board member to share information/opinions for the purpose of clarifying issues pertinent to the community. In order to meet the paper’s criteria, column submissions must be submitted/signed by individual Board members, in order to run under a Board column header. The author’s name is published at the end of the column. It is the responsibility of each Board to enforce its own criteria, if any, for column submissions, prior to submission to the paper.  In order to avoid confusion going forward, it will be noted on every column piece running under a “Board” header: “This column is the opinion of the author and not necessarily that of the entire Board, unless specified as such.”   MS