Annual Town Meeting

001[Music] okay great welcome everybody this is our town meeting on our annual budget would everyone please rise and join me for the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all our first order of business is to elect the moderator do I have any nominations for moderator one somebody wanted nominate you want to nominate Wendy you're willing to be moderator right sue Slater nominates 10 seconds are there any other nominations from moderator from the floor any discussions seeing none all those in favor of Wendy Youngblood being moderator please raise your hand that is a yes Wendy it's your meeting good evening everybody welcome mmm so I'm Wendy Youngblood I live

002around the corner let's get started is there a motion to waive the reading of the call to meeting that's Bob bellman thank you very much can I get a second your name in the back sir okay thanks rich okay um can we get a vote to waive the reading of the called a meeting sorry Oh vote on the second oh I'm sorry yes can we vote up a wave on the waiver all in favor all opposed great - the motion passes thank you okay so now we're going to move to resolution number one the annual operating budget is there a motion to waive the reading of the resolution by the town attorney that would be mr. Dunne is there a second yes thanks okay I didn't bring my glasses sorry gran run okay and all

003in favor of so waiting all opposed okay so that past is great alright now we're gonna move to the meat of the meat meeting it's a presentation from first of all it been done and others with us we have Shawn Hawthorne the chair of the Board of Ed Colette's term who is the chair I'm sorry for the Finance Board of Ed and it's that Jon over there hello hello nice to see you so Steve I turn this over to you and this will be followed by a discussion session thank you everyone for coming out in the rain we appreciate it we're gonna start right away this is our meeting agenda okay we want to talk about the upcoming years concerns and goals you know our Grand list is up 1.4 eight percent which is really

004good it's the highest growth in our Grand list in many years and we we predict that it will grow significantly next year too with the development that's going on in town however the state is proposing that the town's paced some of the costs that a teacher's pension this year about a hundred and thirty thousand dollars the grant revenue from the state for ECS lotsa plosive Town Road aid continues to drop as it has for the past four years there's a decrease in the thing and those grants and the charges for the teachers pension is gonna cost the town four hundred seventy nine thousand dollars this year that represents almost 30% of the budget increase that the town is asking for from our residents so if you look at the increase that we've asked for and

005take away what the state grants are so the true if the grant stayed the same as last year our actual increased issue would be about 2.0 four percent in the mill rate that's a pretty good number I think our goals is again to provide the funding for the best solutions for both the schools in the town and we're trying to minimize the impact of these changes on the taxpayers it's not easy to do given the goals that we have we're trying to increase capital spending with cash we're trying to do a number of other things but we still need to keep the tax increases reasonable so that voters will approve them on our capital spending each their year we're going to talk about that a little bit more later but everything this year except for

006leases that's under $55,000 we're paying for with cash our goal is and we've moved that up every single year we've been in office my goal would be to have everything under $300,000 be paid for with cash you cannot do that overnight you need to slowly move that up so that the tax increases do not affect its citizens and the rate paid taxpayers to much but we have historically in Brookfield and I don't think anybody in the room would disagree I'd like to see your hand if you do historically underfunded the capital maintenance of what we have in town our schools our town buildings or vehicles I mean if you look at the presentation that our public works made to us we have one truck that's 20 years old and it's literally a Fred Flintstone truck

007you can sit in the driver's seat and see the ground so we need to maintain those things and we need to maintain them by paying cash we've got to get away from borrowing for items that we can pay cash for so we're slowly moving from borrowing to cash where you can see it in our roads this year we're up to nine hundred and fifty thousand dollars in cash the goal will be to get to a million five which is our budget every year for doing the roads I think most people say that our roads are in great condition Public Works takes great care of them they do a great job plowing but we want to end up paying cash for all those things get this the move and now I'm gonna turn it over to

008Sean to go yes yes did I miss one slide I'm sorry oh I'm sorry I hit the button it went to slide so I'll do a year in review our spending we have as you know we have a new chief financial officer Martha is here tonight Marshall Marion our spending is on target next week as we do quarterly we meet with every single Department to go over their budgets and to make sure that they're hitting the targets they need to and recognizing any problems or issues or concerns as early as we can if they're going to have a problem with their budgets so far we're in pretty good shape on that towards the end of the year we met with him last month we're meeting them with this month and we'll probably meet with them

009again next month just to make sure we're hitting our targets and being on budget our new business development is growing significantly I think everybody's read in the paper that Branson ultrasonics is moving into town they're going to be spending about fifty three million dollars for a new corporate world headquarters in the Berkshire Corporate Park that's a big plus for us as a town because they will be occupying that building from 8 to 5 not we won't have to give them 24-hour service for EMS fire ambulance it'll be a sprinkler building and they will not be affecting the traffic in town very much because people will get off at the federal road by uh calls and make a right and then go up over the bridge into the Corporate Park so we don't anticipate any additional

010traffic for almost everyone in Brookfield so that's a plus the assisted living facility has been going through zoning looks like it's going to be approved that will be on federal Road pretty much directly opposite where Lavelle's wagon-wheel was in the ramen house is now that's going to be a pretty significant building and the Medical Center I think a lot of you have seen is going into the corn fields we have lost the soccer field there the Steiners were very kind to the town they built that field and maintained it for I think something like 20 years so we're sorry to see that soccer field go we're gonna have to look to get another one somewhere in town but they've been very good citizens and that will be another building we also have the supermarket that

011is proposed just proposed for the four-corners next to the silver River Greenway that would be another nice development with a supermarket and a couple other stores on the ground floor and apartments on the second and third floors that's still it in early days but we believe they're gonna move forward we three years ago we applied for a grant to extend the silver River Greenway from the police station up to Town Hall and there were a couple reasons for that one we had nowhere near enough parking by the police station for the number of users of the Greenway we have about 1214 spots there number two it will give us a lot more parking this Greenway is gonna go all the way up to the parking lot next to Center firehouse in between the center firehouse

012and Town Hall and three something I think is really important it's going to be able to give us access for our disabled and a.da residents will be able to get to the lower field so if they want to go down and see the concert want to go down and see their grandchildren play soccer or baseball they'll be able to do it very very easily we got a grant for the full cost of the implementation at the time two hundred and seven thousand dollars we believe we're gonna have to hire a designer and then go out the bid I believe because it's three years later it will be a little more expensive than the grant we received we went back and asked them if there's more money in the grant and they said absolutely not so

013we'll come back to the town on that when we've got better numbers in the four corners streetscape the phase two of the streetscape which goes from discount tire the funeral home down to the hearth will be built this summer we're out the bid right now and we anticipate that we'll be finished by mid-october or so given the weather's fine and then we've we were excuse me we were awarded a grant from one man sixty thousand dollars to pay for phase it was a competitive grant we again will rank number one on it and it will pay for 80% of phase 3 phase 3 will run up old route 7 where the physical therapy and the dry cleaners is and down Laurel Road and then up Laurel road a little bit we're already planning for phase

0144 and we're hoping to apply for grants shortly phase 3 will be built hopefully next summer we see no problem with doing that next summer and in phase 4 we're applying for a tap grant to pay for that on phase 4 last week you have to apply for these either competitive grants and we apply through west cog which is the Western Council of Governments West cog reviewed all of the 24 I believe requests and applications from the 18 member towns of Westcott and Brookfield's phase 4 was number 1 we got the top ranking so we now are the number 1 in West cog West cog then mixes all of their requests with all the other cogs in the state so we'll see where we end up but being number 1 it's pretty good indication that

015we'll get at least something for that so overall on all of the streetscapes we've gotten over 70% of them paid for with grants and we think that's a good idea as you know our zoning rewrite we've been working on for 3 years it was approved this past December and it is working really well Branson came in to us in December with a hundred and forty thousand square foot building very complex on 14 acres and we were able to get them a building permit in three months my guess is if we did this two years ago it would have taken closer to nine months to a year to get that building permit through but we streamlined our zoning we made it much clearer and easier to use and so we're very happy that Branson came in

016to us that will also help us in future development because developers know that time is money and if they can come to Brookfield bring a good project and get it developed quickly it saves them a lot of money so we're very very happy that they're coming to us an update on FEMA we've been meeting with FEMA every two weeks since November and we're starting to close out all of the categories they have about nine categories its storm debris it's damage to buildings it's forced labor a lot of different things we're starting to close that out our original guess was we were going to get 2.8 million dollars we are on target for that 2.8 million dollars versus an expense a total expense last year of about 1.7 million dollars so to town does have a

017very good opportunity to reap 2.8 million dollars which is 1.1 million dollars more than we spent it may be higher than that because FEMA has now allowed us to go back and apply for all of the fire companies who came and helped us they originally said no you can't apply for those funds and for the costs of those companies coming to us but they're saying we can now that's still a little bit up in the air and we'll see where that is so having said that I will now turn it over to Sean thanks Steve hi everyone I'm Sean Hathorne I am the chair of the Board of Finance here in town thank you everyone for coming out tonight I am sure there was a plethora of viewers at home who didn't want to come

018out in the rain gives me comfort to know that people are paying attention from home hopefully in droves I am going to take a few minutes to walk through the not only the summary of expenditures we're going to go through some revenue I'm going to talk about our capital projects I'm also going to talk about you know the financial result of some past projects and those to come when I talk about debt service and then I'll pass it back over to Steve to continue the presentation okay this is not going to be very different than the the public hearing presentation so some of you may have heard this before but for those of you that haven't I hope you get some good information tonight first I'm going to let you all know you're going to

019hear a phrase from me a couple times tonight because I think it's exceptionally important for everyone to understand the mindset this year and going forward we have some major initiatives and projects and - duze on the towns list and then I say town I mean not only let's say under the purview of the first election but also under the purview of the Board of Education and the superintendent there's a lot going on and I think everyone knows the referendum that we had in a weeks or months ago for the new school project and what the finance department did led by by Marsha Steve introduced was they put together a model okay which we leveraged to promote this idea of sustainable and controlled growth second time out of a dozen like that and the mindset of

020the Board of Finance right now is to do what a town government is designed to do which is provide services that meet the needs of all the residents not just a couple but the town needs to do its best to serve all residents for whatever the needs are and by following or adhering as close as possible to this model for sustainable and controlled growth to the best of the board's ability we can guide this budget and this town to providing the necessary services to all residents ok so what I outline here in the next couple minutes is going to be what I believe on behalf of the board to be sticking to that plan so we can continue to move the town forward so we can when that new school gets built we can not

021only furnish it but also do the programming that that the Board of Ed and the superintendent and assistant superintendent are going to want for for our students so that's the summary of where we're going with this and the summary of expenditures town operations there's a 1.9 percent increase their primary drivers for the for the town salary increases averaged about two and a half percent we had additional increases above two and a half percent there due to a union or collective bargaining agreements in the assessor's office the tax collector in the land use Department the the Board of Finance budget now includes systems audit services something that we haven't done in a long while or completely we'll know whether or not our systems are up to snuff that they're complete that they're actually providing us you

022know based on the inputs of the finance departments not only board of ed but you know the town you know are they secure or the output sound the finance office now includes planned overtime as opposed to utilizing outside professionals and consulting hours right let's leverage and build the talent that we have in-house before we go looking for people outside I think that's a good idea regional memberships included in the town's operating budget now has an increase in animal control we've never had an increase in animal control you know in the history of that service being shared by this town in public safety we have an increase in the EMS budget for additional shifts you know they brought forth the need for for increased EMS patrolling in shifts and again the talent the government is in

023the business of providing services and that's a critical one we have an increased also in the fire marshal budget we have a full-time highly experienced fire marshal as of October 2018 why is that important we'll get into that in the revenue slide an experienced fire marshal is going to be the one going in and service in all those permits and generating the fee revenue for all those projects that the First Selectman just outlined moments ago further in in town operations we have recycling fees you know we have the recycling program that many residents do take advantage of on site here at exit Town Hall and the New Milford share well that went up on us by about ten thousand dollars in our social services we've also added some hours for part-time employees due to increasing

024demand in the social services department and in the library there they've requested additional headcount to fill in programming gaps no one likes going to the library either not being able to go because they've had to not open due to staffing issues or to not be able to enjoy the programming that they thought they would go to the library is a service utilized by thousands of residents and it's something that you know the board and the town we do support and you'll also have to outside of town operations school operations I'm not going to go into in depth and detail collects term the chair of the Board of Ed is going to take us through in a few minutes a very detailed explanation of the school operations but I do I do want to make note

025that you know the Board of Finance we do support education right the town supports education it's a primary reason for a lot of residents moving here right there's a big buzz a positive buzz and fervour over this new school that will be built so again sustainable and controlled growth is paramount to being able to do what we need to do when the time comes and that new school is ready for the students to move in you have under school operations as Steve mentioned there's a hundred thirty thousand right now that we took I think a very conservative approach leaving in the budget there's some hemming and hawing and back and forth thing in the in the legislature over whether or not the towns are actually going to be responsible for you know our share of

026that cost leaving it in their bakes in to the bottom line I'll call it a worst case scenario for our town of shouldering a hundred thirty thousand two hundred twenty two dollars in teachers retirement costs now if it turns out that between let's say now and the time that the budget goes to referendum if and his past right right after that the Board of Finance meets to set the levy for the coming year if it turns out that we do get that removed let's say from from the purview of the town we will take that into consideration as a board and see what the impact is on the required levy and the mill rate right because we're not going to leave something in the budget and levy taxes on it when there's no need to

027that's irresponsible so you have a commitment from the First Selectman and the Board of Finance to you know really take a good look at that and see what taking that out does to our mill rate when the time comes so all in here as you can see in summary school operations increased three point zero five percent including that Teachers Retirement which again is a variable the total school operations as we chose to call it this time around would increase by three point two five percent okay capital projects I'll get into in more detail but there are some some projects that we're looking to do I think the primary ones there are here at the high school and also the roads but again I'll get into that in more detail and debt service this was this

028is one that not only does it have to do with paying for it for prior year's costs but it's something that we all need to really have in mind as we work through not only the coming budget but also the subsequent years it will be time to pay for the new school when it does go live and there will be an impact so this is something that I hope everyone does pay close attention to because there will be an impact you're not going to see it right now right and I'll get into exactly what is in this debt service number in a few minutes but in the coming years as we start the project you will see you know some bumps and blips that will be offset by debt falling off but there will be

029an impact in the coming years and again controlled and sustainable growth not an absolute model but that model is a great way for us to gauge again the controlled and sustainable growth that we need to be able to achieve over the next let's say ten years revenue this is another one where there might be some wildcards and I'll discuss those the biggest nut of the bunch here is the the current year levy okay and what is that that is the tax revenue or I'll say the the tax levy what we all need to pay our share of in order to bridge the gap between the money that we get from state sources or other grants or whatnot and the actual total expenditures that we saw on the previous slide so we have our current year

030taxes that's the we'll call it the the proposed increase there okay and we'll see a summary slide in a second and then we have prior year taxes which we do collect on which is a good thing I wish there weren't prior years but there are looking into licenses and permits you'll notice that this one does jump and that is I'll call it a temporary positive bump and that is based on the fact that we do have the development that the First Selectman went into detail about a couple minutes ago and I mentioned that part of the costing cost increase for the town operations was the fact that we hired a full-time experienced fire marshal well that position is expected to generate a lot of that revenue that you see up there a good portion of

031that 960,000 we have our intergovernmental revenue which we've projected down and that that's things like our ECS grants right now again similar to 130,000 the Teachers Retirement we chose to leave the decreased revenue in as a very conservative approach if it turns out and this is the same thing as the Teachers Retirement if it turns out that we get good news and the legislature has moved to solidify the numbers that we will be getting in intergovernmental revenue and grants then of course the Board of Finance with the First Selectman and the finance director will evaluate those changes and what the impact would be on revising the mill rate that you'll see in the next slide and that that's a firm commitment so you can take that to the bank if we do get that information

032we will be taking a look at that and the rest are rather absent flows here I won't get into a lot of the detail for that so that's that's a summary of revenues was a little bit of detail for some salt and pepper now the mill rate this is what I've been what I've been talking about there are some there's some statistical values up here and what the bottom line is which is what a lot of folks are concerned with is yes we are proposing an increase to the mill rate 0.81 change to the mill rate or a two point eight seven percent for the reasons that I just went over and again to promote controlled and sustainable growth for the town so that twenty nine point one four mill rate okay let's say we

033took out that Teachers Retirement contribution it doesn't make a whole lot of difference but it makes a small difference if we take out the Teachers Retirement and we add the increased revenue from the state yeah then we're talking about real numbers we're talking about real impact to that mill rate I think the big the big item on here that we haven't discussed in Prior slides the elderly tax relief that's a great program in my opinion where you know folks can apply with certain circumstances and they are granted relief on their tax bills and we estimate that this year to be at that 500 thousand mark okay capital projects we do have a number of items that we are asking the town to support and general government there's upgraded systems for the Assessor there are some

034IT and HR systems and it also now includes our financing costs for bonds whereas they were in debt service before public safety now we we do support of course the fire department the police EMS and the like there is a budget for police cruisers data center and to unify the printing system with the others in town and hopefully generates an operating savings there there's also some roof work at the fire houses we've set up a number of apparatus reserves there for equipment like fire trucks pumper trucks things like that the Board of Finance and the First Selectman had made a commitment over the last I'll say three and a half years that the town will set aside as much money as possible as is reasonable in the budget so that when the time comes we

035can not only pay cash in part for those major apparatus purchases but we will bridge the gap between what we've reserved what the fire companies or the police are willing to put in from their own fundraisers with some bonded costs but the goal is to really reduce the the bonding efforts in preparation for more I'll say pressing needs and it does go back to what the first selectmen mentioned a couple minutes ago we want to bond only where required and where necessary and not for the onesie twosie things that goal of three hundred thousand dollars that's not unreasonable but we do need to get there and it will take some time of course but it does make sense to do that Public Works has the first elect men mentioned you know we have a Flintstones

036truck out there and that's that's not good for the work that it needs to do or for the servicemen that are deploying those resources so for Public Works yes we are asking for I believe two heavy-duty dump trucks I think our town needs it we're also requesting not only some cash but also some some bonded funds for our roads like the First Selectman mentioned our roads are in you know I'll say very good shape our Highway Department and and the paving crews they do an exceptional job not only clearing the roads but preparing them you know to actually be drivable when it's not snowing culture and recreation that's our parks and ground we have some tennis court repair budgeted there and reserving for you know I'll say renovation of those tennis courts we would like

037to put in money into a reserve for the turf fields here at the at the high school turf fields are great you can use them almost what is it ten eleven months out of 12 as long as it's not snowing and you could probably use it when it snowing as long as it's not you know 30 below the problem with that is you use something 11 or 10 months out of the year you need to maintain it and sometimes maintenance isn't enough you need to actually replace so we would like to put aside some some cash and a reserve fund so when that time does come we're not bonding to repair or replace our athletic fields we also have a bobcat replacement which is a a small piece of machinery and there's also some Center

038elementary school playground replacements why am i mentioning center elementary well we do have some capital budgeted for center those are and you know Colette will mention later those are necessary projects whether or not the I'm sorry regardless of when we decommissioned Center as a school those are necessary improvements not only for safety of our educators and our children but why should a playground not have a slide why should it not you know why should the children not be able to have what they need to enjoy themselves outside so this budget does include a couple things like that and those are the reasons why we support it for Center in addition to the other schools specifically now we get into the education section the HVAC and the building control systems here so everything that makes that

039central brain of HVAC and building management talk to itself and among the systems the Board of Ed had put that in the budget as necessary and we supported that there's also paving if anyone drove into the parking lot which I know you all did you put in walk here and the rain you notice there's lots of bumps and bruises in that parking lot so we need to do some paving there at the middle school we do have paving projects there a pump generator for emergencies building management system and some security improvements budgeted there huckleberry and and CES again the same thing with huckleberry you know sometimes there are just necessary improvements that need to be made regardless and both of those you'll see funding here to keep our students and children and I'm sorry the

040students the staff and the educators all safe there and there are district-wide there Colet we'll go into more detail on that but that is $50,000 for a world language lab the Board of Finance did remove let's say that 50,000 and again Collette will get into this from the operating budget of the Board of Ed and put it into capital and the intent was like it says there to utilize funds that were not spent on other capital projects because of the new school so I think being wise and really controlling our spending so we can sustain it and maintain it debt payments this is what I was mentioning before we do have a bump in principal payments we have a little bit of bump in interest and there are some some new guys within there the

041bonds principal has gone up we are paying for still that the biggest amount that we're paying is for I think the rebonding of the high school project and the bonds that we took out last year we're now paying for that was about a twenty million dollar issuance and that included major projects like cadogan and then some I'll say accounting true ups related to past items that just weren't bonded and we didn't have the right support so we had to go ahead and make the right decision and bond them in the package last year so you have two major items that are right now in that in bonds principal and I believe it is the high school project that we're paying about a million six four million three million six for each year in principal that

042comes off say in the next I think it's seven or eight years that should make room for when we actually go to bond the new school project it'll make room in our in our capital budget here for four principal payments interest when you start paying for bonds you also pay interest right so the interest went up there and that you know you're gonna see as we start building this new school we're not going to bond everything right away that's not how it works you take out notes and you pay interest and and premiums on these notes until you actually roll them into a bond so we'll see some some increases here and there as the as the school gets built and that's that's it for this guy now I'm gonna turn it back over to

043Steve he's gonna go over the the goals of the town Thank You Shawn we're looking at what our goals are you know four years ago when sue and I took office the first week we're in office we found out we're missing 3.3 million dollars of our 5.2 million dollar general fund suffice to say this came as a shock to everyone and we needed to immediately address that which we did and we that left our general fund unassigned general fund balance at about 1.9 percent of our total expenditures typically to achieve a triple-a rating with the bond agencies the rating agencies you want to have somewhere between ten and fifteen percent as you're on assigned general fund balance so we've worked really hard over the last four years and as of our last audit it's now

044at ten point three four percent and we're going to continue to hope to grow that if we get the FEMA money that will add another one and a half percent to the general fund balance and what that gives you is resiliency in case we have another storm in case we have a major catastrophe in town we will be able to absorb it pay for it and not change our rating when we went out to borrow for this last round last year we went to standard and poor's and we did a full review with Standard and Poor's and they reaffirmed our triple-a rating that's the highest rating you can get and when you have a triple-a rating you're gonna pay the least amount of all towns similar to yours in interest rates and when you're borrowing

045seven seventy eight million dollars or sixty three million dollars for school that makes up a few hundred thousand dollars a year compared to some other towns so it's very good to save that money three years ago and I decided we're gonna follow the law in the state of Connecticut and create a 10 year capital plan and we did do that and we've been updating it every single year refining it making sure that we're not missing anything and a lot of that went into the plan that we put together for the Board of Selectmen and the Board of Finance when we approached the school project because we wanted to make sure that everyone was comfortable that we can afford this as Sean said sustainable but controlled growth so nobody's going to get a 10% increase in

046their taxes in one year I have a brother who lives down in Atlanta and two months ago he got his tax bill was 45% higher than a year before we're never gonna do that here we're never going to do that here I don't think anybody would approve it so we're working very hard to build up the strength of our balance sheets we've implemented a lot of changes with purchase orders and working with our departments quarterly reviews with them and towards the end of the year monthly reviews to see that they're making their budgets on time and on target because we do not want to overspend we've faced few problems together the storm was an incredible test of Brookfield's resiliency and you know what I think we passed with flying colors the night of that storm

047almost every single neighbor went out and cleared roads I was able to get to my house with all the way up to the top of my driveway because my neighbors had gone out from five o'clock in the afternoon till 11 o'clock at night and cleared 15 trees out of our roads so fire police and ambulance can get to those houses I think it's an incredible thing to say about Brookfield how this town pulls together when times are tough and we really did a great job and we are going to have a thank you this isn't really a budget item but a thank you on May 19th at town hall for all our volunteers our fire police EMS and Public Works and we've invited them all to come and we're gonna have hot dogs and hamburgers

048and a band and we're just going to say thank you to him for all the work they did last year our union contracts are all complete we're going to start that process in about another year 14 months negotiating again we think we're going to have very good success with that our unions do a really good job they've been very reasonable and we've been very very lucky that we've been able to negotiate increases and conditions in those union contracts that are favorable to both sides that are fair to both sides we also over the last four years have been working and it was probably before that the town has implemented a new pension plan the members of our retirement benefits Advisory Committee had done yeoman's work over they've been in existence for ten years but over

049the last four years I know they've done phenomenal work and what we're doing is we're going to have a hybrid plan and that plan is 20 years of defined contribution and then after that it'll be I'm sorry defined benefit for the first 20 years and after that we'll have a defined contribution plan we don't anticipate this will save the town any actual dollars in how much we have to contribute but what will save the town is it will lower the size of our overall pension obligation over the next 10 15 20 years and and further on and if you have a pension that's a hundred million dollars and it goes down by 10 percent because the markets are unfavorable to you you've got to make up 10 billion if you have a 50 million dollar

050pension and it goes down 10 percent you only have to make up 5 million so what it's doing is affording the town a little more structure a little more control and protecting the town in the very very long run from issues that we might not be able to face and we're gonna we're gonna continue to invest in our infrastructure in our roads my goal is as your first selectmen and I take the board of Finance and the board aside no I hope sue agrees with me is we need to get to the point where we're spending almost all cash for for improvements it will strengthen the town it will strengthen our ratings with the rating agencies and it will give us more room if we do need to take on another big project remember we

051have police radios are concerned expansion of the police station is concerned we still want to look at having a library if we're paying cash for everything it gives us more room and barring capacity so with that I will turn it over to Colette to discuss oh I'm sorry John John is gonna give the treasurer's report thank you John good evening this is actually for our town attorney Tom I've read the charter state statute this is the only time I'm allowed to speak publicly correct right is that the rule birth anyway all jokes aside good evening just a couple of brief comments first some numbers as of yesterday the town had about 27 million dollars at use Savings Bank since last July the town has earned roughly one hundred fifty thousand dollars in interest on those

052balances secondly I'd like to acknowledge the efforts of martial-art own controller and her finance team on the town side as well as Ken opposed in his group on the school side they've all worked very hard to create a much tighter control environment with proper checks and balances really overhauling everyday practices and keeping an eye for efficiency as well as increasing accountability and accommodating to all of my many requests to aid me in my move in my oversight so I really appreciate that both teams on both sides of the building there all of these things together have rather put us in the best place as a town in terms of being fiscally responsible much better I'd even say than we've ever been historically however there is much more to do one of the most frustrating things

053for me is that implementing change any municipality does not happen overnight with that said I've been advocating for some time for a way it will allow the residents to have some insight into our finances and although a fully functional web portal is not currently the solution I have been working with both finance teams the school and the town on an alternative idea that I believe will offer a good deal of transparency once we do go live so please keep an eye out for that as always please feel free to contact me with any questions and now I'll turn it back over to collect good thank you everyone excuse me like two before I go to the 2019-20 budget proposal touch on a few key achievements of the 1819 year the district has begun initiation of

054a multi-year rollout on our science program to address the next generation science standards the Smithsonian science program has started K through 8 and has we see very good reviews from administration staff and students alike there's been a reorganization of the high school science and math leadership programs into one stem integrated leadership position so we now have our science math and technology departments under one umbrella we've additionally reorganized the district special education leadership from for teacher leader positions to two administrator positions and this will bring much coaches among our special education services throughout the district we've had many technology improvements district-wide from our increased bandwidth improved firewall network switches and notably our one-to-one device program which is now eighth grade through 12th grade we have a completed conversion of the munis accounting an operational system so

055we are now speaking the same financial language as the town this is helping tremendously with reconciliation and budget reporting as well as providing efficiency and control throughout the district and notably we have approved at referendum on March 5th our new building project our pre-k through 5 school we are continuing to move this process along next we'll be submitting the grant or the application for the school construction grant which is due June 30th we are well on our way for that and anticipate submitting it ahead of schedule we did have several budget drivers and concerns in formulating our 2019-20 budget there were increased demands and instructional needs this more notes most notably came inflationary increases primarily driven by our collective bargaining increases through our contract negotiations an increase in unemployment health insurance and transportation increases throughout

056the district together this accounted for a 2.9 percent increase in our status quo budget from 2018-19 we are experiencing increasing enrollment in our pre-k program both currently and projected based on our birth to three numbers with this we have an Associated increase in professional services needed para educators as well as teachers needed we are seeing an increased number and our students with special needs as well as an increase in special education transportation costs both in district and out of district throughout placements and we do have the unfunded mandates handed down by the state and the associated cost to comply with them balancing all of these increased demands however is our commitment to stay the course with a strategic district roadmap in propelling our district not only to achieve but to excellence our current 2018-19 budget

057is forty two point seven million dollars the Board of Ed proposal to the Board of Selectmen was 44 million three hundred and sixty-six thousand one hundred and twenty four dollars which represented a three point nine percent increase we did have Board of Selectmen and Finance reductions of three hundred and nine four hundred and thirty two dollars and through a collaborative work with the Board of Finance the whisk in your middle school mobile world language lab proposal which was initially in her operating budget was moved to capital as Shaun had detailed that was able to reduce the operating budget by fifty thousand dollars so the proposed Board of Ed 2019-20 budget is forty four million six thousand six hundred ninety two dollars which represents a three percent increase as I had mentioned the status-quo increase over

058the 1819 budget was 2.9 percent which leaves a 1/10 of 1% or 55,000 234 dollar net investment cost we are able to decrease this net investment cost through a reduction in our contractual services district-wide by bringing more services in-house as well as strategic reductions to our operating budget now we based these investments very carefully on our stated budget goals addressing the DES goal to provide the necessary resources to meet the needs of all of our students we have proposed a speech language pathologist and a pre-k teacher both to address this growing enrollment and large class sizes within our pre-k program additionally proposing a special education teacher at Brookfield High School to address the large caseloads there and to ABA para educators this is to maintain compliance with our students IEP s all of these positions

059are absolutely necessary both to maintain state compliance and to provide appropriate services for our students addressing the goal to provide for a rigorous relevant curriculum we're proposing grade 1 through 5 science modules as I had spoken about it before this would be year 2 of our science program rollout also putting in a zesty math program for grades kindergarten through 2nd grade this addresses enrichment intervention and acceleration for our students we do have a pilot program at high school this year and it's receiving rave reviews from both teachers and students alike we're also expanding our open court reading program which is currently kindergarten through 3rd grade up through 4th and 5th grade this provides crucial literacy skills for our students in addressing the goal of maintaining enhancing established program improvements we're proposing an additional language offering

060in our highschool World Language Program through the addition of an American sign language teacher initial response for this has been overwhelming we have 127 students that have already registered at the high school for this American Sign Language program we did make several budget adjustments along the way throughout this budget cycle the first was a Board of Ed reduction to the superintendent's proposal of $30,000 by deferring a start kind times consultant we have initiated a committee we're starting to initiate the committee for healthy start times throughout the district this committee will examine what our start times are currently as well as educating ourselves among the needs of our district and the interest of our community the board thought until we can assess the interest of the community and acceptance of changing the start times that we

061would defer the investment of this consultant then we did make several adjustments in response to the Board of Selectmen and Board of Finance reductions these literally touched them on every area in the operating budget of the Board of Ed everything from reducing textbook and library funds to reading equipment replacements at all of the schools reducing conference and travel and professional development as well as keeping open a position for a maintenance mechanic in the district whenever we do a budget proposal we pay careful attention to our enrollment not only our current enrollment but also projected this year we have two thousand six hundred and forty eight students this is 12 students more than last year but the important thing to note about that is last year's projection based on the most recent demographic study with melona

062mcbroom had us at a 30 student reduction so that was a 42 student difference or addition we had based on what they had projected next year based on this year's enrollment and again the demographic study we are projecting a 30 per 2618 which is a 30 student decrease however because with what we experienced this year with the increase we do need to pay careful attention to that number and adjust class sizes accordingly should that change tremendously we have three hundred and seventy-six students with special needs this year this is a twenty student increase from last year our identification rate is fourteen percent which is almost identical to the state identification rate of fourteen point three percent and we do have one hundred and eleven English language learner students these are students for whom something other

063than English is spoken as a primary language this is a fifteen student increase from last year and interestingly along those 111 students we have 23 separate languages spoken from these enrollment projections we take a look at our class sizes this board is committed to maintaining the guidelines and staying within the guidelines of our class sizes as we're very aware that decreased class size has a direct correlation with improved student achievement for our projected class sizes for 2019 20 that should say it says 1819 we are only projecting one class our eighth grade to be above the range of our class guidelines this is one of the bubble classes that has been moving along our district all of our other classes are projected to be not only within range but most will be either at or

064below target and I wanted to conclude by just discussing for a minute our spending per pupil every district in the state of Connecticut is assigned into a district reference group or durg as we call them this is based on a variety of factors from socio economics to demographics to district size these Dierks go from a to I and Brookfield is in derg be in January the Connecticut State Department of Education released the normalized data for 2017-18 spending per pupil for every district in the entire state and as you can see from this graph at fifteen thousand one hundred and eighty four dollars Brookfield does spend the least per pupil than any other district in Derby so thank you for the time and I will present switch it over now to the moderator I believe [Music]

065thank you very much I'm a teacher in another district so I was distracted by all the details all right now we're moving to resolution - oh no no no we are actually going to have time for discussion and in an effort to move this along let me just issue a few reminders folks are invited to come is that mic on do we know over to the podium on your right and and ask questions of folks on the panel we also have dr. Burrell and dr. Ruby here who I hope had some questions it may be in the interest of time please think about what you're going to say but the most important things first and we're going to try to keep all comments to the three minutes I've got my phone here so if I

066say three minutes I'm not trying to be a jerk I'm just trying to make sure that everybody who wishes to speak gets the chance to do so so with that in mind please come on down if you've got a question or a comment [Music] and when your approach to my options when you say your name and your address thanks sure rich salut go 32 great Heron Lane I just had a couple of questions first of all the three million dollars that was referenced as a decrease in the general fund several years ago I just want to clarify that was found by bill lever ins was it not who was the controller at the time and that was a mistake that was made by his predecessor during the years 2000 to 2010 if you could just

067clarify that at some point I appreciate it the second question I have is if you look at page four the budget and it's listed there as a four hundred eighty thousand dollar expense as 29% of the represents twenty nine percent of the budget increase and yet page five the budget increase looks like three point four million so I'm trying to figure out where you got to 29% from because four hundred and eighty thousand divided by three point four million is about 14% at 29% so if somebody could just clarify that I'd appreciate it thanks mr. Saluda is correct in that our former controller bill Davidson did discover deliverance I'm sorry I'm sorry bill Levin's they discovered that the 3.3 million dollars was missing one thing to notice he discovered it seven months before I took

068office we don't know we did a lot of investigation and we did a lot of research we talked to the FBI we talked to our chief of police and what we discovered is that many of the records that we needed to try to determine where the 3.3 million dollars had gone were missing we don't know when that happened but my guess is it happened over a long period of time from the town not closing its books every year and saying hey my accounting says I should have million dollars in the bank my bank account has 900,000 where's the difference so that is where we are with that we built the general fund up since then on the increase that I'm talking about 29% if you look at the mo rate increase right and the amount

069of money that's been cut from the state budget that's what equals a 29% thank you please state your name and your address Madeline Delia 16 Vale Road so I was just wondering in the presentation you focused a lot on tax increases and why we need to increase spending in Brookfield but I was just wondering if you had any plans on how to cut spending in places where that could be an option as well because people can't handle all the tax increases that are being proposed I was just wondering if there are any future plans on how we could get that under control [Music] well I agree with you that it would be a best the best case scenario for everybody in town is that zero percent increases in our taxes but as we discussed tonight

070we're losing money from the state every single year at least over the last four years we have to make that money up second we have obligations that are contractual such as union contracts for the teachers and all the people who work in Town Hall so we have cut spending in some areas and if you'd like we can go over that in greater detail I don't have all those details with me but we have cut some spending we've cut the board of education budget has been cut from the request every single year the town's budget has been cut the increase has been cut just as everyone in this room feels it things cost more they do and we have to pay for those things and what we're trying to do I know this doesn't really answer

071your question directly we're trying to pay for more things in cash and that will save you a lot of money in the long term that's but if you want to come by my office stop by but I go over the list of things where we have made cuts okay [Music] hi Mel putilov 12 Riverview Court it is my understanding that last year's budget there were two errors one forty four hundred seventy thousand dollars of employee reimbursement for the insurance 130 thousand of assessments was this included back in this year's budget yeah so the fourteen seventy thousand dollars was budgeted by our finance department last year and they had included 13 months of expense versus 12 and we caught it 138 thousand I'm not sure exactly what you're talking about with the honey oh yeah so

072the bellman assessment from the WPC a again our controller put it in and she did not realize 19 months ago that that assessment was rolling off it did so we had one hundred and thirty eight thousand dollars in an assessment we did not have to pay and we we corrected that this year thank you are there any further comments or items for discussion Jack Jack Jack it works ok sorry I'm short so I just want to thank everyone for Detroiters for itself so I want to just now thank the birds I will note the budget I know it's it's hard to see no taxes go up over here but just his point I think just the nature of where we are in the world today it's very hard to get nice things and not pay

073more for them but importantly I just want to thank everyone for a change in tone so when we moved here five years ago I was sort of shocked the level of acrimony and lack of professionalism in how the town's finances were being managed in the sort of entitlement attitude that I kind of found with some of the leaders as sort of a fact that it was a privilege for us to sort of be in their presence and kind of forgetting that that really they're here to sort of serve us as community members so I've seen a big change you know across both house it's not meant to be a partisan comment just generally I feel like there's a lot more cooperation that everyone that's up here is really working towards making the town even better

074than it is and you know you can also just a lot of negativity so I just want to say thank you um Laura Orban 95 Stony Hill Road so also I would like to thank all of the boards and everyone that worked on the budget I know it's a very long process and this is sort of hopefully the end um and hopefully this will pass so it really will be the end I think that when things are going well people are not as engaged in the process and we don't have as big a turnout although I agree that there is a large community that is watching from home right now but I I think that everything that we heard tonight it seems all very reasonable I think to me it sounds like you do have

075a very steady plan the increase and the item costs for bonding the investment in schools recovering from you know major cuts even from a few years ago what a $600,000 cut in one year I remember at the time talking about the fact that that will take five or ten years to recover from just in and of itself not even considering the fact that then every year after that they're still going to be investments that have to be made listening to you talk about the controlled sustained growth having the factor for teacher the potential for teacher retire the teachers retirement having to be a consideration which may or may not happen so to me this seems all very logical and reasonable and clear that it was done as a cooperative effort kind of as as what

076as Victor said I I think the tone is a lot different and so I appreciate that I I feel like I still have this is the letter last year there's always you know a few days before the budget you get something from an anonymous PAC that says don't support the budget because it's too high and I really hope that we don't have that this year and as residents we can all give you the support and the courtesy that you have given us and putting together something so reasonable and useful for the town and be advocates for the budget and unsupported as well so thank you for your work and I hope we all can give you the same respect okay if there are no further questions or comments I'll close out there's one right I'm

077sorry rich can you come up because people that people can't hear here you go again I don't mean to be pesky but I'm trying to find a number that you're using to determine 29% and you said the millwright number the MU right number is 3 million the budget expense is 3.4 million either one of those numbers as the denominator is doesn't bring 29 percent so I'm just trying to figure out what number use it that's all let me know if it's okay with you rich I don't hold people up I'll send you how we got to that number does it make sense are there any further comments or questions if nothing will close discussion on this particular resolution because this resolution must be voted on at a referendum there is no vote on it tonight

078but the Town Meeting does need to set a referendum date tonight which is the next resolution so we're gonna move to resolution to vote on referendum date can I get a motion from the floor please to set Tuesday May 21st from 6 a.m. to 8 p.m. as the date and time for the annual budget referendum Bob Beldon great thanks and can I get a second Eileen that's great thank you is there any discussion of this if not all in favor please say aye okay all opposed so the motion has passed so with that sir who's there I'm sorry yes great um rich Telugu moves to adjourn can I get a second Mel right okay great with that we are adjourned thank you so much and have a safe evening Oh all in favor everyone who

079just stood up ready to go Thanks I'll get right one of these days good night everybody thanks for coming [Music]