001[Music] okay good evening everyone we're gonna get started here this is the our welcome to the public hearing for the board from the Board of Finance for the 2019 2020 budget year I call this meeting to order if everyone could rise and join you for the pledge okay so thank you all for coming for those of you that are watching from home I hope you're comfortable this is a just a very brief agenda or it's so brief though call it a meeting flow we had the call to order we just went through the pledge now I'm gonna take you through what the Board of Finance is proposing to the town okay we'll go through the summary or that what we call the mill rate page will then talk about some of the highlights in town
002operations move on to the board of education spend and then we'll talk a little bit about capital projects and debt service and then when after we go through the numbers we'll open the floor to public comment or questions anything that we can answer either from myself or a member of the Board of Finance we will if we need to defer to someone else to give you a very specific answer we'll do that too like we did last year there are some key dates in this budget process that I like to make everyone aware of the budget process formally begins mid-january however the department's actually start going through their spend this year spend last year spend and I start formulating their budgets to pass over to the First Selectman okay by January 17th and they don't
003do that in a vacuum or in a bubble they actually go over their budgets with the finance director and controller before I move through any other dates I think that person she is very new to us to this town that's Marsha Marian she's at the table there at the panel and she's done a tremendous job not only with financial modeling but also accounting and controls for the town and when you have those things come together when you have collaboration and corroboration and guidance oversight and leadership in that office you get a budget that is solid that is put together on a foundation not a crumbly one where we have holes to poke and whatnot but an actual foundation that does support our objectives and our goals as a town and Board of Ed okay so
004thank you very much Marsha after that the board of or the First Selectman moles over the budget and continues February 1st the Board of Education budget is due to the Board of Selectmen in February 15th the First Selectman passes his cut of the budget over to the Board of Selectmen they then move on the cut of or their cut of the budget March 1st the Board of Selectmen budget cut is due to the Board of Finance and then starting a few days later the department's in addition to the Board of Selectmen present to the Board of Finance and that does include the board of finances deliberations questions comments concerns everything like that is answered in that time tonight we are at the the public hearing about the Board of Finance and then there'll be a
005Town Meeting the budget on May 7th ok and then we have an anticipated referendum date of May 21st ok so like we did last year I want to take you through I'll say high-level primary concerns and goals walking into any budget season there are always these two these two pots of ideas ok and I'll address the concerns first because when we state our concerns we can better shape our goals to address those concerns so right now we have a new governor in office and he has proposed some funding cuts and we'll get into those so those are as they were last year those are I think one of our primary concerns the money that we have relied on from the state possibly won't be there so that's a big concern right managing the capital projects
006pipeline right now we have one of the biggest projects the town has ever seen that's been approved a referendum and we have a police station in the mix we have just many other things police radios coming down the pipeline and we need to be prepared for those so we need to take those into consideration matching revenues and expenditures related to positive growth you know that's not a new concern we have development coming on board which does increase revenue right so we want to make sure that we appropriately match what we're doing what our plans are to that growth in that revenue coming in and the goals you know over over the past several months we've been talking about sustainable and controlled growth and how do we do it what are our what are our metrics
007well in coming into the new school referendum you know the finance department did a great job putting together I'll say a plan that had some assumptions some some growth assumptions from spending assumptions and I think the Board of Finance has has taken that as a way to if we can hold to the assumptions in there and the revenue growth and the expenditure growth we can really have a program of sustainable and controlled growth and that that's that's a goal I think because I don't think we've had a plan like that a plan as intricate and as intense in the past and we do now we want to provide funding for the best solutions to both the town and the schools so that means that we know or we have a very good idea of where
008your tax dollars are going we want to minimize the impact of budget changes to tax payers so you'll see in some later slides that we've gotten I'll say appropriately creative you know to the letter of the law with some of the funding sources for capital projects and one of the most important things we want to make sure we keep Brookfield a great deal for residents this here is the budget summary or the mill rate tab as we've called it in the past there are two some some little changes here and there that we've made or that Marsha has made for a fairer or more clear presentation something that you'll notice that you haven't seen before is an allocation of the Teachers Retirement and we'll get into that so the main takeaways from this summary page
009okay as I was harping on before there's a promotion of sustainable and controlled growth okay that line that I mentioned as new the funding for the teachers pension our share of that would be a hundred thirty thousand and change coming into the nineteen twenty budget year we've gotten some I'll say some positive news right that that might not happen that might not be a thing that the state pushes down to the municipalities okay but for a conservative approach we're going to leave it in there just in case it does come true okay I'll say prior commitments are coming due and you can see that in debt service we have a bump in debt service and we'll get into that a little later on the capital and other has gone up by half a million dollars
010considerably percentage-wise we're buying more with cash this year and bonding less it's a smarter approach especially to achieve and promote sustainable and controlled growth as we move down into revenues permanent permit fees are a temporary bump with current development our fire marshal goes out and inspects all these new projects all these new projects pay to have those inspections and permits done the intergovernmental revenue as you see there that's the primary line for state funding it's down and we took it as a conservative approach to the governor's proposal we decided not to play optical games this year right with not knowing exactly where Lamont's proposals gonna fall and with the legislature so we have a decrease of about three hundred ten thousand dollars slated in this budget and we'll get into more detail on that and
011I think the last main takeaway here is that you know this town Brookfield provides necessary services to meet residents needs with an a-minor relatively minor increase in the mill rate this year and later on I'll flip to our town website and the mill rate calculator so I can show you exactly what the impact would be on let's say an average assessed value in town so I'm calling this anticipated revenues a condensed version this budget was presented to the Board of Finance in great detail but that level of detail I don't think is appropriate but you have it everyone has it online and as a handout in the back so you can see every single line but this is condensed the main the main idea on this page and why I've left the inter-governmental revenues is
012because you can see there's an anticipated decrease pretty heavily pretty heavy of about two hundred seventy five thousand dollars from the education cost sharing that we would get from the state that has a big impact on what we do here in town so we've found ways I think to mitigate that exposure as much as possible should we not see the pushdown of the pension cost sharing and we see I'll say a normalised pushdown of every intergovernmental revenue we should know these or at least have a really good idea about these before we actually conclude our budget season here the board will discuss let's say lowering the mill rate proportionately to to accommodate for both of those actions because it would warrant a decrease in the proposed mill rate so you have you have my word
013that we will take that into account when we meet after the referendum so this is a high-level overview of the revenue and now we get into town operations there's two slides as you'll see in your handouts for town operations you just can't fit it all on one page so first and foremost primary drivers salary increases are in this budget at an average of two point five percent okay pretty much in line with cost-of-living adjustments you have additional increases due to Union and contractual obligations in the assessor's office the tax collector's office and the land use office the Board of Finance budget has increased because we are going to do I'll say enhanced audits look for our systems that will provide greater comfort that what we have in place and what we're doing is right or
014there will be recommendations to get to where we need to be the finance office includes planned overtime versus using outside professionals we have as I mentioned before we have a finance director and controller who's performing I'll say at a high level and so is her staff and that high level requires a little extra juice here and there so that's why we're planning for overtime in regional memberships that's another one that has a bit of a bump we did get a first-time increase in animal control costs we've been utilizing that service but have never seen an increase and lucky us this year we do see a bump in those okay down the public safety you'll notice that EMS has an increase there and they're budgeting for additional paramedic shifts throughout the night Fire Marshal that one
015percentage-wise has gone up considerably however we have a full-time experienced Fire Marshal on staff as of October of 2018 that was very necessary to pull in the revenue of permit fees that were counting on in the previous slide a second piece of time operations again there's a general theme of additional or salary increases averaging 2.5 percent in addition there are some salary increases due to union negotiations and contracts and agreements in the Health Department and in the Recreation Department the next big bump there percentage-wise our share of recycling fees from the town of New Milford has increased by ten thousand dollars year over year our First Selectman has committed to fighting that cost increase based on the percentage that we actually utilize those services for recreation or actually in the utilities line has gone up
016and that's because in the Recreation Department we've reclassified town utilities just to be more in line with where they should be presented with the uniform chart of accounts Social Services has added hours for part-time employees due to increasing demands in the department the library is increasing headcount to fill gaps in coverage this is very necessary debt service payments debt service is going up as I'll discuss and a few in coming slides we have payments that are just do we took out debt last year and those payments are coming due interest in principle so you'll see that in addition to just several other payments which are still outstanding from past debt the Board of Education this format just looks a little different it's not the same colors and shades however this presents a consistent apples-to-apples year
017over year view okay the Board of Finance did propose at $359,000 an overall decrease to their proposed budget then the Board of Education represents a three point zero five increase year-over-year now why I think that's very important to know why primary drivers of the Board of Education in budget increase inflationary increases including contracts for collective bargaining agreements employee health insurance and increased transportation costs increased pre-k enrollment and increasing cost of required professional services and para educators we have increased number of students with special needs and that that last driver really has an impact on the necessary professional services and para educators and some transportation costs now what are the goals of the Board of Education in this budget proposal same as last year the Board of Education needs to meet the needs of all students
018all students and maintain class size within guidelines they need to provide for a relevant curriculum they have certain technology technology upgrade needs and improved infrastructure needs they also need to maintain and continue to enhance established program improvements while remaining responsive to changing needs and the Board of Education does need to find ways to address the proposed reductions in the budget I believe the Board of Education is meeting tomorrow night just to go over you know the what-ifs what would give here you know this board does support education and the Board of Education but we do need to ensure that we are promoting sustainable and controlled growth in town capital projects you have far more detail in your handouts but this is a very summary level and I've listed the various projects for each category hopefully
019you have your bullet points in line with the actual departments that they relate to general government upgraded systems for the Assessor IT Human Resources and some financing costs for the bonds right the police police cruisers a data center and a unified printing system that ties into the rest of the town the police they've they've agreed they had far more requests and you'll you can see it right here they requested three hundred almost three hundred sixty two thousand dollars and we're actually only funding them out of out of financed and current capital about two hundred five thousand the police are doing a lot of patrol work or I'll say site patrol work and they've they accumulate those earnings into an outside service fund and the police have been good enough to agree to make several capital
020purchases out of that fund so that's why you've seen them disappear from what you have in your handout to what's on here the center fire company they're looking for roof work that's that two hundred forty seven thousand and we've also put some some funds in there for apparatus reserves and emergency equipment Candlewood fire company they're looking to purchase a fire truck in the coming year that four hundred fifty thousand represents the town's share the board has committed for several years that when the fire departments need these major items such as fire trucks and things of that nature that the town will be there not only to utilize the reserve funds that have been set aside throughout the years but also pick up the difference between those reserve funds and what the fire companies have accumulated
021through their fund raisers and drives and such so that $450,000 represents I'll say the the town's share of that commitment they're also looking for some some roof work they don't have an insulated attic on one half of their building and they're also looking for some thermal cameras Public Works they have an ask of some dump trucks heavy-duty jump dump trucks there's two of them we've pushed that off long enough Public Works is using vehicles that have been mandated together just repairing and patching for several years and this is the year that we'd like to ask the town to support that department who works tirelessly in the summer and in the winter for two of those trucks Public Works other we have road paving in there and we've lessened as we've committed to we lessen the
022bonded amount to $450,000 this year we're trying to get away from bonding roads altogether and you have in that 1.1 million you have the cash payment for road improvements and you also have some some some other repairs that are necessary in town their parks and grounds the parks and recs department is actually responsible for the fields at the schools and at the Rec Center so we're proposing to set aside some money for repairing tennis courts and the turf fields those turf fields they're great you can use them almost year-round as long as there's not snow but that does add on the wear and tear of those fields so we do need to be cognizant of that and provide for the time when we actually do need to make a replacement or a major overhaul to
023those facilities and parks and grounds is also looking for a bobcat and some maintenance to the center playground there's a slide that needs to be purchased for the children to use and we're also looking to fund some drainage issues that they have that Center and then we get into what the Board of Education is actually requesting for for the schools that 1.27 million dollar request has to do with HVAC and Building Control here at the high school really getting the whole building and all the systems in the building to speak the same language and hopefully drive some some efficiencies there at the high school here and anyone that drove here today which most of you probably did you'll notice the parking lots are not in the best condition all right so we do need to
024maintain these things before they require a major overhaul there's also some very necessary security upgrades right for this the safety of not only the students but also the teachers and staff here at whisk near Middle School we're looking to pave parts of the parking lot we're looking for a new fire pump generator a building management system and some very necessary security upgrades as well huckleberry obviously the referendum passed several weeks ago so we're not looking to do any major overhauls or upgrades there but there are those necessary security enhancements and that even if we were leaving sooner than later that building we still need to keep our students and teachers safe so the board did fully support that and the same thing with with center as long as it's being utilized by teachers and staff
025and anyone else we should as a town be supportive of the necessary security enhancements and then the board did want to add back that World Language lab at whiskey near middle school so the best place to put that for us was in district wide that had been something that I think was was asked for several times now and we decided it was a good idea to put that in there and hopefully the Board of Education can utilize those funds to implement that and what I mentioned earlier about getting a little creative here and there we were able to I'll say lessen the burden of all these requests on the town and the mill rate by reallocating I'll say existing unspent capital projects that for Center and huckleberry from the capital non-recurring fund so we utilize
026fifty thousand dollars of that in this budget so that is fifty thousand dollars that the town committed in prior years that were utilizing this year for current projects and that represents fifty thousand dollars that doesn't calculate as out of your pocket for this year and we did we did have some proceeds from the sale of a capital property and we're gonna utilize almost 50% of those funds or about two hundred sixteen thousand dollars - I'll say subsidized the current year capital requests and I think that's a great idea because we can get things done we can meet the needs of the town a little bit cheaper than we had anticipated at sticker price debt service in general debt service payments decrease outstanding principal and interest for the the bonds that we've taken out in prior
027years debt issued in November 18 has payments in this current budget of about 1.7 million dollars altogether and that represents not only finally bonding for things like cattigan but also if anyone recalls when we finally got to the bottom of our capital projects there were numerous projects that had gone unbonded so that the the proceeds of the debt last year that was issued does account for that and when you purchase enough things on credit when you start paying those numbers do add up band interest decreases as a result of the the issuance last year because we rolled the temporary notes into long-term debt short-term financing is in this year new for leases that we want to take out when annual financing costs have been moved to current cash outlays so in addition to the I'm
028sorry 1.6 million dollar debt service related to this last this last bond package we also have 1.7 million dollars related to the high school project okay and that should be rolling off of our debt schedule or about 2026 before I move into public comment I do want to stress and mention why I think that this is a solid budget and mentioned why it keeps Brookfield still a great deal of a town to live in as I mentioned earlier I do feel that this is a very solid budget because it's built on a solid foundation probably the most solid since I've been on this board and a lot of work and time went into making sure that this was trimmed to get the most accurate picture that we have right now and I think it meets
029it meets the needs of of our town and that's that's very important because we're all here we're all contributing to this town in some way shape or form and we're all utilizing services so it's it's exceptionally important that the budgets that we propose to the town to vote on do meet the needs of everyone not only in this room but the students who don't vote because they can't yet and every one that actually does vote even with a slight mill increase that was proposed on the front page Brookfield still remains a very good deal there are a number of services that we all benefit from the library for instance the Senior Center you know that if you actually had to pay for those and the fire department EMS right if we actually had paid services
030for those this budget would be astronomical that's why I think this is this is this is a solid budget and it does meet the needs and it does key broke failed a great deal especially in comparison to our surrounding towns that's all I have for this presentation and hopefully it sparks some some questions that we can answer and hopefully it's inspirational so we can bring this thing to referendum and get it done and look forward to the new year so with that I'll turn it over to public comment or questions anyone is more than welcome to use that podium and state your name and address for the record I'm Betsy McIlvain I live at one to seven Long Meadow Hill Road I am chairman of the library board and it was mentioned in the presentation
031that the library will acquire another part-time employee for which will help us provide the kind of services the library deserves and the town deserves so we're very grateful for that I'm grateful also for the amount of effort that goes into preparing a budget the amount of time the Board of Selectmen the finance department and the Board of Finance puts into this is phenomenal and you couldn't get me to run for that for anything I'm very happy that people do we do have a request from the library board you saw very briefly that the library board is about 61 thousand dollars higher in this coming proposal than it is this year part of that pays for the part-time employee a great deal of it applies to expenses that were previously budgeted elsewhere in town $10,000 was
032budgeted in capital and is being moved into the operating budget that's fine $47,000 is to pay for the Social Security for our employees it also was has been budgeted for the past couple of years in the town side of the budget not the library so if we get a sixty one thousand dollar increase and fifty seven thousand dollars of it is committed to something else that doesn't give us a lot of extra money it was paid for by a reduction of 41 thousand dollars if you're into the nitty-gritty of budget it's at the bottom of the non salary portion of the library's budget so it's the non salary portion being what pays for books magazines computer access equipment it also pays for cleaning the building the building is very badly cleaned I talked to the
033the woman who cleans Town Hall last night vacuuming the carpets five nights a week we get it done what three and our bathrooms are not cleaned we have children coming in so we had hoped to add one more day of cleaning for the library for this coming year so we would like to ask the board of finances they go back through the budget and make their final determinations to add back in that at least the forty one thousand that was removed from our budget I always feel like I'm standing up here and I'm defending what comes down to to pay for your library 1.1 percent of your budget and it's an incalculable savings to the town and service that the town needs and uses very heavily so I'm hoping that you will consider replacing that
034money in our budget for the coming year thank you thank you on Jaffee 21 white pine drive I'd also like to thank everybody for the work that they've done I've been where you are it's no fun but it's and it's a lot of work but it's the town doesn't function without the volunteer cadres and so thank you I know a lot of difficult decisions were made you know and what I want to do is you know and while a lot of good work has been done there are a couple of points that I'd like to be made I'd like to make you know with the real understanding that governor government is a service business we're not building widgets we can't just shut down a factory and let let people go we are in a service
035business and we have to provide those services regardless and we want the citizens want those services to be outstanding at a very cost-effective rate you know we we are cost effective we have been cost effective we know our mill rate is lower than almost everybody around here that should be a source of pride we also know that the schools you know we can sistent lee are reported by the state as being in the bottom quintile if not even lower on our spending per pupil on the one hand that's a good thing on the other hand it's a challenge we want our schools to be excellent we don't want to you know to you know to really walk away from our responsibility to provide as excellent opportunities and as we can I will note that if
036you look at the town budget or spending and the proposed budget and by town spending I'm talking right now about the town without that service without capital without education just town operations from 2015-16 to the proposal our average increase has been 4.6 9% a year if you look at our education increase over the same time from 2015-16 to the proposal for next year average spending 2.8 percent to 0.87 percent increase okay so yeah on the one hand we're getting good results you know in the school system on the other hand are we really not yeah are we getting to the tipping point where we're cutting so much that it's going to have some impact when I was on the Board of Ed lobbying for budgets I was often heard to talk about the you know
037the distance in time between budgets and seeing the impact and student achievement passed the budget this year implement the program the next year do some testing the following year to see how you're doing get the result a year or two later four or five years in student outcome between spending and implementation and seeing what we've done to students my concern with an incredibly lean school budget where we've reduced hundreds of thousands of dollars and I understand the real desire to get down to a you know to a bottom line in terms of tax increase I get it from a political standpoint but not having the conversation with the town about what the needs are and the efficiencies and the potential upside of spending that money I'm reminded of a previous First Selectman who said don't
038ask don't get and so I would encourage you to think again about that the other thing is I'd like to talk a little bit about the library as well if you look at the library budget last year in our current year - proposal for next year if we take out the social security readjustment it's a 1.88 percent increase that's not even cost a living that's a full point below what the government says cost of living is you know and so we know that the library has again on the one hand they do a phenomenal job with the the resources the town is allocated but on the other hand we know that the you know we're dealing with children's books that are outdated you know the children's selection in the library we know that we have
039real needs in the library and I'm not talking about the physical well I'm not talking about a new library you know but physically there are there are things that need to be done there as well but just operationally a 1.8 percent increase to me seems a little bit of a step backwards so I understand you know the desire to get you know to get the increase you know the tax increase as low as possible but if we don't have the conversation with the town we'll never get there and if we don't begin to have that conversation now a couple of years down the road and you've heard me say this before a couple of years down the road when the you know the bonding hits for the new school that we just approved [Music] which
040in and of itself is a 6% increase if we don't talk about the needs to fund people and programs we're going to end up in you know in a place where I don't think we all want to be so I thank you for your work and I encourage you to think about a couple of things thank you then here on the board want to address anything all good um Laura Orban 95 Stony Hill Road so I thank you as well for all the time and hard work but I know it goes into what we thought very well summarized I just wanted to talk a little bit about the ECS formula and well not too much about the formula itself but we hear a lot about losing money from the state and what we're not going
041to get from the state and I think it's important to remember that the reason that formula was changed is because Connecticut is actually the worst state in the country in terms of disparity between students high-income and low-income students and what they receive for education funding and that's that's that's wrong morally and I mean it's also against the state constitution to provide an equal education for all students and so this the formula was changed because we have students getting you know thirty five thousand dollars per pupil in the top district and students getting eleven thousand in the lowest district and that's not right and so this is an effort to balance that out no one's taking money from us just to take it it it's to even things out based on need and so we need
042to think about the fact that the changes that we're seeing are based on where we fit in the state and so I just want to mention a couple of things about about Brookfield so yes we all know we're at the bottom of our our what does drg stand for district resource group reference group and we have been for a long time in terms of what we spend so we spend less per student and roughly 1800 less than the state average per student and if you look at surrounding towns Bethel New Fairfield the state average new town we're at the bottom right so I think that's a well-established point but we always hear about like you know if times are so tough and everybody's starving in Brookfield that's not really true and that's why we're getting
043less money from the state our mill rate is lower than all but one of the mill rates for the similar and surrounding neighborhoods so Bethel New Fairfield Newtown we're lower than all of those and and that's really important to note right because that means we do a lot with a very little bit of money so this was a new one for me the net the equalized net grandma's per capita right so Brookfield we do pretty well right and I understand that has to do also with like how much we have stores and money coming in from other places but if you look at what we get per person including our property we're above all of those same areas all those same towns in our area except for one which sermon I guess is considered in
044our area so that's important to know right like how much for bringing in per whatever you call it the item that's on the ground list house whatever it is and then the median household income in Brookfield also higher than Bethel higher the New Fairfield much higher than the state median higher the Middlebury and South berry which make up regional district 5 higher than Sherman and almost the same as Newtown so I think this idea that we're losing money from the state and we have to constantly be on an austerity budget that's just not true we have to give our students what they need I like the controlled growth or the whatever the phrase is that you're using the managed growth like we can't be at 5% but we also can't be at 0% we need
045to have a plan for what's reasonable and continue to invest wisely but we can't have nothing and we can't act like we're always starving to death so that's my comment thank you even in rich Saluda 32 great hair and lean thank you for the opportunity to make a few comments about the proposed budget and the potential impact on fellow residents I'd like to preface my remarks by asking you to be mindful of this fact Social Security benefits upon which many seniors rely for a major part of their income have increased cumulative lis during the 4 2016 2 mm mm 20 budget years only 5.1 percent during that four year period during the same time timeframe the overall town budget which includes the proposed of 1 for next year has increased sixteen point three percent and
046the MOL rate has increased thirteen point four percent this is just not sustainable for our senior neighbors and I dare say for many non seniors we just can't keep going on that trajectory this trajectory in light of the above allow me to point out what appear to be some unreasonable expenses in the proposed budget the 26 percent increase in the First Selectman salary from the current 87,000 589 two hundred and ten thousand dollars I don't accept the argument that some people are making that this increase is meant to attract better candidates what does that say about our current town leaders are they stepping down or as some might suggest this is some attempt to hike their own salaries in the event that they do run and are successfully reelected I think that really needs to
047be looked at and examined number two last year the First Selectman is assistant and I might say this person is one of the nicest and most responsive people in all of town government but last Jan I just assistant was granted a 10% raise because in the words of the First Selectman quote she works hard and sometimes has to work evenings why then is this position getting an additional eight point one percent further raise and the proposed budget that's a flair total in this position of a twenty one point three percent increase and again I might remind you that the seniors had a 5.1 percent increase during that same time period in their Social Security benefits I'm afraid the Board of assessment is a clear recently revalued downward more than 50 properties which appealed that's a
048clear indication of the poor performance the vision appraisal company the town utilizes I've suggested in the past and I'll repeat that suggestion tonight to get rid of this outside vendor most of the Assessors staff and let our home team so to speak right here in Brookfield do a more professional accurate job to continue to fund both of these entities is foolhardy and a waste of taxpayer funds number four and again this follows I guess some of the previous speakers the library despite their desire to keep it a secret has an endowment of some six hundred thousand dollars and only about 60% of it is restricted by the original will that set up the endowment so given that they have two hundred and fifty thousand dollars to utilize for quote general library purposes and they've had
049difficulties with their accounting I would suggest that the proposed 8% increased for the library be changed to no more than a three percent increased in their current budget they have the funds to spend why should taxpayers subsidize them further number five um and I know this isn't necessarily part of this budget but I think it falls under the oversight purview of the Board of Finance it appears that the W PCA has grossly over assessed property owners for their sewer assessments you you now have property owners currently getting a sewer assessment for property that is 50 percent less than other properties on the same sewer line and their sewer assessments are higher this doesn't make any sense at a WPC a meeting last week this question was raised and none of the commission members could explain
050the discrepancy said oh we'll look into it I believe the Board of Finance needs to exercise greater oversight to correct this apparent wrongdoing and finally I'm gonna ask you please don't fall for what I think is too hackneyed predictable threat by the Board of Ed and not just the Board of Ed in Brookfield but pretty much every Board of Ed says the same thing whenever they face with reductions the first thing everybody says is layoffs Oh teachers are going to get lose positions and class sizes are going to increase please don't fall for that I commend you for reducing their budget request I just don't think you went far enough I would suggest an additional half million dollar reduction and as as I've said to you last year and the year before I'm more than
051willing to sit with you go through the budget and I'll be able to point out where you can save that money and not touch a teacher or a class size thanks very much I did have two questions one was in terms of the capital projects chart that you showed I'm just trying to figure out how to read it you had a total number for example just used the board of edges that's an example you had seven million dollar total but the columns didn't reflect seven million dollars so I'm just trying to figure out is the rest of that seven million dollars that's not covered just something that is put off for is that somewhere else that no that column is the department request column right right so those are projects that are deemed to not
052be priority right now okay okay or ones yes that have been pushed off okay I just want to make sure I read it correctly so out of out of almost what is it twelve point seven million the Board of Finance is proposing you know actual bonded projects of about three and a half million right and current year funded projects of that 1.8 million that that's how that can be read okay I appreciate that I just wanted to make sure I was reading it correctly and the second question I had was just something to think about a couple of years ago with the previous Board of Finance administration or leadership I should say they were criticized publicly for what was called that inflating the revenues for licenses and fees it was currently at that time I
053think was around three or four hundred thousand and they had put in the budget I think 750,000 or something like that and I guess the question I would ask is is this same thing happening here with the four hundred thousand go into nine hundred thousand so again just something to think about especially since it was only a couple of years ago where people were criticized for doing it exactly the same thing I think I think the finance department along with the fire marshal and the other relevant departments have actually done a pretty good bottoms-up estimate of that based on what's actually going in to those spaces right so it's not a it's actually a more I'll say a more defined approach okay did you want did you want some more clarity on that no no
054I just wanted to throw it out it like I said I was at the meetings where people were being rich that's a very very good question because it did happen when we first took office that there were town clerk and land use fees that were inflated and never appeared so we had to make up that difference the reason we have an increase issue is we're having some very big development Branson ultrasonics issued a press release today they're moving to Brookfield the fees for that building alone are gonna be over $300,000 for the building fee Fire Marshal feeds things like that we have some other developments coming in we were very conservative in in actually increasing that number because we know that it's a one-time revenue so probably next year's budget you're gonna see that go
055back down does that answer your question okay Thank You mr. silica you had your first two points I think we're on the First Selectman Department those salary increases the salary increase for the First Selectman actually doesn't have anything to do with the individual it has everything to do with the position itself the board was presented with comparable salary figures for surrounding towns and the the position here in Brookfield according to those comparables we felt was underpaid we took a look again at the comparables again not taking the person into account okay but the position itself the demand on that position and the comparables for surrounding towns so that's that's what we did for that position as far as the First Selectman assistant this was I believe the phase two of the board of finances approach
056to adequately I'll say fund that position again we were provided with some comparables okay less than the first LeCun position I'll be candid with you for the same type of work and the assistant in the first electron's office again was well underfunded so we had made a commitment to I'll say go about half way last year and we committed to discussing again this year and the increase that you see in this year's budget is essentially phase two of what we had talked about last year to get that position where it needs to be I think that does it for direct questions right anywhere else [Music] take your time hi everybody my name is Vincent Kakao MO I live at nine Hamlin Court in Brookfield um have you guys a number one thank you for your
057service what'd you guys do I'm an owner of a company it's a very thankless job especially when you have to tell people no so what a question I had and some of the things we do in collegiate sports my company writes maintenance contracts for professional sports teams amusement parks and gaming facilities around the world and what they do is they what we try to do is leverage the actual contracts of what you guys have whether it be capital capital projects the school project and and try to facilitate um the gap that you guys have in obviously your wish list and what's realistic so for instance school projects roughly about 130 million dollars I believe that's blessed yes sir amortized out so my question would be would you guys be willing to leverage out just say
058it's an 86 million dollar project would you guys be willing to leverage out to a construction company or are to a GC or somebody and and get a quote unquote rebate so a hard cost then becomes an ROI to you directly to the town and basically make the town you know self sustainable with its own money wait hang on Steve Steve I don't think this is the right forum for that type of question something like that would be better brought directly to the first electron's office for a discussion okay you're more talking business okay yeah I called the superintendent and they've never called me back okay thank you thank you very much anyway else and before we conclude I do want to show you quick this mill rate calculator or a tax increase projected tax
059change calculator is available on the town website on the finance departments webpage okay and really the variables you need to plug in and maybe you won't need to plug in so many of them tomorrow are your assessed property value which there's a link to actually look up your the assessed value of your property right up above and the current mill rate should populate when we get it adjusted and if it doesn't the 2019 mill rate is right there twenty eight point 33 and you can put in or kind of mess with what the Board of Finance has proposed which the proposed mill rate right now before any further adjustments is twenty nine point one four so let's just say for the sake of argument and presentation that you have a property and the assessed not
060the appraised but the assessed value is two hundred eighty thousand okay plug in the other value variables you click calculate and this says that should this budget which I hope it does be approved at referendum you would anticipate a tax change year over a year of two hundred twenty six dollars and 81 cents I think that's a pretty damn good deal for everything that's been proposed okay it's important to me that everyone at least 25 people in this room know that this is available for you at any time if you can't sleep please go ahead and calculate the change in mill rate on your situation okay that's it thank you very much all those in favor of adjournment [Music]