BoS passes the BoE budget year after year - without comment!

The state of Connecticut is known as the “Land of Steady Habits.”

For those who take comfort in consistency, the fact that Bethel’s 2015
Budget Public Hearing on Monday, March 23rd and Annual Town Meeting on
Monday, April 6th will take place a full month earlier than in past years,
may prove unsettling to some. Prior to recent Charter revisions, Bethel
voters gathered to discuss the thorny issues of Town and School spending
in the first week of May.

But there’s a bright spot for people who respond to change with anxiety
and worry. A new tradition pertaining to the approval process of proposed
budgets has taken root over the past six years, and it’s one that appears
to be here to stay. A radical departure from days gone by, it is a
practice that relieves the Board of Selectmen of their responsibility and
places the burden of evaluating the Board of Ed’s proposed budget relative
to other Town needs completely on the Board of Finance.

Since Matt Knickerbocker’s election in 2009, he and Selectmen Straiton and
Szatkowski have passed the Board of Education’s proposed budget along to
the Board of Finance, without recommending as much as one penny in cuts.

For the past six years, proposed Education budgets totaling close to $250
million (a quarter of a billion dollars - 85% of that in salaries and
benefits) have been rubber-stamped by Bethel’s elected officials during
one of the worst economic downturns since the stock market crash of 1929.

According to Board of Selectmen meeting minutes dated March 1, 2012, the
“Selectmen remarked that they believe the voters should have their say on
the Board of Education budget; the Board of Education is elected by the
voters; and they (the Board of Education) have formulated a budget they
believe best meets the educational needs of the Town of Bethel.”

On that premise, shouldn’t all budget proposals prepared by elected Boards
and officials be exempt from the Selectmen’s scalpel? However, this is not
the case. For example, the Police Commission is an elected Board. Yet,
over the past six years the same Selectmen who issued the above statement
in their own meeting minutes recommended cuts - some of them dramatic - to
that budget. Is the Police Commission not capable of determining what best
meets the law enforcement needs of the Town of Bethel?

Why have our paid elected officials chosen to abjure their role and punt
the proposed school budgets for six consecutive budget seasons? Why should
the volunteer members of the Board of Finance bear the sole burden of
reducing unjustified spending? For the Selectmen to simply pass along the
proposed BoE budget without comment is nothing short of a tacit approval
of 60% of Bethel’s total municipal budget.

That Bethel has the highest effective tax rates of any town in the area
except Newtown is a direct result of our town’s unrestrained spending,
which is a byproduct of the Selectmen’s one-sided behavior. These
exorbitant tax rates are particularly oppressive considering that Bethel’s
wealth ranking (ability to pay) is 100th out of 169 neighboring towns. The
area towns with the higher wealth rankings have lower equalized mill rates
than Bethel, while the town with the lower wealth ranking endures a higher
tax burden. (Refer to 06-29-2014 News-Times article “Where the Money
Goes”.)

The Board of Selectmen’s inability and/or unwillingness to recommend
unpopular budget cuts exacerbates the ongoing issue of over taxation.
Soaring property taxes have become more than just a burden to Bethel
taxpayers - they discourage new business formation and make it more and
more difficult for current residents and business owners to remain in the
town they love.

The Land of Steady Habits has an inspiring state motto, qui transtulit
sustinet, which means “He who transplanted it, sustains it.” This phrase
should be modified for Bethel taxpayers to read - “qui transtulit non
amplius sustinet,” “He who transplanted it can no longer afford to
sustain it.”

Budget recommendations are meant to be a shared responsibility, not
something to be quickly passed along to the next examiner. Bethel’s
Selectmen need to step up and make the hard choices on both budgets, at
their own table, and on the first pass.