Dunn declares town will continue to get less state assistance

By Scott Benjamin

BROOKFIELD – The late Lew Rome – who was mayor of Bloomfield, state Senate Majority Leader and a Republican gubernatorial nominee – often said “there is no more important document on any chief executive’s desk than the budget.”

But Steve Dunn says that budgets aren’t what they used to be.

And he’s only been first selectman of Brookfield for 40 months.

Dunn, a Democrat, said the amount of state municipal aid has been less each of his four years in office. And in anticipation of a state mandate, the proposed $70 million municipal budget includes $130,222 to pay for part of the teachers’ pensions.

He estimates the teachers' pensions costs will escalate in the subsequent years.

It’s the first time that Brookfield – or any Connecticut municipality - has paid anything for teachers’ pensions since 1939.

Dunn said “29 percent” of the proposed 5.18 percent municipal budget spending increase for the fiscal year that starts July 1 is due to payment for the teachers’ pensions and the reduced state assistance.

In effect, first, former Gov. Dannel Malloy (D-Essex) and now Gov. Ned Lamont (D-Greenwich) have said the state government can’t keep doing things the way we’ve been doing them.

Dunn, who was a vice president at J.P. Morgan Chase, said that in general he agrees with that approach. He has often said that the state government spends too much money. However, the Education Cost Sharing funding is the same overall. It’s just been redistricted so that suburban districts, such as Brookfield, receive less funds and distressed urban districts receive more.

He doesn’t think that is fair.

Nor does he agree with the proposal to have municipalities pay for a portion of the teacher retirements.

Dunn said the state should figure out how to address its failure to meet its obligations without imposing on the municipalities.

CT Mirror budget reporter Keith Phaneuf recently said that the teacher retirement expenses were underfunded, for example, during each year of the 1980s. In fact, he said 85 percent of the pension and retirement costs now being paid for are due to “sins of the past” since the state “forfeited” billions of dollars over decades by not saving money for those obligations.

Despite having less state funding and bigger obligations, Dunn said he is confident about the proposed municipal budget being approved this spring in a first referendum.

Last year it took three town-wide votes before a package was approved.

Dunn said 2018 was “an anomaly” since properties were revalued, the grand list was slightly in the negative zone and there were unanticipated special education costs.

“People felt like they were getting a huge increase,” he said.

The current proposed package would boost tax mill rate by 2.87 percent.

“That’s a reasonable increase,” said Dunn, who has noted that it usually is difficult to get approval at referendum for a tax increase of more than three percent.

There is $44.006 million for the schools, $18.849 million in town operations, $5.212 million in debt service and $1.863 million for capital expenditures.

Municipal officials have again added another $100,000 in road repairs to the annual expenditures in the operating budget, which they have done every year since Dunn took office. He said within three years all of those costs could be done through the operating budget rather than putting any of them on the bond appropriation credit card.

Voters will initially discuss the proposed package at the annual town meeting on Tuesday, May 7, at 7 p.m. in the Brookfield High School auditorium and the referendum is tentatively scheduled for Tuesday, May 21, from 6 a.m. to 8 p.m.

Lamont has severely curtailed the bond appropriations since taking office in January in hopes of trimming $600 million a year.

Nevertheless, Dunn is hopeful that the state will pay for 22.5 percent of the costs of the construction of the new $78.1-million Huckleberry Hill Elementary School (HHES) that will be located on the same parcel as the current school. Voters approved the proposal in March. With the state reimbursement funds, local taxes would pay for $63.3 million of the project, which would house students from pre-kindergarten through fifth grade.

He said Center Elementary School (CES) will be closed and converted into a municipal building that may include a library to replace the 44-year-old structure on Whisconier Road. Members for an ad-hoc committee to address those issues will likely be appointed at the Monday, May 6, Board of Selectmen’s meeting. The panel will deliver a report by late next year on the future uses of CES.

Dunn said the state Department of Administrative Services will likely be pleased that the funding for the new HHES will be toward consolidating the school operations and generate savings in the district.

He said currently there has been $500 million set aside in state bonding for school construction and there are eight applications, including the HHES plan, that total $250 million. Thus, he said the state could provide partial reimbursement for each of them and still save $250 million.

“If they don’t fund it, we’re going to have a real problem,” said Dunn. “We would have to go back to the voters for more money or build a much smaller school.”

“Making the school smaller is really not a good option,” the first selectman declared.

State Rep. Stephen Harding (R-107) of Brookfield said he is “optimistic” that the state will recommend funding the 22.5 percent reimbursement, which would place just $66.3 million to be paid in local taxes.

“Everything I’m hearing from the state is really encouraging about the project,” the state representative said.

Dunn said the town’s grand list, the log of taxable property, grew by 1.65 percent this last year. He said typically 2 percent or above is considered to be good to excellent.

Recently, Standard & Poor’s reaffirmed its AAA rating for the town’s finances – the highest that can be awarded - and Dunn said the municipal fund balance is approaching 11 percent after being at 1.9 percent when he took office in December 2015.

The first selectman said he is confident that the town’s economic base will expand at a higher rate in the coming years to the point that the corporate collections will grow from the current 16 percent to as much as 20 percent of the overall tax revenue.

Dunn said that there will be about $2 million in additional annual tax revenue over the coming years.

Most notably, Branson Ultrasonics, now located in Danbury, will build a $53 million headquarters on part of the 75-acre Brookfield portion of the Berkshire Corporate Park near the town’s border with Danbury. The first selectman said it is an ideal site, since it is located near Super Route 7 and will have little impact on traffic along Federal Road.

Former First Selectman Jerry Murphy had said in 2003 as he was taking office that the Berkshire Corporate Park tract could add to Brookfield’s economy. A large call center was built on the site about five years ago. The Danbury and Bethel portions of the corporate park had already attract large companies.

Also, Dunn said a medical building is under construction on the corn field along Junction Road and there are plans for an assisted living facility, a supermarket and Starbucks in town. The second phase of the streetscape in the 198-acre Brookfield Town Center near the Four Corners on Federal Road is to be completed this summer.

Regarding regional economic development, Dunn, who commuted from Brookfield to Manhattan for about 30 years, said Connecticut needs to improve its transportation infrastructure.

Malloy has said some companies that had initial interest in Connecticut have instead opted to locate in New York State’s Westchester County or to northern New Jersey.

Dunn said an infrastructure should be built to get commuters from Bridgeport to Grand Central in less than 45 minutes. But he contends that even if that happens there currently are not enough parking spaces available at most of the stops along the route.

“You need to make it easy for people to use the service,” the first selectman explained.

The Democratic nominating caucus is scheduled for July.

Is Dunn going to seek a third term?

“I haven’t decided yet,” he said. “I’m talking to a lot of people. People have asked me to run again.”

“I’d just like to think about it,” Dunn added. “I want to talk with my family.”

Since Republican Bonnie Smith, who served from 1987 to 1999, no Brookfield first selectman has served more than two terms. Dunn is the sixth person since then to be the town’s top municipal elected official.

During his first year in office, Dunn said he was averaging about 64 hours of work a week.

He said that now, in his fourth year, there are still nights when he is at the office until 8 or 9 o’clock, but now there are more instances when he’s leaving at 7 o’clock.

“As you become more experienced, you can use your time more efficiently,” he explained.

“When I took this job – even with an extensive background in management and finance and things you need to know to do this job well – it’s still a very steep learning curve for the first six months,” said Dunn. “I was working seven days a week.”

“I honestly believe this job should be a four-year term,” he said.

“Potentially, you can have a new elected official every two years,” the first selectman said. “They may have very different goals in what they want to do. It can completely change the direction of the town.”

During his first year in office Dunn said that Brookfield residents are “comfortable” with their municipal government structure. He did not indicate any interest during the recent interview in seeking a charter change to extend the term to four years.

In recent years Ridgefield and Bridgewater have adopted four-year terms.

In 2012, Brookfield voters overwhelmingly rejected proposed charter changes that would have established a revised government structure with a town manager and an expansion of the Board of Selectmen from three members to five members.

However, it may not matter if it’s a two-year or four-year term.

Whomever occupies the coveted corner office on the second floor of the Brookfield Municipal Center will have to contend with less state assistance and paying even more money toward the teachers’ pensions regardless of whether or not they are on a first-name basis with Lamont or whomever is governor.

Now you know why the late Thomas Meskill, who was governor and a congressman, reportedly told friends the toughest job he ever had was being mayor of New Britain.