Dunn wants to be deliberate on major capital projects

By Scott Benjamin

BROOKFIELD – First Selectman Steve Dunn says the town is on the verge of considerable grand list growth, but with one major capital project in the design stage and two others being studied he wants to monitor the municipal finances over the coming years as the town seeks to improve its credit rating.

The first selectman said in an interview that the state Department of Administrative Services put the $78.1 million Huckleberry Hill Elementary School (HHES) project ln its “priority list” and he anticipates that the state Bond Commission will approve reimbursement funds this spring.

Dunn, who is in his third term as first selectman, said if the town gets the projected 22.5 percent funding the impact on municipal taxes will be just $63.3 million.

An ad-hoc committee is currently studying options for Center Elementary School (CES), the last wood-constructed school in the state. The new HHES will have enrollment from pre-kindergarten through fifth grade. CES, which has had pre-kindergarten through first grade students for decades will be vacant following the completion of the new HHES, which should occur by the beginning of the 2022-202 academic year.

Dunn told Brookfield Patch last year he believes it would be an ideal site for a new library. The current library was built on Whisconier Road in 1975. A 2018 proposal for a $14.7 million new facility at the municipal campus on Pocono Road was rejected by voters nearly two-to-one at referendum.

The first selectman told Brookfield Patch last year that the Parks & Recreation Department also is interested in utilizing the gymnasium at HHES.

Dunn declared that the ad-hoc panel “has done a great job so far” and that its initial report is due in four to six months. It will distribute its final recommendations in 2021.

Also, the Police Department also has sought to slightly expand its facility, which was built in 1988 on Silvermine Road, to include more locker room space and more area to store police records.

The News-Times of Danbury reported in 2017 that Chief Jay Purcell had said over the years the department has grown from 25 to 34 full-time officers and now has five part-time officers.

Dunn told Brookfield Patch last year that over time he believes the commercial revenue could go from being the current 16 percent to 20 percent of the grand list.

He said recently that the Brookfield Village commercial development in the 198-acre Town Center of Brookfield near Federal Road continues to attract tenants and the $53 million headquarters for Branson Ultrasonics at the Berkshire Corporate Park will likely open this fall.

A medical building is nearing completion on the corn field along Junction Road .

Additionally there are at least three store signs posted on sections of the commercial center at 450 Federal Road, across from the BMW dealership.

“That shows good demand for commercial space in Brookfield,” Dunn remarked, noting that the building was only completed about six months ago.

However, the first selectman said he doesn’t want to embark on other capital projects until the town is sure of all the costs associated with the HHES project.

The expansion of Whisconier Middle School, which was completed in 2001, and the renovation of Brookfield High School, which was finished in 2009, both required additional appropriations.

“I want to see where we are with the grand list and taxes,” remarked Dunn regarding the timetable for major capital projects after the new HHES is completed.

He said he met recently with the architect for the HHES project and the education specifications for the new building are well under way with construction still scheduled to start in Spring 2021.

Dunn said he plans to submit a proposed town government services budget to the Board of Selectmen in February with a tax increase of under 2.5 percent.

The first selectman said that package will continue his pledge to reduce bond appropriations for road repairs by $100,000 by increasing the share of those costs in the operating budget. That would reduce the road bonding from $450,000 during the current fiscal year to $350,000 for the fiscal year that starts July 1. He has said he wants the town to eventually reach the point that it is not paying for road repairs through the more expensive bond appropriations.

The selectmen are expected to approve their recommended budget in late February and send it to the Board of Finance, which will complete its proposal about a month later and then seek public input before sending its revised package to the annual town meeting in early May.

Dunn said the town finished the fiscal year last June with a 10.57 percent fund balance. He is hopeful it will exceed 11 percent during the current fiscal year. He said that getting the fund balance to 15 percent is still a goal and would likely ensure AAA bond ratings from Standard & Poor’s, Moody’s and Fitch, the three leading rating agencies.

He has said many Connecticut municipalities with AAA ratings have a fund balance between 13 and 15 percent.

Dunn said Brookfield recently reaffirmed its AAA rating with Standard & Poor’s and hopes to get upgraded with Moody’s in the near future from AA2 to AA1.

On another topic, CT Mirror recently reported that state Sen. Norm Needleman (D-Essex) is seeking to increase the salaries for legislators.

Needleman, a wealthy business owner who doesn’t accept a legislative salary, said the members of the General Assembly haven’t had an increase since one was approved in 2001 and took effect in 2002. For 18 years their annual base pay has been $28,000.

“I think that’s crazy,” said Dunn of the extremely low salaries for the members of the General Assembly.

“The amount of work that [state Rep.] Steve Harding [(R-107 of Brookfield] does; he’s probably below minimum wage,” he said. “You want to attract good people.”

He said just with increases for inflation since 2001, the salaries would be considerably higher.

Last year the Brookfield Board of Finance approved increasing the salary for the first selectman from $90,691 to $100,346.

Dunn told Brookfield Patch last November it was principally done so that the position would attract better candidates. He said that before the increase took effect out of the 120 employees that he oversees, 25 of them had higher salaries than the first selectman.

Needleman, who owns a drug-making company and also serves as the first selectman of Essex, told CT Mirror that over time he wants to have the annual salaries increased to $50,000 or $60,000.

On a separate subject, Dunn - a former vice president at J.P. Morgan Chase, the largest bank in the United States - said although the national economy is booming he is alarmed about the projected debt, which according to the Congressional Budget Office will increase by an additional $11 trillion during the current decade.

The federal government hasn’t had a balanced budget since 2001 and since 1964, when the historic President John Kennedy tax cut was signed by former President Lyndon Johnson, there have only been five years where there was a balanced budget or a budget surplus.

“If we continue to go down this road, our credit rating [in the United States] will decline,” said Dunn. “There’s only so much debt that you can handle without going bankrupt.”

Dunn said he agrees with Ray Dalio of Greenwich – the owner of Bridgewater Associates in Westport, the richest hedge fund in the world - who told Yahoo Finance in 2019 that if there is a recession there will be little room for the Federal Reserve Board to address it.

Dunn acknowledged that the United State currently has “almost historically low interest rates.”

“We’re doing so well that (usually) inflation takes place and interest rates would have to rise,” he said of the current economic expansion which has produced the lowest unemployment rates in 51 years along with low inflation.

Dunn contends that the fiscal policies of Republican President Donald Trump are not the major reason for the current economic surge.

“It’s like being on third base,” he exclaimed. “Presidents have very little effect on the economy.”

On another issue, Dunn said he also shares the concern of New York University Finance professor Thomas Philippon who wrote in his 2019 book, “The Great Reversal” (Belknap Press, 368 Pages) that America’s free markets have declined through monopolization.

“This has happened across the board in a lot of industries – the airlines industry, the banking industry,” the first selectman said. “The top four banks have 68 percent of the market.”

“It’s happening with Home Depot, Lowes,” added Dunn regarding instances where a major company is dominating the market. “It is as if we have oligarchies.”

Philippon wrote that there are only four major airlines in the United States.

Some observers have suggested that the foreign airlines be allowed to compete for some of the domestic routes.

“I wouldn’t have a problem with that,” Dunn said.

Philippon stated that, “Returning to a high competition will not be easy. Those who benefit from the lack of competition will fight to protect their vested interests.”

Regarding the banking industry, U.S. Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) wrote in 2017 in the Wall Street Journal that 1,700 community banks had disappeared since the 2010 Chris Dodd-Barney Frank regulations were approved, which were largely written by Dodd, a former U .S. senator from Connecticut, and Frank, a former U.S. House member from Massachusetts.

“They impose the rules on the small banks that they do on J.P. Morgan,” Dunn said in reference to the stringent compliance regulations.

He explained, “The smaller banks don’t have those resources.”