Board of Finance Hearing April 5, 2022
As a taxpayer and long-term resident, I am concerned that many expenditures in the budgets are a wish list of political favors and expenditures with a disregard for long-term costs.
The Boards are elected to serve all the taxpayers and should be the gatekeepers on excessive and inappropriate expenditures.
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Once an expenditure is included in the budget the appropriation is never eliminated, bloating budgets year after year.
Many of the inclusions in the ARPA Act (American Rescue Plan Act) have associated long-term costs of maintenance and salaries that will spike future budgets when the ARPA Act sunsets.
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The inclusion of a Comfort Dog is Political Theater and is laughable without any cost benefit analysis. The only reason for the inclusion is First Selectman Wendy Mackstutis commenting that she likes dogs and must have this inclusion as an expenditure.
The Board of Finance didn’t ask any questions of the logistics in deploying the dog.
The elected Board of Finance representing the people were silent.
An increase in Social Services is a band-aid to serious long-term addiction and mental health with a short-fall in services for therapy.
Social Services cannot provide therapy, which is needed and do not change behaviors.
Mental health cannot be cured with throwing money at Social Services with referrals to agencies that are not available to provide the services in a timely manner.
Hospitals return people in crises in hours.
The wait for services with psychologists and psychiatrists is months and sometimes years without enough people entering the field to administer the services.
Money should be spent on repurposing buildings for long-term and short -term mental health and addiction needs.
The Board of Finance should be mindful of inflation that everyone is aware of daily, leaving less discretionary income.
Many economists are talking about a recession.
The Board of Finance should be concerned that the revaluation will increase assessments with a short-term bubble in real estate.
The increased value of homes will not be realized by most taxpayers but the assessments will skyrocket and increase taxes.
Wages have not increased to the 7% inflation rate and a 30-year mortgage is now at 4.5%.
An increase in mortgage rate will lower property values.
The time is now for the Board of Finance to act as the adult in the room by reducing expenditures and demand a cost-benefit analysis with all long-term costs on all inclusions.
The actions of the Board of Finance will have many unintended consequences.
High taxes affect businesses, property values and rents.
The taxpayers are being subjected to an increase in costs for all necessities.
The free money from the ARPA Act should not be a license to spend indiscriminately.
A projection of increases in future budgets is unacceptable.
It is your responsibility to balance the need over greed.
“Kicking the can down the road” is not an acceptable choice.
The budgets and the ARPA Act expenditures as presented should be voted down by the Taxpayers.
