Wilton Candidate Profile: Peter Balderston For Board of Finance

WILTON, CT — The 2019 municipal election is heating up in Wilton and there are plenty of races with candidates eager to serve in elected office.

Wilton Patch asked candidates to answer questions about their campaigns and will be publishing candidate profiles as election day draws near.

Peter Balderston, 61, is running for re-election to the Board of Finance as a Republican. He has retired after a 35-year career working for financial services firms, including JP Morgan and its predecessor banks where he served in both line-of-business Chief Financial Officer and Chief Operating Officer roles. He received his bachelor's degree from St. Lawrence, and his MBA from the NYU Stern School of Business.

The single most pressing issue facing our town/district is _______, and this is what I intend to do about it.

Maintaining our strong school system and high-quality town services while also being realistic about their costs in a time of sluggish real estate markets, lower school enrollments and a challenging state fiscal environment. My priority is to continue improving Wilton’s schools and quality of life at a cost that residents can afford, now and in the future. I've been able to achieve this balanced approach during my last 4 years in office and will continue to strike this balance in the future.

What are the critical differences between you and the other candidates seeking this post?

I have accumulated valuable knowledge and experience in my first term as a Board of Finance member, giving me a unique advantage over other candidates during my second term. I am also currently serving on the Board of Education's Teachers and Administrators Collective Bargaining Negotiations team. Labor costs are typically the largest component of a town’s budget so understanding the makeup of these contracts and their impact on long-term cost projections for our town is critical in a Board of Finance role.

My role serving on the Board of Education’s Finance Subcommittee (aka “Business Operations”) has afforded me an intimate view of how the school manages its finances and prioritizes its projects and initiatives. This role has permitted me to gain a deeper understanding of the inner workings of our schools and communicate this information to fellow Board of Finance members for their own knowledge during budget deliberations.

List other issues that define your campaign platform:

It's important for voters to understand the historic context in which Board of Finance members craft budgets. The time since the financial meltdown of 2008 has brought real challenges for Wilton, challenges that required proactive, fact-based assessments of our fiscal situation and thoughtful leadership in order to manage within the financial constraints we face. Wilton property values have been negatively impacted, declining significantly since their peak in 2008. Adding to that, our schools have experienced declining enrollments, a trend expected to continue through 2027. This ‘one-two punch’ – exacerbated by declining birth rates and the trend for young parents to remain in urban environments - has made it challenging for Wilton to lure young families despite our excellent schools and affordable housing. Shoreline towns offering shorter commutes, Long Island Sound amenities and most importantly, significantly greater commercial development which help moderate residential tax increases have made it harder to compete for families despite our excellent schools and lower home prices. Making our budget process even more precarious, during this same period, the State of Connecticut eliminated significant ‘revenue sharing’ support to Wilton, forcing the town to replace these lost dollars through either budget savings or property tax increases. This backdrop makes it critically important that we balance the needs of our schools with those of all Wilton taxpayers.

What accomplishments in your past would you cite as evidence you can handle this job?

Savings measures achieved during my tenure on the Board of Finance have benefited Wilton taxpayers without harming our school budgets. I successfully held mil rate increases to reasonable levels – averaging 1.59% per year for the past 4 years. During this same time, the Board of Education was able to increase 2020 Per Pupil Expenditure to $21,195 (based on September 2019 opening school enrollments), its highest level in Wilton’s history. This represents a 2.64% average annual rate of increase in Per Pupil Expenditure, well above the average annual rate of inflation of 1.88% for the same 4-year period. Some example of these savings measures include:

As the Republican Board of Finance member serving on the Board of Education’s Finance Subcommittee (aka “Business Operations”), I have worked with Board of Education members and Dr. Smith (Wilton schools Superintendent) toward the goal of reducing non-teaching related costs - allowing these savings where possible to be re-invested in student-facing activities - all with a view to getting the most out of our tax dollars. This budget analysis requires a deep examination of the school district’s budget and its actual results. Doing this has, as an example, allowed me to learn that the Board of Education had been overbudgeting their medical costs by using ‘preliminary premium rates’ rather than ‘final rates’ which have been consistently lower. In developing the fiscal year 2020 budget, the Board of Education was able to draw down $800,000 in excess reserves to offset $800,000 in wages and other cost increases.

In addition, the Board of Education budget has benefited financially from sharing administrative personnel and software expenses with the Town. These changes were encouraged by me and took place during my first term. The sharing of administrative personnel began in 2016 with the sharing of the Town’s facilities director, eliminating a duplicate position at the Board of Education. In 2017, the Town’s CFO assumed responsibility as CFO for our schools, thereby allowing the Board of Education to eliminate that position. The CFO change also allowed the Board of Education’s financial systems to be replaced by the Town’s financial systems, thereby eliminating duplicate software expenses. This change has resulted in stronger financial controls and additional savings in insurance and other non-teaching costs.

The best advice ever shared with me was ...

The devil is in the details.