Mayor David Gronbach Addresses Waste Fund Management Issue

From The Town Of Milford: Recently, our Director of Finance issued an opinion regarding the authority and jurisdiction to approve disbursements of the Waste Management Fund (WM Fund). Some context of this opinion is appropriate.

When I took office, there was an assumption that disbursements from the WM Fund were first approved by the Town Council and then submitted to the Board of Finance. The WM Fund is funded with installment payments by Waste Management stemming from litigation over the height of the landfill they own in Town. The current balance is over 11 million dollars and the Town will continue to receive 2.7 million dollars a year through 2024.

My first encounter with this procedure came when we were asked to fund $20,000 to New Milford Youth Baseball for the rehabilitation of a baseball field at Sarah Noble School. The field had fallen into disrepair and had not been used in years.

Pursuant to the ordinance passed by the Town, the Fund can be used for the construction of municipal public recreation facilities, construction of public education, library facilities, and acquisition of open spaces. Since the baseball field is considered "public recreation', I suggested that WM Funds be used instead of taxpayer dollars raised by the Budget process. My proposal passed the Town Council, but when it was presented to the Board of Finance, they objected to the use of the Fund. Our Finance Director compromised and agreed to their request to take the money from the Town's Contingency Fund, which is funded every year with money from tax payers. I was surprised by the development and it raised a red flag.

The next concerning development involved use the WM Fund to pay for the Library elevator repair. WM Funds can be used for the construction of library facilities, so again I proposed that the $35,000 expense come from WM instead of tax dollars raised in the budget. Again it passed Town Council but was rejected by the Board of Finance. My Finance Director and I were confused at the Board's apparent belief that S its purpose was to set policy, as opposed to limiting its review to financial considerations.

I asked the Finance Director to review the Board's jurisdiction and what authority it had with regard to the WM Fund. If the Waste Management statute or Charter said that we had to get Board of Finance approval to make expenditures, then so be it. But he could not find specific authority that required us to do so.
There is an assumption that the Board of Finance controls all of the money held by the Town. It does not. There are multiple accounts and funds that the Board of Finance has no jurisdiction

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