COVID-19 New Canaan

Fire Department on Track for $30,000 Deficit Due to COVID-Related Expenses 

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Fire officials say that they’re now expecting to run about $30,000 over budget for this fiscal year due to COVID-19-related costs. The department’s overtime lines “were reduced in the last budget process and we have had a lot of people have to take time off with the COVID crisis,” according to Fire Chief Jack Hennessey. “People have been out of work for weeks because they have sick family members and they have been asked to isolate,” Hennessey said during the April 14 meeting of the Fire Commission, held via videoconference. “So that has been a very big stress on the overtime budget. Preliminarily right now, I am going to guess that we are going to run a $30,000 deficit at the end of the year and it’s all pretty much because of the overtime expense of having to cover people who are not able to work because of family exposures and family sicknesses.”

As of late Friday, 139 New Canaan people had tested positive for coronavirus disease and 18 had succumbed to the virus, according to the Office of Emergency Management.

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Town ID’s $695,000 in Planned Capital Spending This Fiscal Year That Could Be Delayed

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Saying New Canaan should consider putting off some capital spending in the near term until a clearer picture of the economy emerges, town officials last week identified nearly $700,000 earmarked for the current fiscal year that could be delayed. Prepared with input from public works and district officials as well as the first selectman, the draft list of more than 75 items total $695,000 and range from small expenditures such $29 for signage and striping up to about $63,000 for a solar project at a town building, documents show. Board of Finance Chair Todd Lavieri said the main question now facing the town is whether the spending could be delayed or deferred “until we have a little more clarity.”

“You guys control this,” Lavieri told First Selectman Kevin Moynihan, Public Works Director Tiger Mann and town CFO Lunda Asmani during the finance board’s April 7 meeting, held via videoconference. “We can’t tell you what to do and how to do this. But I guess it would be our recommendation, or at least our consideration, to hold onto the spending at least for another month until we got more clarity.”

The comments came during a discussion within the finance board and no formal action has been taken on the recommendation. They also came as New Canaan and the nation grapple with a hard stop to the economy that’s seen businesses forced to slow down or shutter altogether for health reasons as unemployment claims soar.

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Letter: Town Council Vote Also ‘Disheartening’ for Our Democracy

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The Town Council’s vote is disheartening, not just for healthy start times but for our town’s democracy. 

Assuming everything in this article is correct, which I have no reason to doubt, the Town Council made a decision against the choice taxpayers have overwhelmingly expressed and against the best interests of children in our town, in the latter case by flouting clear supporting scientific evidence. And questioning whether to consider the support expressed through a letter-writing campaign? What leads you to such an outrageous comment? Letter-writing campaigns are a time-honored and constructive method of effecting change. 

Councilman Tom Butterworth’s articulate letter in this newsletter on April 2 identified all of the reasons why this vote should have passed—despite the fact that the Town Council had hoped it would not be left to them. And the message that you simply vote on the budget and not how it is spent is not only vacuous but dismisses the hard work done by Superintendent of Schools Dr. Bryan Luizzi and the many others who devoted time, intelligence and pragmatism to design a sensible plan to address a real health issue. 

If the budget had been sliced substantially due to the current crisis, one could understand that.

Opinion

Letter: ‘Thank You’ to the Town Council for Budget Vote 

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To those on the Town Council who voted not for the presence or absence of later starts—that decision is made entirely by the BOE, and roughly $1 billion of taxpayer money over 10 years is more than enough to do later starts for all kids if it is a priority—but for some semblance of fiscal restraint, thank you. You did what you thought was right for the greater good, knowing the economic environment we are in, and especially its impact on working families stretching to live in New Canaan and seniors living on fixed incomes. The affordability of New Canaan has inevitably gone way down, as our house prices have imploded, incomes are down, joblessness is up, and our tax burden moves inexorably higher in almost all years. Obviously there will be supporters and detractors of your decision. Inevitably the voices of the detractors will be louder. If the detractors are using objective data to reinforce their viewpoints, it is fair game. If the detractors have never looked at our budgets or compared them to other towns—the vast majority likely have not—there is less credibility in their views. The Connecticut unemployment figures are out and it is a sobering picture: since the virus outbreak, roughly 13% of Connecticut’s workforce is newly unemployed, with the number obviously headed higher for now. The direct and knock-on effects on New Canaan have been and will be wide-ranging, even if there is a shorter than expected resolution to the outbreak. Whether it be potential further state tax increases from Connecticut pension shortfalls (they assume a return of roughly 7% on their investments), lower revenue projections locally from shut or limited business activity and income declines on a massive scale, disruptions in the extension of credit, a rise in under-water mortgages and greater home foreclosures in the future or countless other impacts, we are just beginning to understand the enormity of the consequences now.

Cristina A. Ross

Town Council Preempts Change to School Start Times in Divided Budget Vote

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The Town Council during an emotionally charged meeting Thursday voted 8-4 in favor of a spending plan for next fiscal year that effectively forestalls long-discussed changes to New Canaan Public Schools start times. The legislative body’s bipartisan vote in favor of an overall budget of $152.2 million represents an increase of just .19% over projected spending for the current fiscal year. Though the budget also includes a 2.5% year-over-year increase to district spending (exclusive of healthcare savings), it’s still about $1 million less than what the Board of Education had requested of the town funding bodies. The shortfall means the Board of Ed can’t pay for additional school buses and attendant staff needed to implement a proposed new start times schedule—a consequence that district leaders and some councilmen understood following discussions held in recent days, according to Town Council Chair John Engel. In voting in favor of the budget, Engel and others said they’re convinced that New Canaan adolescents should start school later, but added that the wide economic uncertainty due to COVID-19 means now is the wrong time to introduce significant new transportation costs.