NEWTOWN – Disbanding Newtown’s elected Board of Finance would streamline the annual budget process and rid residents of a duplicate layer of bureaucracy, according to task force that is looking for ways to modernize how the town is governed.
The decision by Newtown’s Charter Revision Commission to recommend that the six-member Board of Finance be eliminated as one of the four major elected governing bodies in Newtown means fiscal oversight and authority would belong solely to the 12-member Legislative Council.
“The powers of the Board of Finance are duplicative of all the powers the Legislative Council has anyway,” said Andrew Buzzi, chair of the Charter Revision Commission, at a meeting earlier this month. “The Legislative Council has those powers because they are the fiscal authority in town.”
The problem, Buzzi said, is that the Board of Finance has been operating alongside the Legislative Council as dual fiscal authority, causing what Buzzi calls “a statutory problem for Newtown.”
Charter task force member and fellow Republican Anthony Filiato agreed.
“The Board of Finance is an advisory board to begin with because the Legislative Council is the final authority, and they could ignore the Board of Finance, and often do of late.”
The charter revision task force is a group of seven appointees – three Republicans, three Democrats and an unaffiliated member – who are reviewing a series of changes to the rules of Newtown government including the school board’s “fit” within the definition of a town department, the ongoing role of the Fairfield Hills Authority, and the process of filing vacancies on elected town boards.
The 6-to-1 vote by the charter revision task force to eliminate the Board of Finance comes with it a recommendation for the Legislative Council to appoint a financial advisory panel to assist members through the budget season.
Charter task force member Dennis Brestovansky, a Republican, cast the dissenting vote.
“[T]he town needs a body that is elected or appointed that is so chosen because of the expertise that they have in financial matters, because financial matters … are one of the major issues in front of the town going forward,” Brestovansky said during a Jan. 6 meeting. “I think it should be required that we have a body that serves in the capacity of what the Board of Finance does; I don’t think it should be at the discretion of the Legislative Council.”
The vote comes as the leaders of Newtown’s two other major ruling boards – the Board of Selectmen and the Board of Education – consider preliminary budget proposals for 2022-2023 by the First Selectman and the Superintendent of Schools, both of which were scheduled to be presented Tuesday night.
Jeff Capeci, the chair of the Republican-controlled Legislative Council, said it was premature to comment on the charter task force’s vote, except to say that even should the Legislative Council act on the recommendation to change the charter and drop the Board of Finance, the measure would have to go voters in a referendum.
“The Charter Revision Commission will come back with recommendations about a whole host of issues, including the Board of Finance, and it will be up to the Legislative Council to consider those recommendations and act on them,” Capeci said Tuesday. “The council has broad authority to accept or reject the recommendations – just because the Charter Revision Commission comes back with something doesn’t guarantee the Legislative Council will act on it.”
Some charter task force members said they were concerned about the elected Board of Finance reverting to an appointed advisory body that could be susceptible to politics.
“My concern has always been about the function the Board of Finance, and how best to preserve those functions and make sure those functions remain in a place where there is transparency and accountability for voters and residents,” said Prerna Rao, a Democrat. “I like the idea of the Legislative Council creating an ad-hoc advisory commission – the Legislative Council would have to give it a mission so that it is focused and we don’t come back to this place of complaints about redundancy in the process.”
Buzzi, the charter task force chair, said transparency and accountability on a newly appointed financial advisory commission would be preserved through the Legislative Council.
“The Legislative Council is the fiscal authority, and they will definitely own it, which they should do, because that is their job,” he said.
