Jeffrey Rutishauser, the chair of Wilton’s Bd. of Finance is taking issue with statements made by Bruce Likly, his counterpart on the Bd. of Education. In materials Rutishauser prepared and sent to several town officials, he makes the case for substantiating how Wilton’s proposed spending on the schools is high; he also challenges comments Likly made about just how damaging any cost reductions would be.
“What is being asked for [by the BoE] is about 1.27-percent increase over this year. That is relatively small. Any cuts to that would not be huge either,” he told GOOD Morning Wilton. “I think there’s a lot of things that can be done that would have zero visibility to the students and the programs if we operate more efficiently and focus on that, rather than saying that the band will be cut, the football team will be gone, and the things that were listed previously.”
With the projected $2.5 million gap that would need to be addressed, Rutishauser says it’s not all going to come from the education budget. “A portion of that is likely going to be an increase in taxes,” he confirms, implying that the town has to take responsibility for its collective decisions approving major capital bonding projects. “We have debt service going up, you’ve got to pay debt service. The town voted for those projects, now we’ve got to pay for those projects.”
One thing the BoF is very aware of is how high Wilton’s taxes are compared to those assessed by surrounding towns—particularly Westport, Darien and New Canaan. “We are at a significant disadvantage, tax basis, to those communities. Our schools are in comparable quality to New Cannan—they’re rated number one, we’re a little bit behind them—but their taxes are two-thirds of ours per value of house. So we have to balance the needs of expenditures in town and the implications it has on the taxes of those residents.”
He says that the need for balancing gets forgotten and criticized some of Likly suggestions as “going overboard.”
“I think that the discussion of, if any amount gets cut, to put the most visible and impactful things on the chopping block, when those would likely not be the ones at all to be touched if they were to have to cut back a little, I think that was going a little overboard.”
Rutishauser conceded that the Board of Finance cannot specify what the Board of Education must cut, only how much. What gets cut is under the purview of the Bd. of Education. But he says cutting some of the more visible things—like freshman sports, art programs, extracurriculars and other items mentioned by Likly—doesn’t make sense to him.
“Let’s say we cut it [by] $100,000, and they decided to cut some high profile thing for that $100,000 just to prove a point, I don’t think that would be smart. I think there’s a lot more ways, including efficiencies—and that’s the key word, efficiencies—that could save a lot of money and be practically if not completely transparent to students and parents,” he says.
As for whether the BoF will ask for cuts only from the Board of Education or also look to reduce the Board of Selectmen’s budget as well, Rutishauser pointed to the fact that the selectmen have already delivered a flat budget, with no increase (and in fact a slight decrease) over last year.
“I’m only one person out of six, but all I can tell you is if the BoS is year-over-year flat, common sense would say they’ve already done their trimming before they got to us,” he says, adding that there are still some budget meetings to look at operating capital requests and they might find some things that could be postponed or not needed at all.
BoE vs. BoF: Two Points of View Comparing Wilton & New Canaan
The BoF is looking at things from all angles as they get closer to setting the budget. “We still have to gather all the information, and we’re still doing that. From realtors, from the public hearing, from analysis we’re doing ourselves. All that comes together and
On Tuesday evening, March 15, the members of the BoF heard from a handful of Wilton realtors they had invited to their regularly scheduled meeting. The BoF wanted to hear from the realtors what the perspective was of prospective home buyers, and what the realtors’ clients look for and compare when they consider Wilton and the surrounding towns.
Rutishauser told GOOD Morning Wilton, “A lot of the discussion focused on, ‘I had a customer and then they saw New Canaan and they said, “I think I’m going to focus on New Canaan from here on out.”‘”
A comparison between New Canaan and Wilton drew the most focus of the board, according to Rutishauser, because the towns are very similar. (Rutishauser pointed out that both towns have top-rated schools, no beachfront on the Sound, and no Main Line MetroNorth, but that New Canaan does have a central “High Street Retail” shopping district while Wilton has a series of smaller, separate shop clusters.)
“Why not line up the numbers and see the comparison,” he said, noting that numbers were pulled from public documents from each town online.
On Wednesday, he emailed these numbers to the Board of Finance members; the first selectman, Lynne Vanderslice; the school superintendent Dr. Kevin Smith; and Likly.
Rutishauser says that while on the surface it shows that New Canaan spends more per pupil than Wilton does, and that their proposed budget increases are larger than Wilton’s, that still doesn’t make the case for Wilton keeping up with that rate of spending.
In his email, Rutishauser says that New Canaan’s higher BoE budget request (by 4-percent) makes sense because their enrollment is going up by 72 more students; in contrast, Wilton is expecting 99 fewer students, a difference of 173 students. “They have more students to educate next year,” he writes.
The two towns are getting a little more similar on one matrix—the BOE budget per resident, what Rutishauser calls “the true town burden of educational cost.” For FY ’16, Wilton’s per resident cost was 5-percent higher than New Canaan. For next year’s proposed budget, the cost per resident between towns is closer, narrowing to only 1.8-percent higher than New Canaan. No matter what, they have more citizens (9-percent more) to bear the cost of their town budget increases and a much lower mill rate, which is two-thirds the size of ours.
Rutishauser says the Wilton school district needs to look at better efficiencies and expenses to reduce, and mentions special education.
“[Look at] the SPED report, where we clearly have some efficiencies that were laid out there for us, that would save money on an annual basis, but provide the same level of services that we do today. We’d just operate more efficiently.”
Rutishauser’s overall summary painted a straightforward picture:
“Wilton runs 3.8-percent more efficiently (cost per resident) than New Canaan overall but Wilton has 3.2-percent less revenue per resident as well. Municipal services in Wilton also runs a little more efficiently than New Canaan, about 4.6-percent lower per resident. Wilton BOE expenditures run a little less per pupil than New Canaan but more per resident, with the gap shrinking as New Canaan’s BOE budget per resident catches up to Wilton due to New Canaan’s expansion for 72 increased students.”
Wilton’s Board of Finance will hold a public hearing on the proposed education budget on Monday, March 28 at 7:30 p.m. in Middlebrook Auditorium. The BoF will hold a public hearing on the proposed selectmen’s budget on Tuesday, March 29 at 7:30 p.m. in the same location.