The delay of the residential revaluation, means of funding the high-cost school facility needs, and the plan to put out another town budget survey were among the items discussed and deliberated upon by the Board of Finance on Tuesday night Jan. 9.
Revaluation Behind Schedule After “Not Good Data”
Wilton Town Administrator Matt Knickerbocker reported that due to problems with the national firm Vision Government Solutions, Inc., which was hired to handle the 2023 real estate assessments for the new Grand List, things have been delayed.
“The revaluation is behind schedule,” he said. “That’s the bad news. The good news is the notices are almost done and they will start going out in the next 48 hours.”
Knickerbocker said the town has had “a great deal of difficulty with our vendor,” unclear whether the pandemic was partly to blame for process changes that have been made, calling the problem “complex.”
“Quite frankly, the data was just not good,” he said. “The first couple of shots our assessor took at it, they were wrong.”
The town has now engaged two consultants who are executing a “painstaking process,” he said, to update the data and deliver it “in the next few days.”
“Hopefully this will be the last time we work with this particular outfit,” he said of Vision Government Solutions, which according to the town’s website is certified by the state of Connecticut.
Board Member Sandra Arkell raised the question of reliability of the numbers.
“My question has more to do with the data integrity … How can we all here be comfortable in the data that will be put out there?” she said.
Knickerbocker said that the consultants have been dismantling the “tables” driven by the data, which in some cases had erroneously used material from evaluations done years earlier. Calling it “a pretty painful process for our assessor,” he said in some cases they were even going out to physically examine properties again with the consultants.
“We’re going to have to see what the actual change is, like on a property by property basis,” he said, which would help determine whether the information is sound, noting discrepancies that “stick out like a sore thumb” in the work VGS presented.
“I can’t say with any confidence it speaks to any lack of accuracy in previous evaluation processes … that’s a good question, though,” he said.
Knickerbocker noted that other municipalities have had problems in the process, though he wasn’t clear whether they too were using this particular firm.
“This has been like a giant bumblebee in my hat, so i’m very anxious to get those numbers to you,” he said.
A month ago the town issued a press release announcing a delay in mailing notices to property owners. The release said, “Due to the complexity of changes in the real estate market … the Town is devoting a few extra days with its vendor to review and ensure the accuracy of the values.”
Refining the Annual Resident Survey on Town Budget
Seeking public input, BOF members have agreed to move forward with a new budget survey — something all the members appear to find value in.
“The purpose of the survey is to provide some transparency … In my opinion it’s been successful,” said Chair Matthew Raimondi, who offered to again use his professional background to help prepare it.
“My personal view is I don’t really want the Board of Finance to be spending money … I have professional experience of doing it … and I’m happy to do it again,” he said.
Questions and concerns about last year’s survey, some members said, may have been the result of a misunderstanding of exactly what information can and should be included in polling the public.
“This survey gets very targeted on math and this is where finance people can sometimes get a bad name or a bad reputation,” Arkell said.
“There’s an emotional qualitative element to this … It doesn’t really get to sentiment,” she said, pointing out that it would be more understandable to more people if options were put in terms of a tax increase in relation to an after-school program, or a frozen budget juxtaposed a reduction in police officers.
“I think that’s why last year there was a lot of emotion … Those kind of things are not captured,” she said.
Raimondi and others said they want to encourage residents to share their ideas about conducting the survey as they proceed in preparing it.
“The survey is not going out for perhaps another month and a half … People in town should absolutely feel free to reach out to us … and no amount of feedback is bad,” Raimondi said.
Around 700 people responded to the survey last year, with about 500 responding the year before.
“Last year certainly was statistically significant,” Raimondi said.
Member Rudy Escalante suggested that the BOF not only publish the results, but make the public aware of the methodology used in executing the survey.
“The results are always controversial … I think that a lot of the people that object to it don’t really know a lot about it,” he said.
He, too, noted that preliminary feedback would be worthwhile, if only to allow potential critics the opportunity to be involved in the process.
“It’s very easy to criticize after the fact,” he said. “Let’s offer people the chance now to comment.”
Along with members of elected boards, the intent is to also get word out to PTA leaders about the desire to conduct the survey and solicit their input.
“I think we have the names of the people who were most adamant that this was not a fair survey,” Vice Chair Stewart Koenigsberg said.
“The most vocal people came from groups that were asked to be here by the PTA,” he said.
School Facilities Needs Assessment — Figuring Out How to Fund
Raimondi did a short presentation on funding options in the wake of the School Facilities Needs Assessment report, which said that $132.1 million worth of upgrades would be needed over the next 10 to 15 years in Wilton.
“We are still waiting to receive the report on the town infrastructure,” he said, which will be discussed in mid-February at a tri-board meeting of the education, finance and selectmen boards, and will likely increase the figure.
With many questions remaining about the best options for funding, as well as exactly how much will be needed and when, the BOF was in agreement that creation of a designated School and Municipal Infrastructure Fund is a good idea.
The fund would have the ability to be carried over year to year and could serve as a a sort of savings account with funds earmarked for projects through the selectmen.
Other options they will consider continue to include bonding, for which around three-quarters of these costs may be eligible, and also direct funding into the Boards of Education and Selectmen‘s operating budgets. Raimondi said the BOF could choose to engage a combination of the three.
Their hope also remains that state reimbursement will come to around $26.7 million for these projects, thus leaving the cost to Wilton’s taxpayers at $105.4 million, at least for the time being.
Assuming Mr. Koenigsberg is numbering me among the “people who were most adamant that this was not a fair survey,” I want to clarify that I have no association with any of the PTAs – I’ve never attended a PTA meeting and have never been asked to make a comment on anything by any PTA officer. So it would be factually incorrect to say that “the most vocal people came from groups that were asked to be here by the PTA.”
As far as the survey: I’m exceedingly skeptical that the BOF actually intends to be responsive to any feedback they don’t agree with – they certainly haven’t been in the past – but Ms. Arkell’s comment that “it doesn’t really get to sentiment” is a good one; presenting people with a menu of potential mill rate increases and asking them to select one is not a useful way of gathering information, however appealing it might be to finance people.
If I were to design a BOF survey, and if I had the necessary tools at my disposal to ensure it was weighted and statistically representative (a good reason to hire an outside vendor), I would structure it more like an opinion poll – ask people whether they approved or disapproved of last year’s budget cuts, for example, which is a good concrete recent incident to point to. Or ask about the relationship between the BOF and the BOE – should the BOF defer to the BOE in determining the school district’s needs? Or the relationship between the BOF and the Annual Town Meeting – if the BOF and BOE disagree about the budget, should the BOF automatically get its way, or should the BOF send along the BOE’s budget to the voters (perhaps along with its recommended reduction) for them to revise downwards if they so choose? (I suspect on that one you’d see an overwhelming majority in favor of letting the voters decide)
Speaking as a market research professional, I would urge the BOF to consider hiring a professional firm to design and conduct the research. Representative sampling aside (it’s own challenging issue), designing research to determine people’s tolerance for tax increases (or price increases in commercial research) is complex and nuanced. Asking people directly about their willingness to pay more (or desire to pay less) is not useful, nor accuate. Researchers typically rely on tradeoff techniques (such as “discrete choice”) which are purpose built for teasing out relationships between tolerance for price increases vs. a changing array of benefits provided by the product or service being purchased. Any reputable MR firm the BOF hires should be able to design and conduct such research.