New Canaan board OK’s $175.3M town budget

NEW CANAAN — After weeks of discussion, New Canaan’s Board of Finance has approved a $175.3 million budget for the upcoming year.

The finance board unanimously approved the budget during its March 7 meeting, marking a 5.2 percent increase over the current year’s $166.6 million budget.

“The combined economic challenges of inflation and rising rates, (and the) economic slowdown have presented challenges to us this year as we put the budget together,” finance board chairman Todd Lavieri said at a March 5 meeting. “We will maintain financial strength in the town, we’ll optimize and prioritize our spending, we’ll continuously improve our town assets and services and the support that our residents expect — all in an effort to deliver value to the taxpayers and to the residents.”

The finance board’s recommended budget will head to the Town Council for further review and final approval.

Under the Board of Finance, the budget comes in about $1.5 million below the number OK’d by the Board of Selectmen in early February.

The finance board’s approved budget includes a total town operating budget of $42.2 million, tax-funded capital projects of about $384,000 and a debt service of $18.9 million.

The town will have to raise an estimated $159.2 million from taxation, a 6 percent year-over-year increase.

The majority of the budget includes expenses dedicated to New Canaan’s school district, including the district’s $109.4 million operating budget, about $420,000 lower than the school board’s $109.8 budget request, and just under $9 million worth in school board expenses that will be covered by the town.

One last minute change to the school budget was a dedicated social worker for Saxe Middle School in place of the originally proposed Kids in Crisis counselor position at the middle school.

In July 2021, the district agreed to test out a two-year pilot program to bring in a counselor from Greenwichbased nonprofit Kids in Crisis after the program was successfully put in place in New Canaan High School. The district committed to covering the two-year pilot period at Saxe with COVID-19 relief grant funding, but only had a counselor in place for the second year.

During the weeks of budget talks, some confusion arose over whether the town was paying for a service it wasn’t receiving because of turnover within the Kids in Crisis counselors at the middle and high school.

Superintendent Bryan Luizzi cleared up some of the confusion during the school board’s March 4 meeting, explaining that the town was actually paying for a counselor at the middle school while the high school position was vacant, with the expectation the district would pick up the cost with grant money once both positions were occupied.

With the two-year pilot over, Luizzi said the district would instead opt for a $68,000 staff counselor in the middle school instead of the $96,000 Kids in Crisis position to ensure some more stability in the school and best meet the needs of the school’s age group.

Luizzi said the decision was not a criticism of Kids in Crisis and the service it provides at the high school, but said the district wanted more stability to meet middle school student needs after evaluating the pilot program.

“We have to learn from that pilot and make decisions based upon what we’ve learned,” Luizzi said. “Part of what we’ve learned is that the in-house person is more value added than a Kids in Crisis person because of the opportunity to supervise, evaluate, train and make this person a member of the team for the long term.”

The town also cut about $9 million from bonded capital projects, deciding to demolish the Audubon House instead of repairing it and deferring updating the HVAC system at the Waveny House.

One capital cut that drew debate up until the final vote was whether or not to defer renovations for Coppo Field — the baseball field at Waveny Park — and how much the town should pay.

Under the project proposal, the town would put forward $2.5 million while the New Canaan Athletic Foundation contributed about $4 million. The finance board decided to decrease the town’s contribution to $2 million.

During the March 5 meeting, several members argued the field was a “want” and not a “need” in a tough budget year, with member Thomas Schulte calling it a “high class problem” to receive such a generous donation while still trying to prioritize ongoing capital projects in town.

First Selectman Dionna Carlson raised the potential unintended costs of not having a baseball field — including transportation costs for the school district’s teams.

“I understand the cost concerns and the needs and the wants, but when you’re the only team in your whole district that has to bus your team to a game, it’s a discussion,” Carlson said. “There is a huge desire in this community to get that baseball field done.”

The evening of the budget vote, Luizzi also said he supported moving forward with the Coppo Field project, calling it “a great asset for the kids” across multiple sports, not just baseball.

There was also some discussion on March 7 around whether the town could commit even less than $2 million if the field came in slightly under budget, a question raised by member Michael Chen.

Carlson said she was against that idea because it could send a bad message to the donors that the town wasn’t supporting the work, saying, “you’re already cutting them tonight a half a million dollars from their ask and you know at that point, I think you as a board should say we’re committed to this project.”

Both finance board members Victor Alvarez and Colm Dobbyn agreed to approve the budget so as not to interrupt the process, but maintained their concerns with Coppo Field, both citing concerns with the safety of turf fields versus grass and potential environmental issues with artificial surfaces.