Open Letter – To the Honorable Mayor Streeter, Members of the newly elected Groton, CT Town Council, Town Manager and Town Clerk,

I call your attention to the following modified excerpts from a letter-to-editor by Jack Sebastian of the Groton RTM in today’s New London DAY:

“Groton extracted $80 million above inflation from Groton taxpayers over the last 10 years. These are numbers (that come) from the senior financial officer in the town, (and are) not (from) my imagination…
In an effort to change direction, I made a motion at this week’s Representative Town Meeting that the Town Manager and the Superintendent of Schools be given direction that no increase in taxes (should) come out of the next fiscal year’s budget.

(This) Motion (was) defeated.

A charter revision committee must be established and a change proposed to do away with the RTM, add a finance committee and let the taxpayers vote the budget (in Groton, the same) as they do in Stonington. If you concur, contact your elected officials.”

OK, folks…so here I am, contacting my elected officials. Welcome to your new year!

I do concur with Mr. Sebastian on this particular matter and have made public statements to this effect previously. But until we do actually re-write the Charter, provide better protection for the taxpayers, disband the RTM and go back to a Town Referendum system annually to deal with the budget, some other steps should be taken. (Incidentally, I assume you all noticed that Mr. Sebastian received the highest number of RTM votes from District # 8…so it appears that somebody is listening to what he has to say.)

Please note the following excerpts from a political summary, which I do appreciate, written by Councilor Antipas on his views in a recent PATCH Internet article. It is not my intent to embarrass Mr. Antipas. It is my intent to remind everyone that we need to treat this budget matter as a business would treat it….and not the way we have been treating it up until now.

“No matter the need or wish, everything Groton does comes down to finances. Personal finances work themselves out simply: you can’t spend what you don’t have. Town finances are not similarly constrained. The budget cycle begins with a consideration of expenses, then moves on to identification of outside revenue sources (e.g., state and federal grants), and finally a consideration of what sum is to be raised from the Grand List to make up the roughly two thirds difference. Seemingly the only protection afforded the average taxpayer is a common desire on the part of Groton’s officials to “keep taxes down”. Does this work? Ask the average taxpayer.

As a councilor, I would advocate the adoption of (a) a revenue amount at the outset of the budget process against which expenses must be matched, and (b) a system, such as priority-based budgeting, for considering those expenses. This should be done in active cooperation with the RTM, Board of Education, and the town’s subdivisions. This is a sounder approach to making sure the desire of taxpayer protection is realized while providing an acceptable and affordable level of services, including education, for our citizens.”

“As a councilor, I would consider the following improvements: (a) adopt a revenue amount at the start of the budget cycle so that if the Council’s goal is to not raise taxes, the Town Manager, Board of Education, and subdivisions have a guide in crafting their respective budget components; (b) keep a tighter rein on matters delegated to subcommittees; and (c) formally consider new ideas from other jurisdictions on town finance and governance.”

In other words, by my interpretation, it would make more sense to first establish the estimated revenue coming in from taxpayers WITHOUT a raise in their current taxes, and THEN match the anticipated expenses with that income…rather than the other way around, which is the way it has been up until now. Mr. John Sutherland of GGGPAC has advocated this change for many years. You run the Town in the same fashion you would run a business…and you START by agreeing that you won’t raise taxes…at all. This becomes your budget figure. Then, you go back and determine your priorities, after making a reasonable estimate on the conservative side for what you can expect from the State of CT.