By Peter Barhydt
Budget debates in local government rarely hinge on a single number. More often they revolve around a handful of competing truths: the cost of maintaining what works, the limits to what taxpayers will accept, and the challenge of making complex financial systems understandable to the people paying for them.
Those factions were evident during a recent New Canaan Board of Finance meeting as officials and residents wrestled with the proposed education budget, and the town’s broader fiscal picture.
Board chairman Todd Lavieri opened the discussion and tried to clarify what he described as a common misunderstanding about taxes and spending.
“We need $173 million from the taxpayers regardless of the mill rate,” he said. “The grand list can go up, the mill rate can go down, but the amount we need to pay the bills doesn’t change.”
The mechanics of property taxation, he suggested, often obscure the underlying reality. Even if the mill rate changes, the total amount required to fund the town’s obligations remains fixed.
“We still need $173 million,” he said. “I think people got confused by that.”
The largest driver of those obligations is the New Canaan Public Schools. “On the cost side, the board of ed budget now represents 67% of the total budget,” Chairman Lavieri said.
For the Board of Finance, he argued, the task is to balance two responsibilities: maintaining the school district’s excellent reputation while ensuring the broader budget remains sustainable.
“This board has diligently spent two decades building a leading school district with this administration,” he said. “We aren’t passive participants.”
At the same time, he said, the Board of Finance must provide “financial guardrails and guidance for the taxpayers.”
Chairman Lavieri emphasized that the Board of Finance had not reduced school spending below the prior year’s level.
“Regarding the school budget, the board hasn’t cut anything,” he said. “This board hasn’t cut anything from the Board of Education’s budget.”
Instead, he described a longstanding process in which the Board of Finance asks the NCPS administration to trim a small portion of its requested increase.
“Every year we ask the administration to reduce 1% to 2% of the budget request. And every year they have,” he said.
This year’s request follows the same pattern, he added. NCPS sought an increase of roughly $4.5 million, bringing the total proposed education budget to about $124.5 million. The Board of Finance has asked the NCPS’s administration to reduce that increase by about $2 million.
“In other words,” he said, “we ask for a 1.6% or $2 million decrease from the requested $4 million increase right in the middle of the 1% to 2% range.”
Still, the discussion has drawn unusual attention from residents, in part because of an issue uncovered during the review process.
“The second difference this year is we’ve discovered an accounting of headcount discrepancy,” Chairman Lavieri said.
He stressed that the Board of Finance does not believe the issue involved wrongdoing. “Nothing unethical or fraudulent in our opinion… just a transparency and process problem that has now been addressed.”
The discovery, however, raised questions about staffing levels in the school district.
According to Chairman Lavieri, NCPS had 752 staff members serving 4,176 students in the 2021 fiscal year. The current request reflects a larger staff serving fewer students.
“This budget, we have a request for… 51 more staff for 223 fewer students,” he said.
The discrepancy highlighted what Chairman Lavieri described as a challenge inherent in the town’s budgeting structure. Each year the Board of Finance allocates a single lump sum to the Board of Education.
“The Board of Finance provides a lump sum of your money to the board of ed,” he said.
Once that amount is approved, the Board of Finance does not control how the money is distributed internally within the NCPS.
“It’s important to remind people the Board of Finance does not determine by law where and how the lump sum is spent,” he said. “If programs are added or programs are cut, the administration does that, not this board.”
Residents who addressed the Board of Finance offered differing perspectives on how aggressively the budget should be scrutinized.
One parent praised the board for “challenging the evident and significant expansion of the NCPS budget even as the number of students declines,” adding that responsible financial management is essential to maintaining the district’s long-term stability.
Others urged caution, arguing that further reductions could weaken the public education system that draws families to New Canaan.
“Our schools are not just a line item in a budget,” one resident said. “They’re truly the heart of our community.”
Another speaker warned that education cuts often have cumulative consequences. “Once quality declines, rebuilding it is far more expensive than maintaining it,” she said.
The discussion also touched on the tone of recent budget meetings. A Board of Education member suggested the dialogue had become more adversarial than in past years.
“I felt like the tone was a little bit different,” she said. “The tone seemed more adversarial than it has been.”
Before closing the meeting, Chairman Lavieri reiterated that the Board of Finance’s objective remains unchanged.
“Our goal is the best school district in the state,” he said. “That’s our core. That’s our center point.”
The Board of Finance is scheduled to continue deliberations and vote on the budget at a subsequent meeting.
