Ridgefield Democratic Selectman Mike Jones issued the folowing statement on Tuesday, March 16, 1999
After a grueling week of late-night meeetings, the Board of Selectmen voted on March 6th to unanimously approve a new budget for the town of just over $65 million. This includes $19.6 million for town operations, $41.8 million for the school system, $3.5 million for interest and principal on the town debt, and $5 million is capital projects.
Speaking as a private individual, and not representing the opinions of the other selectmen, Mr. Jones said "We worked hard on the budget, and it is a good effort. But it is not a great budget."
Mr. Jones feels strongly that this budget will be recognized more for its failings than its content. "With the school problems, traffic problems, over-development problems and other issues, our town faces a volley of new challenges which will not fix themselves," said Mr. Jones. "But this budget adopts an ostrich-like, 'head-in-the-sand' approach to managing these new challenges that is destined to fail. It's a huge missed opportunity."
The budget lacks any major new initiatives or modern management innovations. The sole "innovations" are new police radio system (which wasn't requested by the Police Dept., and only inserted into the budget after Selectmen Jones researched the problem himself and challenged the Department on the issue) and funding for a consultant to study the structure of the Fire Dept.
Lacking from the budget are items the Selectmen have often endorsed privately but never funded: a land bank for the preservation of open space; funding for the purchase of the old IBM property; a full-time conservation officer to help protect Ridgefield¹s vanishing rural lands; a study to evaluate moving the Dlhy Golf Course to a semi-autonomous public agency; funds to upgrade the town's web site (or even to move the web site to the Economic Development Commission); and even the humble concept of "customer satisfaction surveys" for the town's departments. "None of the most interesting and powerful new initiatives made it into the budget this year, and that is a shame," said Jones.
"Funds are tight this year, but that's no excuse because they always will be tight," Jones noted. "This would have been a good time for the Board to begin to solve these long-term problems instead of passing the buck to another year and another Board. This budget, like so much this administration produces, is a rudderless continuation of business as usual. This budget is a perfect reflection of the town's Republican officials: both it and they lack a clear vision of the Ridgefield of the future, avoid leadership in guiding the town towards that goal, and deny the town the tools it needs to build that community."
Despite these reservations, Jones agreed that overall the budget is a solid, workmanlike result. "I voted to add a small number of new staff to the most over-worked departments," he said. "These new people should instantly make those three departments more responsive to the public and improve the quality of service the town provides to our citizens." The three new positions which were approved are an additional building inspector, an additional health inspector, and a new specialist in the tax assessor's office. "Between the new staff, the new computer systems and a few new snow plows and such, there is no fat in this budget at all." He called upon the Board of Finance to approve the budget without cuts or amendments.
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