16 June—This letter was received yesterday:

THIRD TIME’S THE CHARM FOR REGION 20 BUDGET

After two unsuccessful attempts with the Region 20 budget, will the third attempt be successful, with the voters feeling the BOE made an effort to achieve a suitable budget? Two efforts have failed; the third time is the charm for passing a budget when voters normally agree to an acceptable budget.

Does this third budget offer encouragement that all questions were answered for you to vote yes to accept and move forward? As Superintendent Villar said after the second vote, “Many voters didn’t believe that the spending plan was lean enough.” This statement should encourage you to vote on any appropriate budget presented.

There are many opinions on what has happened this past year at Region 20. Goshen First Selectman Todd Carusillo said, “The teachers have to reopen their contracts and why should we be giving out 4.25 percent raises?” Simply, the BOE approved their contract. Which is a binding agreement they don’t have to reopen. Leadership needs to focus on the latest budget to be sure details contain no unexpected surprises.

Litchfield First Selectman Denise Raap said, “They need a budget going forward.” Yes, a true and detailed budget that is sustainable and continuously maintained with proper oversight. Has the BOE learned from experience to move forward? “Their intelligence is not to make no mistakes, but to see quickly how to make them good.”

With the recent letter sent out by Superintendent Villar to the Region 20 Community, it seems he covered practically all issues that needed to be presented. Except for the deficit, [for] which he said a solution has been discussed using the fund balance which would need formal approvals.

This issue of the projected $2.7 deficit seems to increase and decrease each week and could be an unexpected surprise.

I haven’t seen one article [in] which the towns have said outright, they will absorb the deficit. I have reached out to [Litchfield] town hall about the deficit solution and didn’t received any feedback. This makes me uncomfortable to vote yes at this time. If voters feel comfortable about the deficit, have no concerns, trust Superintendent Villar and town officials, it’s a no-brainer whether to decide if this is the time to move forward on June 18^th.

Rich Morin
Litchfield

[Readers may wish to reread the 12 June disquisition about the RSD 20 deficit being paid off from the four towns’ fund balances—which like everything else are replenished by taxes—rather than the region’s budget. Nothing wrong with that, to be sure. Except that it would be nice if municipal and education officials came clean with what’s essentially bookkeeping sleight-of-hand to inveigle—make that persuade—voters into approving the budget in Wednesday’s referendum.]