3NCD: Paying for New Canaan Town Services

About this series: Each month, three New Canaan Democrats write essays on a common topic.  You can search for “3NCD” to find them all.  We present these to advance the public debate on important issues and to present a range of opinion within the Democratic party in town.

Essay 1
Brace yourself for an increase in property taxes. The first read of the New Canaan 2012/2013 budget suggests an 8 to 10% increase in spending not including an additional $18 to $20m in debt. Taxes are not fun. Making tough budget choices are even less fun. But if we are to have any success in reducing these numbers, we will have to ask ourselves which of these requests are needs vs. wants.

Very clearly, there are certain Town services which are needs including police, fire and health & welfare. Although we might argue how much of these services we need or to what standard we require, I think we can all agree they should be funded by general account taxes. Alternatively, there are other services which are more clearly wants, including Waveny Pool, Paddle Tennis Courts, dog parks and brick lined sidewalks. And with great credit to generous private donors and user-fee patrons – I think we have arrived at a good private/public balance on how to fund these things.

New Canaan collects ~$120m in revenues. Over 90% of these revenues are property taxes, the rest are user fees, conveyance taxes, parking permits, etc. Very gradually, and very appropriately, the town has increased the proportionate amount user-based revenues vs. property-tax revenues. User based revenues include pool fees, paddle court fees, parking fees, Waveny House rental fees, a surcharge to homes that have central sewage and even an occasional consideration of a surcharge for homes that get town-provided leaf collection.

Where the discussion becomes tough, really tough, is around services which are somewhere in-between needs and wants including the Library, Lapham Community Center, and EMS services. These services are not uniformly used by all residents but are heavily funded by the Town. Granted, having some sort of EMS facility is a statutory requirement and having a Library is almost a requirement of civility and culture. But the question remains, to what degree should these services depend on private funding (donors and user-fees) vs. general taxpayer supported

I am not suggesting the current model needs to change; nor are we currently facing some type of budget crisis. But I do believe we need to constantly reassess needs vs. wants. Planet Moon spendthrifts want everything for everybody including endless sidewalks, gilded libraries and valet medical transport but it does not require much vision to see the day that the Great Recession and the household de-leveraging that began in 2008 will continue for some time. Likewise, does not require much vision to see that a revenue stream that is principally based on property values is strained. The need vs. wants conversation –and how to pay for it- is looming.

click to enlarge graphs

Essay 2
Should public services other than fire and police which concern public safety such as education, library, and volunteer EMS or parks for that matter be paid for by the town i.e. by the taxes of all residents or should they be subsidized on some formula basis that involves use.  For example we do not pay to use the park but we do pay to use the pool during the summer.  

Perhaps, before answering this question, we define what we mean by “public.” Who is the public? Webster’s defines public when used as a noun, as “the people as a whole: populace” and secondarily as “a group of people having common interests.” If used as an adjective, such as in the “public interest,” then it is defined as “of or relating to, or affecting the people as a whole or serving the community.”

Herein lays the problem, I think. We imagine ourselves as being a member of the populace or public however within that populace we recognize that there are conflicting publics- groups of people sharing different common interests. For towns, these two definitions can create a dueling relationship and sometimes antagonistic relationships regarding usage of town services and the definitions of community. To understand how our town services serve our populace, we need to recognize how these services benefit our town and the communities within our town. And, I think we need to appreciate and define the value added benefits of living in a community which provides services to everyone equally regardless of usage versus a community which charges for public services based on usage. Furthermore, we need to define which services do indeed provide a value added benefit to the community-at-large, and then rank them in some order.

For example, the need for public safety trumps any discussion of community benefit analysis. We all willingly pay taxes to support and maintain the services of a competent fire department and local police force. I would argue that a Volunteer EMS teams also falls under the umbrella of public safety as it provides a health safety net to each of us in an emergency situation where a visit to the emergency room may not be necessary or perhaps more importantly could be necessary and their proximity and response time is a decisive factor. Could we call an ambulance – yes but most insurance policies will not pay for an ambulance unless you are taken to the hospital and oftentimes a hospital visit is not necessary. This is a health service provided by local citizens to their neighbors on a volunteer basis – none of us can predict whether we will have an emergency situation (just like none of us can predict if we will have a house fire) but we can be comforted that some of our tax dollars go towards subsidizing this service. Seven years ago, my 79 year old mother who was visiting from Florida, felt faint while walking with her grandchildren on Elm Street during the sidewalk sales. She had become dehydrated. We were grateful that there was an EMS team to take her pulse and blood pressure.

What of other town services such as our parks, Lapham community center, television station and library? How should these services be evaluated? I have never used the Lapham community center which though open to all adult members of the community is the town’s defacto senior center. Should the town subsidize a center that is primarily used by one segment of our community and closed on the week-ends? The town does charge for the usage of the pool during the summer but the charge is seasonal, relatively minimal and used to offset the cost of maintenance for a specific benefit to specific town consumers – swimmers. Following this logic, I suppose one could argue that dog owners should purchase a town pet license that grants them access to our dog park. The Center is located in Waveny Park which is used by our young people, families, and dog owners. I do not think it is wise to begin assessing services based on usage by particular segments of our population as we risk destroying the purpose of having these services in the first place – the enhancement of our community. Haven’t we all decided to live in New Canaan because our town has parks and a community center for its seniors and a teen center for its youth? These services contribute to the vitality of our community by creating public spaces where we can meet and gather together not as separate groups sharing common interests but as particular members of our town – the town we all take pride in because we are a community.

The problem is our town’s financial resources are limited and our tax base is stretched. No one wants to see their taxes increase unless …the town can justify that the taxes we pay are going towards improving, enhancing and adding value to the town. As taxpayers, we realize this value in the added benefits these services bring to the property values of our homes- people want to move into our town because of the services our town offers.

It seems to me that if we are going to discuss charging for so-called public services, then we must determine how to rank which public services add the most value to our town’s future as it relates to qualify of life for its residents and the capacity to attract new residents. We need to understand which public services preserve and sustain our sense of community and how those services are valued by those who wish to join our community- the factors which enhance our property values. Let’s be clear on what we treasure and not destroy it inadvertently by marginalizing our community.

Essay 3
I confess to a certain level of support for a “pay as you go” approach to municipal budgeting and – in general – think that imposing user fees on certain town sponsored activities (pool, lawn and paddle tennis permits, use of the transfer station, metered parking, are examples) is not without merit. To extend that approach however, as some have suggested, to services such as the Ambulance Corp and the Library is difficult to understand. I think philosophically it is ill advised, from a management perspective it would be hard to implement, and from a revenue standpoint (after administrative costs are considered) would most likely be trivial. Worse, it would be another example of stratifying New Canaan’s citizens by income, further eroding our sense of community which is essential to maintaining a thriving town.

The Roman poet Juvenal, in ruminating on what people should most desire, declared “Mens sana in corpore sano” (a healthy mind in a health body) as a worthy aspiration. Imposing user fees on the Library or Ambulance Corp. would make us 0 for 2 in old Juvi’s book

Both the Ambulance Corp and the Library have fairly robust fund raising activities which are well supported by New Canaan residents and both rely quite heavily on hundreds and hundreds of hours contributed by many, many volunteers. It is at least worth wondering what might happen to that financial support and volunteer activity should we turn those services into a fee-for-access proposition. Finally, fees of this type disproportionately impact those most reliant upon them but least able to pay. I suppose this would be OK if we wanted to turn New Canaan into a gated community but last I checked none of us want to live that life style (or otherwise we already would.)

I agree that we have a financial challenge. Town costs (much of them uncontrollable – at least in the short to medium term) are rising at rates faster than either the growth in the grand list or (given our reliance on the financial services industry) median family income. This does not bode well. Clearly we cannot assume that there is an inexhaustible ability of home owners to pay ever increasing property taxes and hard choices will have to be made. Perhaps at some point the town will need to reduce, or even eliminate its direct financial support to many “quasi-public” services, or explore consolidating selected essential services with neighboring towns, and even perhaps look to reduce them. This is a structural problem, exacerbated by our changing demographic profile. Fixing it will require unpleasant structural fiscal re-engineering.

It won’t be solved by ill-advised nickel and dime user fees.

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