Dunn says municipal budget will end fiscal year with a surplus

By Scott Benjamin

BROOKFIELD -- Following the most devastating economic shock since the Great Depression, First Selectman Steve Dunn says the town government will finish the current fiscal year with a surplus, and although some businesses held steady others closed since there were no customers.

"We're moving to post-pandemic status," he said in an interview as restrictions have been eased and there is no longer a health screening check-in point on the first floor of the town hall.

Dunn said Brookfield has had "very few cases" of COVID-19 over the recent weeks.

The first selectman remarked that the municipal budget is on target for a $1.1 million surplus for the fiscal year that ends June 30 - the result of "lower expenses and higher revenue."

"We didn't touch our fund balance over the last year, a lot of towns did," said Dunn, a former vice president at J.P. Morgan Chase.

Brookfield has more than a 12 percent fund balance and it holds an AAA bond rating from Standard & Poor's.

The Board of Selectmen has agreed to establish an ad-hoc committee to provide insight on how to best spend the $4.967 million in federal funding that will arrive from the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Act that President Joe Biden signed this spring. Members of that committee will likely be appointed in July.

Dunn said some local restaurants expanded their take-out business during the pandemic and some manufacturing companies maintained a large inventory of orders. However, a local caterer has "gone out of business. They have had no clients."

He said Superintendent of Schools John Barile, who has been in the district since 2015, recently told him that, "He felt our students have not been held back in any way" even though the schools had operated for extended periods of time on remote learning and hybrid schedules.

Dunn praised Gov. Ned Lamont (D-Greenwich) for protecting lives and keeping citizens well-informed during the pandemic via his regular news briefings.

However, he added, "As a state, we still need to address the gorillas in the room: The pensions."

The governor has noted that the state recently received three credit rating upgrades, the first in about 20 years. Part of that is apparently a result of the volatility cap included in the 2017 bipartisan budget agreement that funnels surplus money toward the pensions after the rainy fund equals at least 15 percent of the state budget.

However, last fall Fitch Ratings stated that Connecticut's pension system was the second worst funded in the country, after Illinois. CT Mirror budget reporter Keith Phaneuf told a Wilton League of Women Voters forum in 2019 that "85 percent" of the shortfall is due to errors made between 1939 and 2010 when the pensions were annually structurally underfunded.

Dunn said the pensions for Brookfield's municipal workers are 101 percent funded. A 2018 report from the state Commission on Fiscal Stability & Economic Competitiveness indicated that Connecticut's state employee pension system was only 29 percent funded.

He said he agreed with former Washington Post economics columnist Robert Samuelson, who has stated that "modern democracies have a hard time making sacrifices in the present for gains in the future."

Said Dunn, "People don't want their taxes to go up to pay for something 30 years from now. But there needs to be a concentrated effort to set aside funding."

On a separate topic, Dunn said that work is proceeding on the streetscape in the emerging 198-acre Brookfield Town Center. Work should commence soon that will extend the sidewalks south to Old Route 7. The following phase should start next year and take the streetscape north from the Four Corners intersection of Federal Road to the Newbury Village housing.

The first selectman related that construction is set to start on an "$8 million to $10 million" supermarket near the Still River Greenway on Federal Road.

"I think the streetscape has allowed us to attract developers," he said when asked to evaluate the impact of the first two phases of the sidewalk project.

Dunn said it has provided Brookfield with a New England-style central business district, which most other area municipalities have had for generations.

Will Dunn, a Democrat, seek a fourth term? Candidates will be nominated between July 20 and 27 for municipal offices across Connecticut.

"I haven't decided yet," said Dunn.

" I think that [Democratic Selectman] Sue Slater and I have done a pretty good job," he declared. "We've bought the finances of this town back to a level that is very, very good. I think the people in Brookfield appreciate the job we've done across the board."

Dunn said they have helped attract new development to Brookfield. For example, Branson Ultrasonic moved from Danbury and opened a large plant in the Berkshire Corporate Park. He noted that the town also has a viable 10-year capital plan.

"There are still things that are undone that we would like to complete," he said. "That would be a big factor in making a decision."

For example, the $78.1 million Candlewood Lake Elementary School is scheduled to open on August 24, 2022. The project was approved at referendum in 2019 and will house students in pre-kindergarten through fifth grade.

Local Democrats posted lawn signs during Dunn's initial campaign in 2015 stating, "Save Our Schools," reflecting concerns about having adequate education funding in the 29th wealthiest of Connecticut's 169 municipalities.

Dunn said the position is demanding. He works on average 64 hours a week.

He noted that, for example, he departed his home for the recent Brookfield High School graduation at 10:30 a.m. and didn't return until 2:30 p.m.

"That is part of the job," Dunn explained. "People want to see you, they want to talk to you."

Dunn told Brookfield Patch in June 2015 that since Republicans outnumber Democrats in Brookfield his quest represented an uphill climb but that he felt there were enough "persuadable voters" that he could win the election against first-term Republican Bill Tinsley.

Republicans held the first selectmen's post from the 1987 through the 2005 elections. Since then, either the Democratic nominee or in one case a petitioning candidate have won in all of the elections except 2013, when Tinsley prevailed by about 80 votes. Dunn, who had not previously served in the municipal government, is the only first selectman in the last two decades to serve at least three terms. He won his third term in 2019 with about 56 percent of the vote.

On another subject, he said that there appears to be much less concern over the 68-acre Iroquois natural gas compressor station on High Meadow Road than when the project was initially proposed 20 years ago.

"There was a lot of hesitation and concern when they first came into town," Dunn exclaimed, noting that the compressor station is located near a neighborhood and Whisconier Middle School. A number of residents spoke in opposition to the proposal at hearings in the early to mid-2000s.

"I think they [Iroquois] have addressed a lot of those concerns," he said.

Iroquois has applied to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to double their capacity in Brookfield. Dunn said the project, which is supposed to cost $90 to $100 million, will upgrade the compressor station, creating "less emissions. "I think it will be a quieter, safer operation."

He said the proposal would add $1.8 million to $2.1 million in annual tax revenue for the town.

Dunn added that Iroquois has made financial contributions to several local organizations, including the schools.

The Wall Street Journal recently reported that Hunter Housing Economics, a real estate consulting firm, has stated that six percent of new homes in the United States are build to rent projects. The consultant estimates that figure will double by 2024.

Dunn said that trend "already" is happening in Brookfield with Brookfield Village and Laurel Hill.

He added, "I think rentals are going to be a bigger part of the market going forward" as Millennials who are saddled with college student-loan debt will opt not to buy homes.