Federation of Connecticut Taxpayer Organizations

The following website will take you to the court ruling which places greater control by taxpayers over their budgets. Please also refer to the following article in the Waterbury Republican which describes the state Supreme Court ruling which makes it legal to hold separate referendums on municipal and school budgets. Susan Kniep

http://www.jud.state.ct.us/external/supapp/Cases/AROcr/CR268/268cr31.pdf

Tuesday, March 23, 2004By David Krechevsky
� 2004 Republican-American The state Supreme Court has overturned an Appellate Court decision that said holding separate referendums on municipal and school budgets in Naugatuck is illegal.In a 5-0 decision that will be officially released March 30, the court ruled there is nothing in state law to prevent the borough from allowing taxpayers to vote separately on municipal and school budgets.The decision, which was released in advance and posted Monday on the state Judicial Department's Web site, affects other state municipalities, according to the borough's counsel."Naugatuck always proceeded on the basis that we had the power to do this," borough attorney Pete Hess said Monday. "Now other towns have the opportunity to do this."The case stems from a lawsuit brought by the local school board against the borough in 1996. The school board sued because of two charter amendments overwhelmingly approved by voters that year. The first added the mayor to the school board as a voting member; the second allowed up to three separate referendums on the town and/or school portions of the municipal budget.A trial court issued a summary judgment on behalf of the school board, ruling both changes violated state law.The state Appellate Court, however, subsequently ruled the lower court got it half right. Adding the mayor to the school board wasn't illegal, the Appellate Court ruled, but allowing separate referendums was.The school board chose not to appeal that decision allowing the mayor to sit on its board, but the borough did appeal on the referendums to the state's highest court. The case was argued in September.As Hess pointed out, the state Supreme Court "overruled the Appellate Court on every point of its decision."In their decision, written by Justice Richard N. Palmer, the justices said they disagreed with the lower court "that the budget amendment violates any state statute or policy ..."They reaffirmed numerous earlier decisions defending the state's "Home Rule Act," which gives municipalities the right to draft and adopt rules for issues that are strictly local.The legislation "was enacted to enable municipalities to conduct their own business and ... control their own affairs to the fullest possible extent ... upon the principle that the municipality itself" knows better what it wants and needs than the state at large, the decision states."We were always confident the town had the power under the Home Rule Act to implement these amendments," Hess said.The borough also argued that regional school districts, which serve more than one municipality, hold separate referendums on school and municipal budgets every year, Hess said. "It's done in regional school districts all the time," he said.The Appellate Court said allowing separate referendums "upsets the balance between the board of finance and the board of education," and could allow a school budget to be vetoed by voters who are not aware of statutory mandates or who lack "a broad understanding of the town's financial resources and priorities ..."The Supreme Court, however, rejected that argument. "Under the very statutes and case law on which the appellate court relies ... town voters will never have the opportunity to accept or reject an education budget that is insufficiently funded because the board of education is barred from recommending such a budget and the (Joint Board of the Mayor and Burgesses and Finance) are barred from adopting such a budget," Palmer wrote.Joining Palmer in the decision were Chief Justice William T. Sullivan, and justices Fleming L. Norcott Jr., Joette Katz and Peter T. Zarella. The case was remanded to the appellate court "with the direction to render judgment in favor of the town."The case is S.C. 16825, Board of Education of the Town and Borough of Naugatuck v. Town and Borough of Naugatuck et al. �