I have a friend (let’s call him Fred) who lives in Mid Country. Fred worked in the financial services industry until December when he lost his job. Now Fred is rethinking his priorities. He gave up his membership in his country club which was a particularly wrenching decision because his father was a member. Fred is also pulling his daughters out of private school and placing them into the public schools in Greenwich. For people like Fred, Greenwich is such a safe haven because his daughters are not necessarily suffering a decline in academic opportunity by going to public schools.
In the grand scheme of life, a 3.5 percent increase in property tax for Fred next year won’t even hit his financial radar screen. I doubt that Fred even knows that the BET increased the tax rate last night. Fred has a lot more to say about his federal income tax than his property tax in Greenwich. And yet the $15,000 he forks over to the Town of Greenwich has a much more immediate and profound impact on his quality of life.
When we moved to Greenwich in 2001, we similarly pulled our son out of a private school in Boston and placed him in the public schools here. I estimated that was probably a $150,000 savings. When I tell my friends in Bronxville and Rye what I pay in taxes, they drop their collective jaws.
Amid the sturm and drang swirling around the town’s financial situation I would like the town fathers to take note of people like Fred and me. In fact I would argue that for a large segment of the Greenwich population, the loss of services attributable to the slashing of the town’s budget from $347 million to $341 million is really unacceptable, along with the pecuniary attitude toward our most precious asset – our schools. We’re hiring a new superintendent and now we’re going to make it impossible for him to succeed.
Fred’s taxes are probably going to increase by about $500 next year. The year after it could get even worse. What with the town’s impending pension problem, his taxes might even go up another $600 next year. A $30,000 private school tuition savings against a $600 increase in taxes has an ROI that people like Fred can understand. A canceled summer vacation in Europe for $10,000 against spending time on our fabulous beaches in Greenwich is the kind of trade-off many Greenwich residents are making this year.
The Friars of Field Point Road need to understand that Greenwich stands at a dangerous inflection point. Don’t rob us of the promises of this special community when we need its services more than ever, and please don’t let our short-term exigencies betray our children’s future.
I enjoy your blog but this one really didn’t do it for me. What service that you use was cut? If you want to write a doomsday column you need examples – at least one. Is Fred considering moving to a condo in, God forbid, Byram so he can send his kids back to Brunswick/Greenwich Academy because of the budget cuts? Are you? I happen to share your POV that if the Town wants to raise my taxes by another grand/year they can have it, but I also think the Selectmen, the departments, the BET and RTM did a good job of cutting without dire affect on services. And keeping taxes down is something important – this is a Republican town.
I have examples of things that were cut that I’m not happy about. What was cut that spurred your column?
Sorry, you’re wrong, or at least premature, on this issue. We’re not even close to service cuts that will make Greenwich anything less than the best town in the country. And I’ll take this opportunity to thank the Field Point crowd, whom I disagree with on some issues, for keeping it that way.
Comment by John Bowman — May 23rd, 2009 @ 11:51 pm
Dear John Bowman,
Thanks for writing. We’re not going to feel the impact of the budgets cuts until after the new fiscal year July 1. Much of it will be incremental and hard to detect at first. When the police and fire response times lag by just a few minutes, or the snow plows make it down your street only once, or the parks look just a tad ragged … those will start to add up. For the wealthiest town in Connecticut (where 10% of the state’s income tax comes from), I have always felt that Greenwich has set a very low expectation for itself. If it weren’t for the generosity of many private donors, it would almost appear we live in a very average community. The schools have been under-performing for the second half of this decade. We have a school board that is more eager to please the BET than parents. They have aimed for the lowest common denominator instead of shooting for the stars. The athletic teams are bolstered by parents who send their star athletes to the best summer camps. Parents routinely supplement their children’s public education with private tutors and expensive college prep courses. The music students are encouraged by the school to take private lessons. Despite all this, the school system is no where near the top in the nation – let alone Connecticut. Montgomery County in Maryland and New Trier in suburban Chicago put our schools to shame. Several years ago, the high school finally added Chinese instruction – but only after a band of parents made that possible by aligning resources with the Chinese Language School of Connecticut, which filled a vacuum in Greenwich because no programs were available in the public schools. Very little innovation comes out of our schools (except athletics and that owes to the size of GHS). The school system here is not a leader. It is a laggard. My point is that there is a large segment of voters who would be happy to shell out a few more bucks to elevate the quality of life here. Greenwich is trapped by its own parsimonious tax structure which prevents us from reaching for the best.
Comment by lincoln — May 24th, 2009 @ 10:40 am