Voters rejected debt without a plan

Dear Editor,

The May 19 vote sent a clear message. Voters approved the operating budget and the capital reserve drawdown but rejected the $24.5 million Lewisboro Elementary bond. That outcome was discriminating, not anti-school. It was a refusal to authorize new debt before the district has demonstrated a plan for the obligations already on its books.

Those obligations deserve closer scrutiny than they are getting. The district's audited financial statements for the year ending June 30, 2024, prepared by PKF O'Connor Davies, report an unfunded Other Postemployment Benefit (OPEB) liability of $241,374,564 — nearly twice the annual operating budget, and the dominant reason the district's total net position is negative $220,988,376.

Vision 2030, as posted on the district website, contains no measurable fiscal benchmarks. There is no published multi-year financial plan, despite the FY2023 external risk assessment flagging that gap. There is no OPEB pre-funding strategy. Staying within the state tax cap is a statutory floor, not a fiscal philosophy.

This town demands more than a mere vision. The voters have affirmed they require a fiscally sound plan and decisive modifications to the retirement benefit plans.

I respectfully ask the new board, within 90 days, to: (1) publish a multi-year financial plan with explicit OPEB projections; (2) adopt a policy assigning a defined portion of each year's General Fund surplus to an OPEB designation within fund balance; (3) pass a resolution endorsing state OPEB trust enabling legislation; and (4) open the next collective bargaining cycle prepared to trade fairly with current union members in exchange for plan-design changes affecting future hires only.

I intend to address the board during public comment at its upcoming meeting.

-Sasha D. Burdett, South Salem