Below are two letters to the editor from the Journal Inquirer supporting this year’s budget:
Tolland Budget (Bill Eccles, Republican Tolland Town Councilman)
I dislike tax increases, and most of you do, too. However, I will be voting in support of the town’s 2014-15 budget, which increases taxes but is necessary because of the good, the bad, and the ugly.
On the ugly side, there are increasing mandates from state and federal governments, such as Common Core, which are unfunded. There’s the bad, like rising costs of fuel and health care, to name just two. But there’s also good, benefits that we, as a town, need to support in order to maintain the quality of education and services this town desires.
These mandates, costs, and benefits fall onto the town’s shoulders, and we’ve done what we can do to cut costs elsewhere to absorb them.
But we’ve been cutting and whittling away at expenses since the economy imploded in 2008. We’ve delayed maintenance. We’ve cut staff by as much as 10 percent. We’ve bet that the economy would recover — and it hasn’t. Unfortunately, most potential savings already have been realized, and we’re so far behind on necessities such as maintenance that we have no choice but take care of what we have. Further cuts will only dig us deeper into a hole that will be even harder to get out of later.
The only alternative to raising taxes and cutting costs is to grow our grand list. Four organizations (the Town Council, Planning and Zoning Commission, Economic Development Commission, and Tolland Economic and Community Development Corp.) are all working hard to increase the grand list through real, lasting growth. This growth comes through new construction and replacement of older vehicles.
However, we cannot force anybody to build a house, an office, a store, a bank, or pharmacy. We can’t make people replace their cars. What we can do, we have been doing: We have lowered the barriers of entry into the town by reducing fees, ensuring that building officials and others are readily available, and even working with developers to encourage them to start something. But the state’s economy is in the toilet, and it’s not coming out anytime soon.
So while prices rise, our town’s grand list is flat. There are few, if any, savings to be realized. And so, taxes it must be.
Know this: I don’t like tax increases any more than you do. But I’ll still be voting yes on May 6.
Tolland, Vote Yes on May 6th (Steve Jones, Tolland Democratic Town Committee Chairman)
This year has been a budget season for Tolland that has been like no other in recent history.
Soon after being elected, our volunteer members of the Board of Education and Town Council met together in a joint workshop and established a united working agreement that focuses on trust, active communication, and respect for the budget process. Every member from both political parties signed onto this agreement. I am proud to say that they have delivered on this agreement.
The Board of Education, having the majority of the budget, focused on creating level budget that preserves all current services in our schools and allowing any unexpected surplus to be saved for non-recurring expenses, or invested into top priorities like technology and reducing pay to participate fees. The Town Council followed a similar path of budgeting for our local government, supporting our community’s basic services, reducing our town debt, and limiting the impact on us as taxpayers. And unlike past budgets, both our Board of Education and Town Council members spoke together regularly and actively made the community a part of the conversation as well.
The end result from several months of dialogue is a budget that received overwhelmingly bi-partisan support by the Town Council, with 3 Democrats and 3 of 4 Republicans supporting this budget to go to referendum. The Board of Education has shown strong, bi-partisan for this budget going to referendum as well.
Over the past three years, our town has taken strong austerity measures to limit spending increases to reflect difficult economic times. The average mill increase during those years was 1.18%, and government spending increase averaged .89%, both well below the Consumer Price Index of 2%. And over the past five years, the average tax increase in Tolland has been less than half a percent, well below the rate of inflation. Finally, our town has sought to maintain a lean government by reducing staff by 9% over the past 4 years. Our education system has taken similar action in past budgets through reducing regular staff and paraprofessionals.
The state of our local, statewide, and national economy is making a comeback. And with significant investments being made the UConn area, Tolland is expected to feel the impact of that investment. A wave of new residents and professional industries will be looking to our town as the future home to their children and their workers. But as a community, we must support those core services that attract families and businesses to Tolland: A vibrant education system, and a strong, infrastructure-minded government.
I proudly support this year’s budget and hope you too will join me in voting on Tuesday, May 6th between 6AM and 8PM at Town Hall or the Tolland Senior Center. Together, we can continue to make Tolland one of the best small towns to live in for years to come.
