Joint Budget Statement Distributed By Tolland Town Council

TOLLAND, CT — Town Council Chairman Chris Moran and Vice Chair Renie Besaw have released a joint statement on Tolland's $66.3 million budget proposal for the 2026-27 fiscal year.

A referendum is slated for next month.

Subscribe

Here is the statement:

"On April 2nd, after weeks of careful deliberations and public input, the Town Council unanimously voted to adopt a budget to send to referendum on May 5th.

"Creating a town budget is challenging and there are no easy solutions. The Council must either decide to raise taxes for the residents of Tolland to keep services level or reduce town services in order to limit tax hikes. The entire Council went into budget deliberations acutely aware that residents are still feeling the effect of last year’s tax increase following the state-mandated property revaluation.

"The Council worked in a bipartisan manner to balance the competing interests: ensure town services are properly funded, while also protecting taxpayers from an excessive increase. With the cumulative effects of inflation, contractual wage increases, health insurance costs, and energy costs, the vast majority of the budgetary increases for both the municipal and Board of Education budgets are fixed costs. Neither budget includes additional services.

"The Council explored various non-tax revenue options to offset the financial impact on residents. In particular, the Council unanimously voted to utilize $1,195,000 from the unassigned fund. These are funds that taxpayers have already paid to the town, and it is important that we use these funds responsibly to help ease the financial strain on our residents. Even with the use of these funds, the unassigned fund balance will remain at approximately 17%, higher than town policy requires, which is 10-15% of the General Fund operating budget for expenditures.

"The budget set to go to referendum on May 5th reflects a 3.2% spending increase for the municipal operating budget and a 3.4% spending increase for the Board of Education operating budget, which will increase the current mill rate by 2.98% to 28.00 mills. This is a decrease in the 28.37 mill rate proposed in the Town Manager’s initial budget.

"We understand that to some residents, this budget may be too high and to others it may not provide sufficient funding. Working collaboratively, all 7 councilors worked to find compromise and believe that the budget we are putting forth to referendum is in the best interests of the town and its residents.

"We urge all residents to make their voices heard by voting at the budget referendum on May 5th. Your vote matters.

Chris Moran, Chairman

Renie Besaw, Vice Chair

Tolland Town Council "