Tolland Manager Releases Budget Update

TOLLAND, CT — Tolland Town Manager Steve Werbner on Wednesday released the following budget update:

As you are aware, the State Legislature is going on its ninth month without enacting a state budget. This lack of action is causing continued havoc with local budgets statewide.

The Town of Tolland was scheduled to have a Budget Referendum on September 19th, however, on September 8th the Governor released his third version of a budget with numbers substantially better than previous versions and better than revenue numbers we had included in the budget that was to be voted on.

We have some hope that this newest version may lead to a compromise with the State legislature and an agreed to budget the week of September 11th. While that is still a possibility information coming from news reports is less than hopeful. Furthermore, we are told that if a budget is not adopted this week than there won’t be a budget adopted for the remainder of the month because certain key legislators will be unavailable to meet.

I recommended to the Town Council and they agreed at their meeting held on September 12th to rescind the previous action taken to adopt a Town budget and approved to postpone the referendum until October 30th. This will give the Legislature the remainder of the week to try and take action on a budget. If they do not, I will be recommending to the Town Council that we use the latest numbers released by the Governor as the basis for our revised budget.

Spreadsheets which I presented to the Council last night and which are on our web page indicate that a tax increase in the percent range is possible utilizing those numbers along with certain expenditure reductions and use of fund balance.

A new Town budget to be submitted to the Town-wide referendum will be adopted on September 26th at 7:00 p.m. in the Town Council Chambers. A public hearing on the proposed new budget will be held at the Tolland High School at 7:30 p.m. on October 11th and an additional presentation on October 12th at 12:30 p.m. at the Tolland Senior Center. The budget referendum vote is to be held in the Program Room in the Tolland Library.

I fully understand that this budget process is about as confusing as it possibly can be and for that I apologize. We are reacting to information coming from the State Capital which is changing on a daily basis. If anyone has any questions on our process, please do not hesitate to contact me at swerbner@tolland.org.

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