Tolland Town Manager Releases Recommended Budget With Increase

Editor’s note: Sharing this again considering the importance of the budget. 

Town Manager Steven Werbner has released his recommended budget for the next fiscal year, which comes with a 2.68 percent increase overall.

Town expenses would increase by 1.91 percent and Board of Education increases would be 2.98 percent, Werbner wrote in a letter addressed to the Town Council.

The recommendations are made in a time of great uncertainty as the State Legislature considers a number of items that could have an impact on Tolland.

Some of the items that could impact Tolland include:

• Property tax structure
• Potential unfunded state mandates
• Motor vehicle tax changes
• Resident Trooper program funding
• Funding for special education

Gov. Dannel Malloy has proposed doing away with the 70/30 percent split for the Residential Trooper program and having towns pay 100 percent of the cost.

“This change for the current compliment of Resident Troopers would result in an addition of $228,932 to our budget as well as $46,063 to the Board of Education for the School Resource Officer,” Werbner wrote.

Tolland recently completed its property revaluation and found 89 percent of properties in Tolland decreased in value between one and 10 percent due to market forces.

Taxable property declined by 3.51 percent on the town’s grand list, which comes to a loss of about $1.41 million. Nearby Coventry saw a drop of 7 percent in their grand list.

Not everything is bad news. The town once again received a highly-coveted Triple A finance rating from Standard and Poor’s. Only a handful of other towns have this rating.

Energy improvements have been made to school facilities, which will save money in the long run. A design and expansion of the library into the former Hicks Gymnasium has started and construction should start in the early summer.