Tolland Council Pens Open 2025-26 Budget Letter To Community

TOLLAND, CT — The Tolland Town Council Tuesday sent an open letter to the community in anticipation of the May 6 referendum on the proposed $65 million budget for the 2025-26 fiscal year.

Here is the letter in full:

On April 3rd, after weeks of careful deliberations and public input, the Town Council voted to adopt a budget to send to referendum on May 6th.

As always, creating a budget is balancing act - the Council must do its best to ensure town services are properly funded, while also protecting taxpayers from excessive bills With the cumulative effects of inflation, contractual increases, and a shift in the tax burden from commercial properties to homeowners after the recent revaluation, this year has been particularly challenging to meet these objectives.

The Council worked to explore a number of different non-tax revenue options to offset the impact of a difficult tax revaluation year and help taxpayers while protecting services. In particular, the Council voted to utilize $300,000 from the tax stabilization fund (the maximum amount allowed by ordinance), revise revenue collection assumptions closer to actual collection rates, and revise our assumptions for state education funding, which looks more promising than initially believed.The budget set to go to referendum on May 6th is a 3.01 percent spending increase, which will adjust the mill rate to 27.85 mills.

This is a decrease in the mill rate compared to the original town manager’s proposal which had a proposed mill rate of 28.26 mills. In a revaluation year especially, we encourage residents to use the online tax calculator to fully understand what this means for them.In addition to the main budget vote, in a unanimous 7-0 vote, the Council approved two measures to use UISF funds and switch out capital funding requests to help the Board of Education retain staff as well as support clubs and sports.

These modifications had a net zero impact to proposed spending levels as it is a transfer between budget line items.This budget shifts $15,000 from the town budget to the recreation fund, enabling us to convert the part-time recreation coordinator position to full-time with no financial impact to residents. This will aid in the expansion of popular revenue producing programs.Finally, this budget reallocates $60,000 from the capital budget to the Tolland Fire Department to support implementing recommendations from the recent Fitch Fire Consultant Study.

This also has a net zero impact to proposed spending levels as it is a transfer between budget line items.Finally, this year's referendum will include a second question which is intended to allow voters to provide additional feedback to the Council. We encourage any and all voters to fill out the second question to provide the Council with more feedback on the proposed budget. We urge all residents to make their voices heard by voting on May 6th and actively participating in shaping the future of our community.

Your vote matters.

Sincerely,

Jacob Marie, Chairman

Chris Moran, Vice Chairman

Colleen Yudichak, Counselor

Marilee Beebe, Counselor

Alex Noonan, Counselor

Jennifer Buckler, Counselor