Town Council Considers What to do With Second Failed Budget

The Tolland municipal budget for the 2011-12 fiscal year has been defeated for the second time.

Tuesday, with about 35.29 percent of eligible voters casting a ballot, the proposed $50.75 million budget was defeated by 36 votes, too large of a margin to trigger a recount. The original $51.04 million budget was defeated at referendum on May 3.

Tuesday night, after meeting for nearly one hour in a caucus with fellow Democratic members of the Town Council, Chairman Frederick Daniels said that council members thought Tuesday’s vote would be tight, but that they felt that the proposed budgets that have been defeated were fair budgets that reflected the needs of the town.

As for the council’s special meeting scheduled for tonight at 7:30, Daniels said the group will focus on the numbers and, to some extent, guess what voters are looking for in terms of how much should be cut from the failed proposal. If the budget had been approved it would have reflected a 2.9 percent increase over the current year and required a 29.99 mill tax rate, an increase of 0.84 mills.

Council Vice Chairwoman MaryAnn Delaney Tuttle added that it will be very difficult this time around to decide how much to eliminate from failed $50.75 million budget.

The entire municipal budget that will be reconsidered by the council tonight currently includes $10.82 million for the town government, $34.9 million for the schools, $4.75 for the debt service and $276,501 for capital projects.

By town charter, the council must revise each failed budget proposal and send it back to voters in two weeks. For this reason, the next opportunity the roughly 9,168 active registered voters have to weigh in on the revenue and expenditure plan for the next fiscal year will be May 31, the day after Memorial Day.

School board member Steve Clark, who was at the town hall waiting for the results, said the board will wait to receive a finalized budget, with a set bottom line, before members discuss what changes must be made to the education budget.

District two saw the highest turn out Tuesday with 36.08 percent of those eligible casting a ballot at the senior center. In the first district, 34.44 percent cast a ballot in the Hicks Memorial building's gymnasium.

Broken down by district, more people supported the budget in the first district where 848 voted in favor of the plan versus 683 who opposed it. The opposite was true in the second district where 753 supported the budget versus the 954 who were against it.