Tri-Board Meeting Positive Start on Addressing Tough Budget Issues

Members of the Suffield Boards of Education, Finance and Selectmen, along with a few key town administrators, discussed the town’s finances at a Tri-Board meeting meant to foster communication and promote the sharing of ideas between the groups.

Finance board chairman Justin Donnelly was in charge of the relatively informal meeting held Monday night. It gave the boards a common starting point on budget talks and engendered discussion about the financial issues facing Suffield; issues that Donnelly said are critical to the town and its residents.

“Certainly, you can’t avoid the issue of finances,” he said.

Much of the gathering was focused on big picture ideas – generating revenue, decreasing expenses and keeping taxes low. Board of finance member Brian Kost presented a preliminary projection for the coming financial year (2012-2013) containing three scenarios, which was a major discussion starter.

That projection contained three budget scenarios. The first had town government and the town’s school system using zero-increase budgets, the same budgets used in the last fiscal year, which would lead to a tax increase of 2.7 percent. A “flat mill rate increase” budget showed the reductions necessary to have no tax increase in the coming fiscal year. The final projection was a “normal inflation” or “steady services” budget, based on how town budgets have increased in past years. That budget would lead to a 6 percent tax increase, an uptick that the participants thought was too high to be reasonable.

A discussion of revenue generators for the town revealed little good news. The town’s grand list, the source of tax collection rates, will likely grow less than one-half of one percent. Kost said state aid to towns would likely remain flat, as Hartford has strongly implied there will be no increases to municipal aid in the coming financial year. The bonding items passed at referendum in the spring, new firefighting vehicles and road improvements, will also cost the town money.

“We’re starting out in the hole,” Kost said.

While the participants did not craft complete solutions to financial problems at the meeting, they shared a desire to keep expenditures and taxes low and appeared to be communicating more effectively as the meeting progressed.

First Selectman Ed McAnaney said he is concerned with “keeping mill rate costs down” and therefore keeping taxes in Suffield low as well. He said the boards will need to address increases made in previous budgets, when state aid increased on a yearly basis and funds were readily available.

Cost-saving ideas shared at the meeting included selectively filling vacancies in town government and the school system, creating inter-local and regional agreements to share services and attracting more businesses to Suffield.

The ultimate goal of the budget season, despite its deep complexities, is simple according to Donnelly. He said the goal, what the boards are trying to accomplish in their financial work, is to craft a budget where taxpayers pay no more than they absolutely have to.