A couple of interesting things came out of the April 26^th board of finance meeting. First, it would seem that the vice-chairman, Glenn Converse, was somehow offended by the public raising questions concerning spending and the budget(s) at the April 12^th meeting, feeling that it became “heated and ugly”.   I was at that meeting and if he truly felt that the questions raised or manor in which the questions were asked were either heated or ugly, well, that doesn’t bode well for future input by the public should he become the chairman next year as if he thinks this year was tough he hasn’t seen anything yet.  Next year will start out with at least a $600,000 hole in the education budget never mind questions about state revenues.

But the bigger issue is the board’s decision to round up spending and our short term tax increase to an even ½ mil from the .42 mil increase going into this meeting – a mere $60,274.  Hey what the heck, it’s just taxpayer money.  Since then the state has gone ahead and adopted Malloy’s budget cutting your state tax deduction for local property tax by $200, or roughly the equivalent of an additional mil for Woodstock residents.  But again, it doesn’t stop there, oh no.  Malloy’s budget still counts on 1 billion dollars in give backs from state unions, something almost no one believes will happen; plus another $1.5 Billion in other tax increases.  Plan B?  Out on Friday May 6th, after cutting ~4700 jobs he will still be half a billion or so in the hole – so to make it up; cut Medicaid and aid to towns. 

So to review:  ½ mil from the spending increase plus ~1.0 mil from the lost tax deduction, that’s roughly 8.6% in increases.  Then add to that something like $300 to $500 to cover the cut in aid to towns – you’ll most likely get that in a supplemental tax bill in August or September – and you get on average a grand total of roughly 17+% in tax increases just for local property taxes.  That should go over well will those who are already struggling to pay their taxes.  Remember that’s approximately 10% who are on payment plans according to the tax assessor and as reported by the board of finance in earlier meetings and many more using credit cards.

On May 17^th Woodstock residents get a chance to vote NO on the budget and send the message that enough is enough, or let it pass and suffer the consequences in silence.  Your choice.

Dave Richardson