Enfield Things

Enfield Town Hall, May 19, 2024 The Town Council is scheduled to adopt a budget tonight without a tax increase. The proposed mill rate will remain at 30.56, the same as this year. Despite this, the meeting is expected to be contentious. The Board of Education members will face off with the council in a final appeal, warning of layoffs, increased class sizes, and other problems if additional funding is not provided. The budget vote is expected to split along party lines, with Republicans supporting no change and Democrats seeking an increase. The budget proposal defers capital improvements, including repairs and new equipment purchases for schools, reducing spending by about $1.5 million. The largest offset are new police vehicles at $750,000.* However, this merely postpones costs into the future and is not something to take credit for. This budget will keep Enfield's per-pupil spending on the low end for the state. Enfield ranks low in Net Current Expenditure Per Pupil (NCEP) s...

Molly at School Rally People are going after spending in Enfield and trying to dissect it to see where they can find gross mismanagement. Since the Republicans have been in control for all but two of the last 16 years, let's assume that the town's spending is pristine and error-free and beyond reproach—except for the two years when the Democrats were in charge. As we all know, the Democrats dumped money out of the windows of Town Hall. The Town Council Republicans are going to try to set a token reduction in the Mill Rate. To reach that point, they may have to do some problematic things, such as deferring spending on things like police cruiser replacements and equipment generally, putting off some maintenance, and not filling vacancies and laying off where they can, and who knows what else. There's a lot they can't touch, namely contractual salary obligations. But they want to be able to say that they reduced taxes. More concerning will be how much of the costs are bein...