State of the Town

Leaders offer update on Newington’s progress

by Mark Jahne

Editor

Photos by Mark Jahne

The message was upbeat, mixed with a few words of concern, at the annual State of the Town meeting held the morning of March 26 at the Newington Senior & Disabled Center.

This event is sponsored by the Newington Chamber of Commerce and President Paul Muska of Edward Jones., Inc., greeted everyone on a positive note.

Board of Education chairperson Amy Perrotti presented an update on the school district.

“We’ve seen tremendous growth in our community” over the past year, he said.

The chamber boasts 200 active members and has enjoyed increasing attention on social media platforms. It will celebrate its 80^th anniversary next year.

Muska cited its many benefits including morning networking on the first Monday of each month at 8 a.m. at Chick-fil-A on the Berlin Turnpike. There are also monthly Business After Hours, ribbon-cutting events for new businesses and a women’s networking group.

Upcoming chamber events include its annual classic car show on Market Square on June 18, its golf tournament on Aug. 3 and the Waterfall Festival on Sept. 26.

Board of Education Chairperson Amy Perrotti spoke about the state of the Newington Public Schools. To comply with state regulations, she said John Wallace Middle School now offers a bilingual program for students whose primary language at home is Spanish.

Mayor Jon Trister talked about economic development.

She spoke of the high percentage of Newington High School pupils who take college-level Advanced Placement courses, one of the highest percentages in the state. Work continues to close the achievement gap.

“The Newington Public Schools are diverse. We have seen a significant increase in the special education population,” Perrotti said.

She also referred to increased racial and ethnic diversity. The enrollment of students who identify as White is now 49 percent.

She described the school budget that was forwarded for consideration by the Town Council as a maintenance budget with no significant cost increases. But rising costs and salary and benefit commitments still resulted in an initial 5.63 percent requested increase, which has been reduced by the council.

“We’re constantly looking for grants to offset the budget,” she said.

Perrotti added that a focus is being placed on recruiting more paraprofessionals to assist teachers and to give these employees fringe benefits. Many area school districts provide benefits such as health insurance to their paraprofessionals. Newington does not.

Town Manager Jonathan Altshul offered an overview of town government finances. He said that, in large part because of the dramatic rise in real estate assessments due to revaluation, this is a difficult year in which to create a municipal budget that meets the needs while not overwhelming taxpayers.

“Every year in municipal budgeting is a challenging year,” Altshul said.

He added that the goal is to provide programs and services while at the same time being fiscally responsible. His initial budget proposal to the council covering town government, public education and capital improvements, represented a 6.79 percent increase from the current budget.

It was cut to 4.8 percent at the time of this event and was expected to be trimmed further prior to final adoption. The new fiscal year begins July 1.

Altshul said that even a decrease of several points in the mill rate will not fully negate the impact of reassessment. That huge spike in residential property values was fueled by a red-hot real estate market.

“Revaluation reflected substantial growth in real estate assessments over the past five years,” Altshul said.

The average increase in the fair market value of local homes was 57 percent. He proposed a reduction in the mill rate of 8.5 mills to offset this but it’s still not enough.

“The mill rate decrease does not completely negate the increase in assessments,” he said. “State aid is flat and some of the other non-tax revenues are going down,” he added.

There are numerous capital improvement projects that need to be addressed over time and $2.1 million is proposed for that. Altshul encouraged the council to ease off on its past practice of taking substantial amounts of money out of its fund balance to decrease the budget.

He said first responders need new radio towers that will provide more consistent coverage across all parts of the town. The price tag for that is $735,000. He added that the Town Center master plan is making good progress.

“Newington is in great shape right now. We have to do whatever we can to keep taxes low,” Mayor Jon Trister said. “Our Town Center is amazing and we are investing in it.”

He spoke of the continuing construction of new apartment communities in remarks that focused upon development projects.

“The Berlin Turnpike continues to attract more businesses,” he said.

“Our police department is fully staffed. It took a long time to get there,” Trister said. “Our fire department attained an ISO 2 rating last year.”

He added that these ratings are difficult to achieve and Newington is one of a small number of all-volunteer fire departments in the country to accomplish this feat.

The town’s three-member delegation at the state legislature reported on what’s happening at the State Capitol in Hartford.

State Sen. Matthew Lesser said the state is facing a small budget deficit and blamed it on changes in federal tax policy. He criticized other federal government actions.

“We’re expecting to lose about $1 billion in Medicaid funds. We’re also seeing major cuts in food aid,” he said, with military veterans among those experiencing reduced benefits.

Lesser said the biggest question facing legislators this year is “what can we do to make sure that health care is affordable?”

State Rep. Gary Turco also mentioned the federal budget cuts. He predicted that Newington would receive $26 million in state aid. That number includes Educational Cost Sharing funds that go into the school district’s portion of the budget.

“That’s a $9 million increase over the last six years,” he said.

Turco would like to see legislation similar to laws passed in other states protecting children from the harmful aspects of social media. He also advocated for universal school meals for all children, something the federal government adopted during the COVID-19 pandemic but stopped when the health care emergency ended.

State Rep. Kate Farrar also spoke about an increase in state education funding for this town. She talked about her desire to do more to promote technical and educational vocation to fill important jobs and trades. NL