Budget Season Begins in Stonington

Members of the Stonington Boards of Selectmen, Finance and Education will soon be coming to a neighborhood near you.

With state aid in question and property revaluations underway a lot of uncertainty surrounds the Town of Stonington’s 2013-2014 budget, and town leaders want to hear from residents.

“We want to ask residents ‘what are your concerns?,” Selectmen Glee McAnanly who is organizing the neighborhood meetings said.

McAnanly said she hopes to set up meetings in Stonington’s different neighborhoods at different times during the coming weeks and have at least one member from each of the Boards of Selectmen, Finance and Education present at the meetings.

Those meetings were just one of the things discussed at a joint special meeting members of Stonington’s Boards of Selectmen, Finance and Education held to discuss the 2013-2014 budget process.

Stonington town leaders, like many around the state, are worried about what the state deficit could mean for reductions in town aid that the state makes each year to Connecticut’s 169 towns.

“We don’t know what the governor will do in terms of state aid, but it sounds like everything is on the table,” Director of Finance Maryanna Stevens said on Wednesday, at the joint meeting.

First Selectmen Ed Haberek reiterated a statement he made at the State of the Stoningtons in December saying that one of the biggest issues facing Stonington is the Connecticut state budget deficit.

And Superintendent Dr. Van Riley said he wants the schools to be proactive.

According to Riley this year’s budget on the school level will look different in how it is structured and presented from previous years. Riley said the tradition of funding on the school level instead of a district level would change.

“We’re going to pull funds back to the district level, and then the funding will go out,” Riley said, giving an example that if one middle school in town needed money for new computers they would make sure the other middle school also had the same up-to-date technology.

Haberek said he wanted the school system to continue collaborating with local organizations such as the Mystic Aquarium and the Mystic Seaport and reach out to those and other organizations throughout the budget season.

“One of the things the schools have done very well is linking up with our local assets,” Haberek said.

The dates and times of the neighborhood meetings have not yet been determined.