Mansfield Town Manager Ryan Aylesworth has proposed a budget for fiscal year 2025, which includes real budget cuts for public schools, and real budget increases for public safety.
Mansfield has a proposed budget for fiscal year 2025 of $65.4 million, a 3.1% increase from last year. $12.1 million would be a city contribution to Region 19, which funds high schools in this area. $24.8 million will go to the Mansfield Board of Education, which pays for elementary and middle schools in Mansfield. $28.5 million will go to fund the rest of the government under the proposed budget. In order for the budget to be passed, it must be approved by the city council.
Given that the budget for the Mansfield Board of Education is staying the same at $24.8 million, it is shrinking in real terms. Aylesworth said that this would come from reductions in staff.
“It’s somewhere along nine positions, nine or ten positions in the Mansfield Board of Ed budget that basically are not being backfilled. And I believe it was either four or five teaching positions, and then four or five non certified, ie, paraprofessional positions,” Aylesworth said. “My understanding is that while there are reductions in, I guess you could say, headcounts,” Aylesworth said, “nobody’s being terminated, or position eliminated, other than positions that will not be backfilled after, I guess you could say natural vacancies, so things such as retirement.”
The public safety budget increased by 10.7% in the proposed budget.
The biggest increases are a couple of areas according to additional staffing of both police and fire and emergency services,
Ryan Aylesworth, Mansfield Town Manager
“The biggest increases are a couple of areas according to additional staffing of both police and fire and emergency services,” Aylesworth said.
While Mansfield lacks a municipal police department, they contract with Connecticut State Police, and have ten uniformed officers.
“The town council has stated its desire to increase our staffing from the ten that we are currently at to 13. So, we are looking to, as far as the budget will allow, to increase from ten to 11 in this next year,” Aylesworth said. “On the fire and emergency services side, we’re proposing the creation of three new positions. One, creating a full-time deputy chief of operations position, and then also hiring two additional full time firefighter slash EMTs.”
Aylesworth said that this was proposed because “we’re a community that’s experiencing growth right now,” and the proposed staff increase is so that Mansfield can provide emergency services to new residents.
“A majority of our employees are union employees and we have a few different labor groups,” said Aylesworth. Given that this is a contract renegotiation year for two of these labor groups, $260, 150 in the budget is marked as contingency, and will be channeled into different departments after contract renegotiation occurs and salaries are set.
Regarding city revenue, the Mansfield budget will include a decrease in city taxes of $1 million, or $156 per median homeowner.
“The main driver for the reduction in the mil rate is the fact that we are anticipating the receipt of considerably more state aid,” Aylesworth said.
In particular, two areas of anticipated revenue increase is based on the governor’s proposed budget for this year. We receive funds that are called Payment In Lieu Of Taxes, sometimes called PILOT funds because UConn, being a state university, is tax exempt.
Ryan Aylesworth, Mansfield Town Manager
Mansfield currently receives a considerable amount of funding from Connecticut to cover services provided to UConn students, such as roads, a library and events held by the city.
“In particular, two areas of anticipated revenue increase is based on the governor’s proposed budget for this year. We receive funds that are called Payment In Lieu Of Taxes, sometimes called PILOT funds because UConn, being a state university, is tax exempt,” Aylesworth said. “But we receive in lieu of taxes, payment [from the state of Connecticut] in the neighborhood of ten or 11 million dollars.”
Mansfield also receives funds from Connecticut to cover its school districts.
“We receive, for the school district, educational cost sharing funds otherwise known as ECS. So the formula that’s used for that has the town of Mansfield receiving several million dollars more than we received last year,” Aylesworth said. The ECS is a grant from the state of Connecticut to assist towns with funding education.