This Tuesday, Windsor voters will return to the polls to vote on our town budget. After the budget was defeated by four votes on May 14, the Town Council maintained the $2 million in spending cuts it had previously made, and added $144,000 in additional tax relief for seniors and veterans.
During budget deliberations on May 20, Town Council Republicans proposed eliminating all Community Services grants to local nonprofit and civic organizations. This includes crucial funding to the Shad Derby, Police Cadets, Fire Explorers, Windsor Freedom Trail—and two organizations, Interval House and Network Against Domestic Abuse, that help battered women and other victims of domestic violence in the Town of Windsor.
At the same time, Republicans proposed an additional $1.3 million in cuts to the Windsor Public Schools, which would eliminate 31 educator positions along with the Junior ROTC and elementary strings programs, and decimate funding for reading education, gifted & talented education, school cleaning and maintenance, social/emotional learning, and adult education.
This approach to the budget is as callous as it is scattershot. Meanwhile, Republicans have been calling out the Town Council Democrats for not making additional cuts. If this is their vision of what Windsor ought to be, then we say: no, thank you! We must not hollow out our schools and services, destroying our value as a community to save a little in the short term.
Unfortunately, this is the path we will find ourselves on if we do not vote YES this Tuesday, June 18.
