The podium opened Monday night with a guest editorial.
Tim Kelly — 35-year Farmington resident, 62 Westview Drive, and the same Tim Kelly this paper profiled last fall for treating the public-comment microphone like a research seminar — stepped up to tell the Town Council it had been dealt an unusually favorable hand and played it badly.
The grand list was up twice its normal growth rate. School enrollment was declining. Debt payments were flat.
"You really got served up a cupcake year in this budget cycle." — Tim Kelly
Kelly recommended the council eliminate an $800,000 fund balance contribution from the spending plan and replace it with a matching increase to the ECS revenue line, arguing the state's projected surplus distribution would cover it — and that keeping the $800,000 in reserve would leave the town better positioned for next year's reval cycle. He left the podium.
Council Chair Brian F.X. Connolly — the first Democratic council chair Farmington has elected in 70 years — thanked him.
The council did not adjust the plan. The budget passed unanimously.
The Vote
The FY 2026-27 recommended budget: $143,244,394. A 4.74% increase of $6,478,962 over the current year. The property tax rate will be 27.55 mills, an increase of 0.93 mills.
| Line | FY 2026-27 | Change |
|---|---|---|
| Total budget | $143,244,394 | +4.74% ($6.48M) |
| Mill rate | 27.55 | +0.93 mills |
| Avg. residential tax increase | $281.20/year | — |
| School district | $86,858,554 | +4.35% ($3.62M) |
| Town operations | $37,738,588 | +3.56% |
| Farmington Library | $3,150,049 | +3.00% |
| Capital improvement (Year One) | $4,237,000 | — |
The budget now advances to the Annual Town Meeting on Monday, April 20, at the Farmington High School auditorium. Residents who attend in person may ask questions and vote. A town-wide referendum follows on Thursday, April 30, with a backup referendum date of May 14 authorized in the event the first vote fails.
Update, April 15: The Annual Town Meeting is Monday, April 20, at 7:00 PM at Farmington High School. For the full budget timeline and contingency dates, read our town meeting guide.
Town Operations and the 1928 Building Effect
Town Manager Kathleen Blonski presented the spending plan in full before opening it to public comment. The $37,738,588 town operations budget funds an additional patrol officer in the police department, an additional highway maintainer, and a new promotional position — a supervisory firefighter — created as part of a Department of Public Safety restructuring.
A significant portion of the overall operations increase comes from a single building. Last year's budget included only four months of operating costs for the newly opened 1928 Town Hall; the FY27 plan reflects the full year. The public ribbon-cutting for the 1928 building is scheduled for Thursday, May 14, from 6 to 8 p.m., with tours, food trucks, and souvenir bricks. Administrative close-out of the project is roughly 90% complete, with temperature-sensitive exterior work still pending for April.
Utility costs across town operations rose 4.69% overall.
A First Budget from Jess M. Giannini
Superintendent Jess M. Giannini — appointed by the Board of Education last November and seated January 5 — walked the council through the Board of Education's recommended budget of $86,858,554, a 4.35% increase of $3,617,571. Schools account for roughly 61% of total town spending.
Giannini is three months into the job, and this is his first budget presentation.
The largest drivers in the school budget: a 9.42% increase in healthcare and benefits, and contractual salary obligations across all staff. Giannini's team projects continued enrollment decline at certain elementary grade levels, resulting in a net reduction of approximately seven elementary teaching positions. Offsetting additions include a new supervisor for the special services department, a care team member at each school — a certified teacher focused on behavioral and mental health support, now also required by new state statute — and a part-time speech-language pathologist and school psychologist.
On efficiency, Giannini offered a single number: Farmington ranks 131st out of 166 Connecticut school districts in per-pupil spending, at $2,068 below the state average.
Regional Dispatch — $564,118 in Savings
Beginning next fiscal year, Farmington will operate its dispatch center as a regional facility with Avon and Burlington, structured as a new special revenue fund. The town's operating contribution is $1,196,526; remaining costs are covered by state grants and contractual payments from the partner towns.
The result: $564,118 in operating budget savings, expanded dispatch staffing capacity, and integration with Avon's State Core radio system — improving coordination among Farmington police, fire, and EMS. The Mercury covered an earlier phase of the dispatch expansion in June 2025, when the council approved an infrastructure and dispatch package that laid some of the groundwork.
Two Bond Questions on the Ballot
Voters at the April 30 referendum will also decide on two bond questions.
| Bond | Amount | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| K-4 HVAC replacement | $14,339,152 | 31.79% state reimbursement anticipated; §8-24 TPZ review required before referendum |
| Road reconstruction | $4,000,000 | Standard capital bonding, infrastructure maintenance cycle |
The HVAC bond is the more politically freighted of the two. The Mercury has tracked the $14.3M package since the council first began weighing the annex plan and school HVAC bonding earlier this spring. Before going to voters, the bond question must first be reviewed by the Town Plan and Zoning Commission under CGS §8-24 — the council referred it unanimously Monday night. That review must be completed before the April 30 referendum for the bond question to be valid.
A New Technology Committee — Website, Survey, and More
The council established an ad hoc technology committee to oversee two projects: a redesign of the municipal website and an evaluation of the town's mass communication systems — including Everbridge and a potential 311 system.
Appointed to the committee: Bruce Polsky, Town Council Member; Keith Vibert, Town Council Member; Kat Grzyzewski, Assistant Town Manager; Brian Rush, IT Manager; and Todd Hodgman, IT Support Specialist. The FY27 budget includes $75,000 for the website redesign and $50,000 for a town-wide survey.
That survey — expected to launch in 2027 — will include questions about sidewalk priorities. Farmington's ad hoc sidewalk committee has formally put itself on pause, waiting to hear from residents before advancing any specific proposals. The Mercury has been covering the $18 million sidewalk debate for over a year; the committee's decision to wait for the survey is the latest step in a conversation that has resisted consensus at every turn.
The $75,000 website redesign was one of the items the Town Council added back into the budget during last month's budget workshops — a process the Mercury covered in January when the council opened its 2026 season with the Wells Drive road dispute and its fund-balance target change.
Other Business
Farmington Motorsports contract. The council awarded Bid #377 — police vehicle maintenance and repair — to Farmington Motorsports of Farmington, CT, for July 1, 2026 through June 30, 2027, with an optional one-year extension. The contract exceeds $50,000, requiring council approval. One council member recused due to family ties to the vendor. Vote: 6–0.
PKF O'Connor Davies LLP reappointed as independent auditor for the fiscal year ending June 30, 2026 — approximately their eighth consecutive year. A council member observed that an RFP is worth considering "within the next couple of years," but that the firm has done good work and the search process the last time around turned up limited options.
Plan of Conservation and Development. The POCD update RFP — issued every 10 years — is out and due back May 1. A joint subcommittee of town staff and TPZ members will select a vendor, with a contract expected for council approval at the June 2 meeting.
IWC public hearing, April 15. The Inland Wetlands Commission has a hearing scheduled on a proposed warehouse and refueling station on Finnemore Road, with concerns raised about vernal pools and wetland impacts on the site.
Kelly's Case — Did the Numbers Back Him Up?
Kelly's argument rested on three favorable conditions aligning simultaneously: the grand list growing at roughly twice its normal rate (yielding over $2 million in additional revenue), Farmington school enrollment declining over 3% in two years, and debt payments essentially flat for the coming fiscal year.
He also questioned whether the council's collective experience had been brought to bear on Giannini's first budget. "I was a little surprised that with more than 25 years of combined BOE experience now sitting on the council, that we were not able to help our new superintendent, who only had 60 days on the job, find any cost savings in a school system with total spend of over $100 million. Not much value add."
Here is the piece of context that doesn't fit neatly into the meeting minutes: the budget the council adopted Monday night was not the same budget they were looking at a month ago.
The spending plan the council reviewed at its March 10 budget workshop came in at $142.58 million — a proposed mill rate of 27.50, with an average residential increase around $265 per year. The plan the council voted on Monday night was $143.24 million — mill rate 27.55, average residential increase $281.20. Between workshop and adoption, the budget grew by roughly $665,000. The mill rate ticked up 0.05 mills. The average homeowner picked up an additional $16.
Those are not large numbers on a $143 million spending plan. But Kelly's central claim was that the underlying conditions — grand list growth, enrollment decline, flat debt service — should have produced a budget that moved in the other direction. Instead, the council used its budget workshops to add things back in: the website redesign, the technology committee, other line items that had been trimmed or questioned. The direction of travel between March 10 and April 6 was more spending, not less.
Whether that was the right call depends on how you feel about the things that got added. The website redesign is probably overdue. The technology committee reflects the reality that Farmington still doesn't have a 311 system and its mass-notification tools need an audit. The care team positions are required by new state law. None of those decisions are obviously wrong.
But Kelly's narrower point — that the council had room to cut and chose not to — is hard to refute on the arithmetic alone. The numbers moved in the direction he was warning against, not away from it.
The council thanked him anyway. The budget passed unanimously. The Annual Town Meeting is April 20.
For comparison, last year's $136.7M budget passed after a considerably longer session with its own round of contested amendments. This year the council moved faster. Whether it moved in the right direction is the question voters get to answer on April 30.
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— Jack Beckett read the transcript, ran the numbers, compared the March 10 workshop package to the April 6 adopted budget, and confirms the direction of travel. Tim Kelly's "cupcake year" metaphor will stay with him for a while. The coffee has long since gone cold. ☕
The Farmington Mercury covers the town nobody else is covering — the budget hearings where residents cite specific ECS revenue projections, the ad hoc committees getting stood up to oversee website redesigns, the HVAC bond questions that will eventually determine whether elementary school students stop sweating through May. We publish slowly. We publish accurately. We publish last. If your Annual Town Meeting is April 20 and your referendum is April 30, you now have context. Find us at farmingtonmercury.com and tell your neighbors. #WeAreFarmington 📰
Update, April 30, 2026 — referendum results: Farmington's Budget Referendum Closes With 950 Ballots Cast and a 5.08 Percent Turnout. The Town Council's $143M budget went to referendum on April 30 and drew 5.08 percent turnout — below the charter's 15 percent floor for a budget rejection to engage. The budget passes by default. Bond totals pending the Town Clerk.