Farmington's Town Council spent part of its June 23 meeting behind closed doors, reviewing the performance of the person who runs the town day to day. When it returned to open session, it gave her a longer contract, a raise, and a $15,000 bonus, each by unanimous vote.
The official is Town Manager Kathleen Blonski, the appointed administrator who executes the council's decisions and oversees Farmington's departments. The council hires her, sets her terms, and reviews her work. On June 23 it did the first two in public and the review itself in private.
That split is by design. Connecticut's open-meetings law lets a public body discuss a specific employee's performance in executive session, the closed-door format the council used after voting to "discuss matters pertaining to the town manager's performance evaluation." It does not let the body decide anything there. Any vote has to happen in open session, which is where the council went next.
The first vote amended Blonski's contract. The council reset her term of service, set in Section 2A, to run from July 1, 2026 through June 30, 2030, and raised her salary, set in Section 4, by 3 percent. The base that the 3 percent applies to was not read aloud. A town manager's salary is a public record, carried in the contract and the town budget, but a resident watching the June 23 meeting would not learn from it what the raise is worth in dollars.
The second vote awarded Blonski a $15,000 bonus, on its own motion. It passed the way the contract amendment and the move into executive session had, with no recorded dissent. Chair Brian F.X. Connolly called each one.
What the public record shows, then, is the reward without the reasoning. The extension and the bonus are on the books. The evaluation that produced them is not, and the law does not require it to be. Residents can see that the council was unanimously satisfied with its town manager. They cannot see what it weighed, and without the salary base they cannot price the raise. None of that is a departure from how Connecticut towns handle personnel. It is the part of the decision the public is left to take on trust.
The money comes out of a budget the council itself sets. Farmington passed a $143 million budget for 2026-27 in April and set the mill rate at 27.36 in May. The town manager's pay is a line inside it, approved by the same body that just enlarged it.
Blonski's contract now runs to June 30, 2030. That is the next time the question is scheduled to come back.
This coverage is supported by Farmington Storage, 155 Scott Swamp Road, the only storage facility in Connecticut with Museum air. The Mercury covers the slow work of keeping a town running and the contracts that keep the people running it. Farmington Storage keeps things at institutional grade, no review required. 860.777.4001 📦
Jack Beckett has covered Farmington's town council long enough to know the difference between an executive session and a verdict, and that the gap between them is usually about four minutes. He is on his third coffee. The contract was 30 pages. He read the relevant two. ☕
The Farmington Mercury covers the town nobody else bothers with: the closed-door personnel review, the mill rate that funds it, the unanimous vote that you would never know happened unless someone typed it up. We publish slowly, deliberately, and without apology. Our motto is "Always last to breaking news," and we mean it: by the time you read this, the dust has settled, the record has been checked, and Jack Beckett has had at least two cups of coffee. Find us at farmingtonmercury.com and tell your neighbors. #WeAreFarmington 📰