Montville Needs More Debt?

The low and middle income Montville taxpayer is doomed.

Montville had an outstanding debt of $ 26,040,176 as of 2005 (http://products.cerc.com/pdf/tp/montville.pdf).

The school improvement plan is bonded for about $20 million and appears to be headed for cost over-runs.

The loss to Rand-Whitney in the water quality litigation is about $15 million so far. The interest penalty of $50,000 per month will add up to another $900,000 for a total of about $16 million by the end of 2007.

Rand-Whitney is also suing the town over property taxes to the tune of $4 million.

The town is in the process of paying almost $3 million to Montville Power LLC over the next five years as a result of lost litigation.

That brings the total town debt to about $69 million. But that total does not include other litigation such as that initiated by persons suffering physical injury, discrimination, and the Podurgiel Lane residents.

None of the above listed numbers include the fees paid to lawyers and public relations firms.

The losses to Rand-Whitney alone are about 65 percent of annual revenue from taxes (http://www.montville-ct.org/CMS/default.asp?CMS_PageID=492).

The total debt is about 135 percent of the total budget for the town and 209 percent of the education budget.

Now we have the proposed Community Center that would incur $3 million more in debt for just the FIRST PHASE. Phase 2 would be a field house with an indoor track and playing space and Phase 3 an indoor swimming pool. Phases 2 and 3 would be millions more in construction and a considerable amount in operating and maintenance expenses.

How long can the lower income taxpayers of Montville carry the burden? What happens when even the mayor can not afford to live in Montville?