Gregg Haddad

The Mansfield Board of Education is in the process of selecting a new superintendent of schools. 

The school district is holding a series of focus groups via Zoom to gather input from a variety of constituents on the what people are looking for in their new superintendent. 

Virtual Community Input sessions are being offered on Tuesday, April 1, in the morning and Wednesday, April 2, in the early evening. To participate, register here, and a Zoom link will be sent to you.   

Also, an online survey is open until the end of today, March 28. To take the survey, click here. 

As I'm sure you're aware, the the Department of Public Health was notified this week that six of its grants were terminated, resulting in nearly $150 million of cuts to the agency. 

To clarify some misconceptions, these grants are NOT COVID-19 funds. While the funds were granted during the COVID-19 pandemic, their purpose was to help build critical public health infrastructure and has helped modernize the agency's core functions, including modernizing its birth and death registries, moving from a paper-based disease reporting system to an electronic one, and tracking emerging and active diseases like mpox, avian flu, and measles. 

Below is some basic information about the grant cuts and their immediate impacts

• Six grants terminated effective immediately on March 24.
• Almost $150M cut
• 49 DPH staff will be impacted (ongoing discussions with HR and OLR)
• 50 consulting staff were given stop work orders yesterday
• 69 contracts to 48 vendors (45 of which are local health departments that were expecting over $6 million) were issued stop work orders yesterday.

To be clear, the cuts are debilitating. They do no get to waste or fraud, but instead hit at the general health, safety and welfare of every resident of the state of Connecticut. I, along with my colleagues, will work to minimize the effects of these egregious, irresponsible actions from the federal government.

For more information, please read this CT Mirror article.

The UConn men's basketball team may have lost a spirited tournament game, but the women are still marching toward the Final Four.

And, given the Huskies' success, it's no surprise that Storrs is one of the best places in the U.S. for NCAA basketball, according to WalletHub. Check out the article here. 

There will also be maple sugaring demonstrations, presentations on the history of maple syrup, cooking with maple syrup, and information on agriculture.

​This event is free for anyone who likes maple!  There is limited parking downtown near EO Smith High School but there is a shuttle bus service for easy parking located at the ECSU Baseball Complex at 1 Mansfield City Rd, Storrs (this is free too).

As a result of the town council adopting a new law, Mansfield has extended the deadline for appealing all tax assessments, including real estate, to April 2.

If you want to schedule an appeal with the Board of Assessment Appeals (BAA), complete this form. Before any hearing is scheduled or conducted by the BAA, Connecticut law mandates a written appeal petition be made to them by the April 2 extended deadline.

Questions can be directed to the Assessor’s office at assessor@mansfieldct.org or call 860-429-3311.

As always, if you have any questions or concerns, please reach out to my office.

Sincerely,

Gregg Haddad