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Tony Morrison
Candidate for Board of Finance
Current Member - Board of Finance "I want to ensure that every tax dollar provides real value to ensure Southington meets the challenges of the future."
My name is Tony Morrison, and I am running for the Board Of Finance in the election on November 2nd. I was born in England, grew up there and moved to the US in my 20s when I was offered a job teaching at Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts. While there I also gained an advanced degree, and far more importantly my future wife, Mindy. She is American, and we decided, with the blessings of the US Government, to make our life in the US. I became a citizen during the Reagan Administration. Mindy and I settled in her home state of Connecticut, in Berlin, where our two children, Sara and Ryan grew up (we are now lucky enough to have a grandson, Finn, and a granddaughter, June). Mindy worked as a Children’s Librarian in Berlin, while I pursued a career in IT that progressed from being a CIO at Teleco, a Meriden-based company, to running large international consulting businesses, with the companies Gartner, Sybase and SAP, tasked with improving public and private organizations’ use of technology. My career saw me responsible for running businesses not just in the US, but also Europe and Asia. We moved to Southington several years ago after our children left home. I first ran, and was elected, to the BOF (Board Of Finance) in 2017 and then re-elected in 2019. I was very concerned about the effect of the State finances impacting our town, and I wanted to use my experience in fiscal management, gained from running large business operations, for the Town’s benefit. I also had the time to spend working on the Town’s finances as I had recently retired. The BOF has had a Republican majority since 2009, which has provided the fiscal backbone to our Town’s success, and I am very proud to have helped continue that work. My Republican colleagues and I have worked hard to keep the finances of our Town on a solid fiscally responsible basis during my terms, especially during the pandemic. For the last four years we have lived within our means. Needed infrastructure and services have been funded from our growth in the tax base in Town, while taxes have been kept close to zero. The last two pandemic years saw a slight decrease in taxes due to the pandemic. And this has been done without plundering our reserves, which have grown healthily beyond our 10% of annual revenue target. It is not surprising that we have a first class credit rating from Standard & Poors of AA+. I am now running for the third time as an incumbent for the Board Of Finance. Republican policies and highly experienced fiscal professionals like myself have been a winning combination. If elected we will continue to ensure Southington is a wonderful place to live, work, raise a family and retire. I ask for your vote on November 2nd. |