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Vik Muktavaram

Running for Board of Finance

1 CTNewsJunkie Reader Endorsements

Party: Republican

CEP Status:

Website: https://www.andreaandvikforbof.com/

Age: 45

Marital Status: Married

Current Residence: Westport

Current Job: Management Consultant

Previous Job: Chief Risk Officer

Previous Job:

Education: MBA

Why are you running for this office?
What is the most pressing local issue facing your community and how would you solve it (within the capacity of the office for which you are running)?
Continue to fund the schools, while keeping the property taxes reasonable and competitive. In order to achieve this, I believe we have to collaborative and smart. One example of this would be to leverage the strong balance sheet of the town to reduce the cost structure of the schools (for example: cost of providing school buses, cost of self-funded health insurance, etc.)
With the state's ongoing budget crisis looming over the election, what are your plans for your community's budget? Is there anything you can do make your town less dependent on revenue from the state?
The town is already self-reliant as there is very limited funding received from the state. The issue is that state might consider passing on the state's pension liability onto the towns and municipalities.
The legislature has been debating various ideas to allow towns to raise revenue locally through something other than property taxes. If you could ease your residents' property tax burden by adding another method of taxation, is there anything you might consider for your town?
This is a complex subject. In principal the idea of taxing the towns additionally, while not addressing the pension liability gap is not sustainable.
Are you in favor of regionalizing more services in conjunction with other nearby communities? If so, which ones?
No. If the local towns collaborate then that's well and good. However, if there's a forced regionalization mandate there is potential for costs to go up and work against some of the work town and schools are doing to improve for the town.
Should your school district get the same amount of education funding from the state if your district's enrollment is dropping?
The school district gets almost no funding from the state as the Education Cost Savings (ECS) has been cut to almost nothing.
What's one thing most people don't know about you?
I am an avid runner and skier.
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