This is a printer-friendly version of an article from Zip06.com.

The Budget in a Nutshell

Last Tuesday night, the Board of Finance (BOF) presented their budget proposal for Fiscal Year 2017-’18. As I’ve said before, this is our best guess for where we should be, given that we have no idea what to expect from the state as of now. Aside from the board members in attendance, there were two citizens who showed up, so I’ll give you a quick recap of what you missed.

The Board of Finance recommended 2017-’18 budget as presented is $81,885,644. This is made up of the Board of Education (BOE) budget of $56,919,205, which is an increase of 2.58 percent; and the town budget of $24,966,439, which is an increase of 2.68 percent. The combined town and BOE increase will be 2.61 percent. If we take $750,000 of the Unassigned Fund Balance, as we did last year, to offset the budgeted expenditures, which in turn reduces the mill rate, we will see an increase in the mill rate to 27.22 from 26.49. This is a 0.73 mill or 2.76 percent increase.

Because of the uncertainty we face with state aid, the Board of Selectmen (BOS) had originally proposed a lower increase to the town budget of $24,915,193, but the Board of Finance added back some of our cuts, mostly to the Capital Improvement Plan (CIP). The CIP Committee recommended an Annual Capital Budget of $3,319,905 (up 3.54 percent). The BOS had recommended the following reductions:

-Capital non-Recurring Expenditures (CNRE)—$240,600,

-Communications—$50,000,

-Fire Protection Water Tank—$25,000,

-Technology Fund—$8,000, and

-Improvements to Route 1 Salt Meadow Park Entrance—$50,000

for a recommended annual capital budget of $2,996,305 (down 6.55 percent)

The BOS was able to keep some of these items out of next year’s budget by using funds that are going unused in this year’s budget and by just delaying others. The BOF disagreed with us and restored $140,600 to CNRE; $50,000 to Improvements to Route 1 Salt Meadow Park Entrance; $90,600 to other funding; $50,000 to Communications; $25,000 to Fire Protection Water Tank for a recommended annual capital budget of $3,211,906 (up 0.17 percent)

We tried.

That’s the budget in a nutshell, so I saved you a night out. However, we still have the wildcard that is the state, and I need you to know that our town, along with the vast majority of towns in Connecticut, is moving through this process with the understanding that if we see more drastic cuts from the state than we expect, we could be facing a situation where we have a supplemental tax increase after the budget is passed. This could result in modified tax bills being sent out later this year. We hope that won’t happen, and we’ll do whatever we can to avoid that, but this is what we face when the state tries to pay for its poor housekeeping on the backs of small-town property owners.