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03/06/2018 04:59 PMThe town and Board of Education (BOE) fiscal year 2018-’19 budgets have been approved by the respective boards and are now before the Board of Finance (BOF) for its review. At the first budget public hearing on March 5, town officials explained the budget and outlined the timeline from now to referendum.
Together the town and BOE budget is $83,067,202, an increase of $1,181,588 or 1.44 percent from last year’s spending. The BOE budget is $58,103,711, representing a $1,184,506 or 2.08 percent increase in spending. The town budget is $24,963,491, a decrease in spending of $2,948 or 0.01 percent compared to last year.
Superintendent of Public Schools Tom Scarice presented the proposed BOE budget. The majority of the schools’ spending would hold steady and the BOE benefits from drops in debt service and health insurance. However, primary cost drivers for the BOE budget include a sizable jump in special education costs and the need to invest more in school facilities following the failed referendum.
By June 2019, the board is planning to close Island Avenue Elementary School and move to a five-school model.
“There will be a significantly different view of our budget next year,” said Scarice. “This budget we have recommended here does a couple things…largely it keeps our staffing and our services in place, our programs in place, it advances some of our work in a measured way, but does take into account of decline in student enrollment.”
Capital Improvement Program (CIP) Committee Chair Mark Casparino reviewed the CIP for the coming year as well as the structure of the CIP. The CIP is a five-year planning tool, though at each budget referendum, voters only approve the current fiscal year’s capital expenditures at the ballot box.
For this 2018-’19 year, the CIP is $3,211,906, keeping funding completely flat from the prior year.
First Selectman Tom Banisch presented the town budget, representing a decrease in spending for the first time in years. Banisch said some of his goals this year in the budget process were to develop a responsible budget, continue to support existing programs and the CIP, tackle the drop in state aid, and try to keep the tax rate stable.
“We want to minimize the impact to taxpayers by attempting to keep the mill rate stable,” he said, noting that recent budgets have led to an average 2.75 percent rise to the mill rate each year. “With the state funding going away, it is more and more difficult all of the time, but we are trying to come in at the average and we are just going to be a tiny bit above that.”
The proposed budget, if adopted, is anticipated to lead to an estimated 0.76 rise in the mill rate, from 27.30 to 28.06, a 2.78 percent rise; that preliminary figure is based on early assumptions on state funding and other variables.
Banisch said the town is also looking at a 10-year strategic plan, investing in regionalization of services, consider bonding for some capital projects, and other ideas to help smooth out debt and control mill rate hikes.
The Board of Selectmen (BOS) has also recommended to the BOF that the tax collection rate stay at 98.75 percent and that the BOF use $400,000 from the undesignated fund balance to offset the mill rate increase.
To trim the town budget, most of the departments were held flat and certain line items were eliminated, keeping the increase to a minimum. However, the BOS in its budget approved a $300,000 cut to the library operating budget for the next year when the library is in a temporary space during construction. Selectmen Scott Murphy and Al Goldberg voted against the total town budget because of the library cut.
Of the 50 or so people at the meeting, most came to speak against the library cut. The BOF has the power to reinstate the library funds in the next few months before the BOF has to approve and send the budget to referendum by the end of April.
“Public input is incredibly important, which is why we are here tonight, but it doesn’t stop here,” said BOF Chair Jean Fitzgerald. “We ask that people please come to our meetings, send us emails—let us know what you are thinking.”
The budget referendum is currently set for Tuesday, May 15. Check the town website for upcoming meeting dates and times at www.madisonct.org.