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Guilford Budget Approved at Referendum

Despite misleading lawn signs and heated debate over potential tax increases on social media in the days leading up the referendum, on April 10 the Guilford fiscal year 2018-’19 budget was approved at referendum by 1749 “Yes” votes to 1434 “No” votes. Voter turnout was 21.1 percent.

The combined town and Board of Education (BOE) operating budget comes to $97,460,807. The approved budget represents an increase of $2,272638 or 2.39 percent over last year’s spending. With declines in state aid, the budget, if adopted, would require the town to collect $91,640,633 through property taxes, a 2.67 percent increase over last year.

The town budget is $29,466,978, an increase of 2.82 percent, and the BOE budget is $59,497,175, an increase of 1.44 percent. The total debt service cannot be reduced and is included in the total town budget at $8,496,654, an increase of $617,620 or 7.84 percent.

The bonding question on the ballot passed by 2060 “Yes” votes to 1121 “No” votes. The total bond is $3,650,000 for the BOE for HVAC projects at Baldwin Middle School and Melissa Jones Elementary School.

First Selectman Matt Hoey thanked residents for supporting the budget and congratulated board members for building well-crafted budgets.

“Both the town and BOE worked hard to remove as much cost as we could from this budget without impacting the level of services that out citizens have come to expect,” he said. “We will be judicious in spending these monies.”