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04/11/2019 12:01 AMIt’s the time of year for Killingworth voters to pay attention to the town budget and the school budget.
The Board of Selectmen, the Board of Finance, and the RSD17 Board of Education have been paying attention for months, and in the next few weeks, they will propose budgets for Fiscal Year 2019-’20 to the town for approval.
On Tuesday, April 23, the Killingworth Board of Finance will hold a hearing on the preliminary town budget. Copies of that budget will be available online and in the Town Clerk’s Office as of Friday, April 19. The hearing will take place at 7 p.m. at Killingworth Elementary School.
To set the scene, Killingworth’s Grand List rose slightly once again, by 0.8 percent. Our mill rate—the amount of tax levied per thousand dollars of property value—is currently 27.47. In the current fiscal year, 2018-’19, we are receiving about $2.4 million in funding from the state. The governor’s proposed budget would reduce that by about $100,000 in 2019-’20 and would levy a charge of about $40,000 for the Teachers’ Retirement Fund.
The Board of Selectmen sent to the Board of Finance an operating budget that includes an increase of about half a mill in expenditures.
More than two-thirds of that increase is an increase in funding for capital projects. Over the next three years, we have to catch up on significant deferred maintenance of our roads, and that accounts for a good portion of the capital expenditures. The proposed capital budget for 2019-’20 also includes funding for fire company gear and fire station improvements, Parmelee Farm improvements, Highway Department equipment, and IT equipment.
The other increases in the operating budget are, for the most part, cost-of-living increases, such as increased wages, health insurance costs, and costs of waste disposal. Other factors range from the high tree mortality of the last few years, which means higher tree removal costs, to higher costs for our resident state trooper, including a new speed monitor display.
The Annual Killingworth Town Budget Meeting will be held at 7 p.m. on Monday, May 20 at Killingworth Elementary School.
The RSD17 Board of Education is proposing a budget increase of 0.32 percent for 2019-’20. However, because Killingworth’s share of the budget is going up this year, owing to an increase in Killingworth’s proportion of the school population, our town’s assessment will increase by 0.42 percent if the budget is approved. That is an increase of about $70,000, to a total of about $17 million. Without the district reorganization, the proposed assessment for Killingworth would have increased by well over $500,000.
The referendum on the education budget will take place on Tuesday, May 7, from 6 a.m. to 8 p.m. at Killingworth Elementary School. Absentee ballots will be available on Thursday, April 18. About 80 percent of our tax dollars go to the school budget, and every vote counts: We have had margins as small as one vote in the last few years.