Seymour’s Board of Finance will meet Monday (May 13) to hammer out a budget request more acceptable to voters after residents rejected spending plans for 2013 – 2014 totaling $53.26 million by wide margins at a referendum Thursday.
The town budget proposal of $22,208,664 was rejected 735 to 571.
Voters cared less for the Board of Education’s $31,052,984 proposal, which went down 817 to 487.
A third, advisory question asking if voters approved of $377,000 for additional school resource officers failed 938 to 366.
If approved, the budget would have seen the town’s mill rate increase 1.91 percent, from 32.83 to 33.46.
Turnout was 1,306 of 9,655 registered voters, or about 13.5 percent.
Click the play button on the video above to see the results read at the polls Thursday night.
Click here to see how readers reacted on the Valley Indy’s Facebook page.
Anticipating the possibility of defeat, officials have already scheduled another referendum for May 23.
Multiple referendums are nothing new in Seymour — last year it took three tries for a town budget to be approved, and four votes for residents to OK a school budget.
But officials gathered at the polls Thursday night to hear the referendum results said they were more optimistic about the vote this year after trying to keep spending down.
Board of Finance Chairman Trish Danka said she was “very upset” by the defeat.
“We put forth a budget that historically has taken two or three referendums to pass,” she said. “We’re starting right out of the gate with a very low increase.”
Danka said town department heads and school officials will be invited to the finance board’s meeting Monday — at 7 p.m. at Town Hall — to discuss adjustments.
“Any cuts that we make are going to hurt someplace,” she said. “We’ll try to spread the pain, but it’s disheartening.”
First Selectman Kurt Miller was also surprised by the results.
“I honestly thought the municipal side of the budget would pass,” he said.
Miller said he’ll have a list of proposed cuts finalized for Monday.
He wouldn’t be specific about what those cuts would entail Thursday night, but said they would be in line with a $52.9 million proposal he had put forward earlier in the budget process.
“I have the same mill rate and dollar amount in my head as before,” he said.
School Board Chairman Reacts
Board of Education Chairman Yashu Putorti called the referendum defeat “disheartening” while reading Thursday night from a statement he had prepared in the event the budget proposal was voted down.
“We were very conservative with the increase this year,” he said, noting the school board’s request amounted to a “very reasonable” proposed increase of 2.1 percent. “We asked only for the minimum to fund our contractual obligations and $211,000 for some very needed improvements of which the majority consisted of two teachers for the middle school and a late bus.”
“People blog that we, the Board of Ed, don’t care or that we’re arrogant,” Putorti’s statement went on. “That’s simply not true. We do care. Last year we cut an administration position. It has hurt the district and we are struggling this year, but we did what the people wanted.”
Putorti also said that while “people complain that teachers get big increases and don’t pay much for health benefits,” the board’s most recent negotiations with teachers resulted in salary increases of less than 3 percent.
“I want the public to know we are townspeople just like them. We struggle to pay our taxes just like them,” Putorti said.
“Whatever cuts we make will have a negative impact on our children, our education system, and our town,” he said later.
