Seymour residents will vote May 30 on town and school budgets totaling $51.7 million that would set the mill rate at 32.95.
After accounting for revaluation, the tax rate would go up 1 mill.
Officials at a Board of Finance meeting Monday where the proposal was finalized hoped the number would convince voters to ratify the spending plan after two failed budget referendums this month.
“Under a mill in this town seems to be like a magic phrase that garners more support,” Finance Board Chairman Trish Danka said during the discussions.
The finance board arrived at the $51.7 million numbers with a combination of about $500,000 in spending cuts and extra revenue.
First Selectman Kurt Miller said after the meeting that nearly 30 percent of the town’s property owners would see a decrease in the amount of taxes they pay.
Communicating that has been a struggle because of revaluation, Miller said.
The current rate is 27.62 mills. However, town officials have recalculated the rate to 31.95 to allow residents to make a better comparison accounting for revaluation.
But, Miller said, “I still have people in the last week that have come to me and said ‘Why are you raising the mill rate 6 mills?’”
Miller said the town will update a presentation first made to residents in March about how their homes’ taxes would change.
They can even call Town Hall with their information and someone will figure out what will happen with their taxes if the referendum succeeds, Miller said.
The Cuts
Cuts made Monday to the proposals that failed last week included $150,000 to the Board of Education’s proposal. It now stands at $30,548,026, representing a year-over-year increase of about 2.5 percent.
The town side stands at $21,160,166, up about 2.3 percent year over year, and just under $200,000 lower than the proposal that failed at last week’s referendum.
School board members Kristen Harmeling and Yashu Putorti began the public comment portion of Monday’s meeting by asking the finance board not to cut too much.
“There just isn’t anywhere else to go,” Harmeling said, asking the board to consider the approach taken between last year’s third and fourth referendums, when only $25,000 was cut and the budget passed.
Putorti, the school board’s chairman, said even the proposal that failed at referendum last week put the town’s schools in a tight spot for next year.
“We’re already short $100,000 based just on trying to stay even from last year,” he said.
Finance board members had initially voted Monday to cut $124,000 from the proposal in line with a recommendation from Miller, but revisited the subject after cuts to the town budget were reviewed.
Those cuts to the town side of the budget proposal included:
- $48,000 for technical support for computers
- $5,000 for website design
- $10,000 for legal settlements
- $10,000 for overtime for town buildings maintenance
- $5,000 for skate park maintenance
- $25,000 for roads
- $5,000 in supplies for the parks department
- $6,400 in technology funding for the library
Miller also recommended more than $20,000 in cuts to the Fire Department’s proposals for clothing and equipment, saying he had talked with Chief Tom Tomasheski and that the department could use money that will be left over this year to buy equipment now.
In addition, town officials revised estimates for gasoline and oil usage downward by more than $30,000.
On the revenue side, the town’s Educational Cost Sharing grant from the state went up about $167,000 to $10,004,094 after Governor Dannel P. Malloy’s education reform bill became law last week, Miller said.
And based on current trends, the town increased its estimates for proceeds from the supplemental car tax by $20,000 and property tax liens by $10,000.
After discussing those revisions, finance board member Dave Bitso asked that money be restored to the public works department’s overtime account for snow plowing.
He called cuts the board made to that account and others at a meeting May 7 “drastic” and based on the assumption that selectmen would eliminate the position of public works director when the budget passed, which it didn’t.
“I’d like to discuss putting that back in,” he said, saying the current proposal for the snow plowing overtime — $35,000 — is “just not being responsible.”
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Danka disagreed with Bitso, saying: “I’m not for increasing the budget any further.”
The board ultimately voted 5 – 2, with Danka and Michele Pavlik voting no, to restore $30,000 to the line item to bring it to $65,000.
