Last week, I attended the Seymour Board of Finance (BOF) meeting, at which time the BOF reviewed the results of the failed referendum vote on May 4 for the Town budget and Board of Education (BOE) budget and made reductions in both budgets.
The Valley Indy stated in their article about that meeting that I stated that “the budget put forth last week angered voters because the tax increase was too much to ask.”
I would like to add the rest of the statement that I made to the BOF, to show the full context.
I told the board that the BOF has in fact angered the voters, and “my concern is that, because of that voter anger, we may now see a repeat of something that has not happened for quite a few years in Seymour, that we may now see budgets fail again on May 18 and June 1, which would force the budgets for next year to be the same budgets currently in effect for this year, plus the contractual increases required for next year. That would significantly damage the town services and the educational system and I don’t think anyone wants to see that happen. That would be terrible.”
To lessen the risk of additional failed votes, I implored the BOF to put forth a reasonable budget, similar to the budget originally proposed by First Selectwoman Annmarie Drugonis, which carried a tax increase of approximately 3%.
The result of that BOF meeting last week are reduced Town and Board of Education budgets going to vote this Thursday that will grant the town and school budgets an increase of 4.6% and 2.7% respectively over the current year. The mill rate will increase from 35.59 to 36.60, resulting in a tax increase of approximately 2.84%.
In my opinion, that is a reasonable increase and I will vote “yes” on the town budget and school budget.
Jack Jurkowski
SEYMOUR
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