SEYMOUR — Members of the town’s board of finance voted to remove $434,000 from the proposed school budget and to remove $254,473 from the town budget during a meeting on Monday.
The board met because last Thursday both budgets — the school budget and the town budget — were rejected by voters at the polls.
A second referendum on the now-tweaked budgets is scheduled for May 18.
The new, combined budgets total $64,484,434.
If the budget is approved on May 18, the new mill rate will be 36.6, which is a mill rate increase of 1.01 mills. A single-family house
assessed at $200,000 would pay $202 more in taxes next year.
The budgets rejected by May 4 had a mill rate increase of 1.59 mills.
That budget would have raised taxes on a property assessed at $200,000 by $318.
During the meeting, First Selectwoman Annmarie Drugonis asked the finance board to make additional reductions to last week’s failed budget.
Drugonis’ revised budget cut proposed spending by $965,733 and would have set the mill rate at 36.36.
The board deliberated and opted to reduce the budget by $688,477.
Several members of the Seymour Board of Education and Superintendent Susan Compton said the school district’s budget had already been sharply reduced from what was initially requested, and that the school district was simply trying to cover routine annual cost increases such as salaries, special education services and utilities.
Resident Jack Jurkowski said the budget put forth last week angered voters because the tax increase was too much to ask.
