Seymour’s $53.26 million budget proposal for 2013 – 2014 was officially moved forward to a May 9 referendum Tuesday.
The proposed spending plan calls for a 1.91 percent increase in property taxes.
The annual town meeting at Seymour Middle School on Tuesday did not have a quorum, so the Board of Selectmen convened to approve the three questions that will be on the ballot.
Click the play button on the video, recorded and uploaded to YouTube by Frank Loda, a private citizen, to see the meetings in full.
No residents commented on the budget proposals during the Tuesday’s gathering.
The referendum ballot’s first question will ask voters to approve a Town General Government Budget of $22,208,664 for the 2013 – 14 fiscal year.
Question 2 will ask for their votes on a $31,052,984 Board of Education budget.
The third question is for advisory reasons only. It asks if voters favor adding $377,000 for additional school resource officers at a later time.
The budget item for the school resource officers was removed from the budget by the Board of Finance — an adjustment requested by the school board’s chairman.
Town officials said they are waiting to see what state funding might be available before finalizing a plan to improve school security.
Being advisory, the third question will be non-binding, but Board of Finance Chairman Trish Danka said it might serve as a guide for future decisions.
First Selectman Kurt Miller declined to predict whether voters would approve the budgets on the first referendum ballot, but he said the selectmen and the Board of Finance have spent considerable effort this year to keep the mill rate down.
If adopted, the budget would set the mill rate at 33.46, a 1.91 percent increase over the present tax rate of 32.83 mills.
That means a person who owns a house assessed at $230,000 would see their property taxes go from $7,550.90 to $7,695.80, an increase of $144.90.
Miller said town officials recognize that times have been tough for many Seymour families, but he noted that if the budget continues to neglect road maintenance and purchases of replacement equipment, those items will only get more expensive in the future.
The proposed budget includes funds for road repairs and to purchase replacement trucks and equipment for the Public Works Department and other town departments, to upgrade the town’s computer systems and to catch up on neglected building repairs, he said.
“We can only put Band-Aids on things for so long before we have real issues,” Miller said.
The budget predicts that the town will receive $10,055,620 in state education aid and $1,183,718 in other state aid.
The mill rate will raise $39,583,960 in tax revenue based on a 98.4 percent collection rate and a Grand List of $1,208,884,175.
Click here to read previous stories about the town’s budget.
Click here for a section of the town’s website with budget information.
