Seymour voters Tuesday rejected the town and school spending plans for the second time.
The results for the $20.5 million proposed town budget:
NO: 950
YES: 753
The $29.8 million school budget:
NO: 1056
YES: 649
The town’s Board of Finance will meet Wednesday night to reduce the amount of money town and school leaders say they need to operate next year.
Voters first rejected the budgets April 29. The finance board then trimmed $579,000 from the spending plans.
A third vote has been scheduled for May 18.
After the results were announced in the Seymour Community Center, town leaders seemed genuinely baffled.
“I’m very disappointed,” schools Superintendent MaryAnne Mascolo said. Then, after a long pause: “And I’m speechless.”
Prior to the budget vote, Mascolo posted several items on the school district’s website she classified as “setting the record straight.”
She addressed issues such as “teachers make too much money“ and the “administration is top heavy.”
First Selectman Paul Roy said the town has its work cut out.
He said furlough days — unpaid days off — are a possibility if more money has to be cut from the town side of the budget.
See the video at the top of the page for Roy’s complete reaction.
The fact the budgets were rejected again — by a wide margin — surprised finance board chairman Mark Thompson.
“We know there are a lot of people in town that are hurting, a lot of seniors who are on fixed incomes, other people who are on very tight budgets,” Thompson said.
“They don’t like being faced with increased taxes. Our job on the board of finance is to listen to everyone in town and just keep working on this budget,” he said.
Officials said 1,703 people voted Tuesday. That is less than last month’s failed budget vote, when 1,794 people came to the polls.
Last month’s budget vote had the highest number of voters ever for a Seymour budget referendum.
Still, it’s a small percentage of the town’s total numbered of registered voters, which hovers at about 9,500 people.
It’s a percentage that irked Mascolo.
She said more parents need to vote.
“We have over 1,600 families that send their children to our school district,” Mascolo said. “If they all voted, it would have a positive outcome.”
Click the videos to hear how some Seymour residents voted Tuesday.
The budgets, at a combined total of $50.35 million, would have increased the tax rate from 25.80 to 27.55 mills.
A resident with a property assessed at $250,000 now pays $6,450 in taxes. If voters had approved the proposed budgets, that tax bill would have increased by about $430, to $6,887.
