Seymour First Selectman Kurt Miller talks to reporters after voters approved the town and school budgets Thursday.
Seymour residents approved both the town and school budgets during a referendum Thursday.
Here are the results announced immediately after polls closed:
Should the town government’s budget of $23,217,572 be adopted?
Yes: 542
No: 225
Should the board of education’s budget of $34,158,038 be adopted?
Yes: 484
No: 282
About 7 percent of the town’s registered voters cast ballots.
The combined budgets increased spending by about 2.1 percent, but taxes are not increasing. That’s because the town saw its grand list improve, bringing in new revenue to cover the spending increase.
First Selectman Kurt Miller said he wished more people voted. But the mill rate’s been stable for four years, with no major funding fights between the school and the town.
“I think that (low voter turnout) means people are relatively happy with what’s going on,” he said.
The budgets approved Thursday mark the fourth year in a row of voters approving spending plans on the first try.
In the six years prior, voters constantly rejected budgets in Seymour. It twice took four town-wide votes to get school budgets approved.
In those years, some of those budget votes brought out about 18 percent of registered voters.
Bill Sawicki, chairman of the Seymour Board of Finance, said politics could have played a role in past budget-vote failures.
“You can’t measure politics, and that may have had something to do with it,” he said. “But I think our board, the Selectmen, and the town departments all come together as one town. We try to set the budget with the resources we have available, and we try to keep the mill rate stable so the taxpayers don’t get hit any harder.”
Embattled elected officials have done more to explain budgets to people, ranging from Valley Indy live video forums in the past to more recent Facebook Live discussions between Miller and Jen Magri, Seymour’s school board chairwoman.
The town also puts budget documents online, even explaining the formula people need to figure out tax bills. Facebook is used to remind people, and the town does a robocall to remind people to vote.
“I think we’ve changed the way we’ve done the budget process. It’s a lot more transparent,” Miller said. “It’s a lot more organized. People understand we’re planning for the long term. We’re not just doing it budget by budget.”
Previous Seymour Budget Votes
2010
April 2010
Voters rejected both budgets. The total budget would have raised the mill rate by 2.18 mills and carried a 3.38 percent increase in spending.
May 2010
Voters rejected both budgets again.
May 2010
Voters approve a town budget, reject the school budget for the third time.
June 2010
Voters approve school budget on the fourth attempt, after officials trimmed the school district’s request to zero. The mill rate increased by less than one mil.
2011
April 2011
Voters rejected the school and town budgets. The budgets would have results in a 1‑mill increase in the local tax formula.
May 2011
Voters approved the town budget on a second try, but rejected the school budget again.
May 2011
Voters approve a school budget on the third try.
2012
April 2012
Voters rejected the school and town budgets. The budgets carried a 4.12 percent spending increase. Voter turnout was 12.7 percent.
May 2012
Voters rejected both budgets again. Voter turnout increased to 16.7 percent.
May 2012
Voters approved the town budget by just 11 votes. The school budget was rejected for a third time. Voter turnout was about 18 percent.
June 2012
Voters approved the school budget on the fourth attempt.
2013
May 2013
Voters rejected both the town and school budgets. The combined budgets would have resulted in a 1.9 percent increase in the mill rate.
May 2013
Voters approved the town budget on a second try, but rejected the school budget again.
June 2013
Voters approve the school budget on a third try.
2014
May 2014
Voters rejected both budgets on the first try.
May 2014
Voters approved both budgets on the second attempt. The budget added just under 1 mill to the mill rate. The budgets had been trimmed by $400,000 since the first referendum.
2015
April 2015
Voters approved a town budget on the first try but rejected the school budget by 100 votes.
May 2015
Voters approved the school budget on a second try.
May 2016
Voters approve both budgets on the first try. The budget added 1.4 mills to the mill rate. Only 780 people voted.
May 2017
Voters approved both budgets on the first try. Turnout was about 8.4 percent.
May 2018
Voters approved both budgets on the first try. Turnout was about 6.6 percent of 10,800 registered voters.
