Town and school officials at the Seymour Community Center on Tuesday.
SEYMOUR — Voters rejected a $65. 2 million town and school budget for fiscal year 2023 – 2024 during a referendum Thursday (May 4).
Voters shot down the $26.5 million town side of the budget by a vote of 801 – 519. They also shot down the $38.6 million Seymour Board of Education by a vote of 847 – 473.
The Seymour Board of Finance will next schedule a meeting within the next five business days, according to the Seymour Town Charter, to come up with a revised budget to present to voters at a second referendum set for May 18.
“Now we go back to the drawing board,” First Selectwoman Annmarie Drugonis said. “We’re going to cut services to the town. We’ll probably look at public works, maybe potentially people, equipment, it’s really up to the board of finance.”
After the vote, Seymour Superintendent of Schools Susan Compton said she is concerned about the future of the school district, noting the board had already trimmed $517,000 from its original spending request to the Seymour Board of Finance.
“This is going to devastate our school system,” Compton said. “I hope the finance board has the compassion in their hearts to try to not make devastating numbers.”
About 9.5 percent of Seymour’s registered voters cast ballots.
Had the budgets been approved, the mill rate would have increased by 1.59 mills. The tax bill for a single-family house assessed at $200,000 would have gone up by $318.
Drugonis said in order for the mill rate to go down, at least $1.3 to $1.5 million is going to need to be cut from both budgets. She said possible layoffs on the town side could happen.
Voting at the Seymour Community Center on Pine Street was interrupted twice during the day because of emergencies.
At about 3 p.m. and 5 p.m. the fire department responded to the community center to deal with electrical equipment overheating in a bathroom within the building. The incidents caused smoke within the building, and the building had to be evacuated twice.
Voting was stopped for between 30 and 45 minutes each time while firefighters investigated, officials said.
Drugonis got permission from the state to keep the polls open for an extra hour, until 9 p.m. The town also had to relocate the voting machines to another part of the building.
Drugonis used Facebook and a robocall to keep residents up to date on the polling-place changes.
