Town Makes Budget Changes to Avoid a Mill Increase

At the regularly scheduled Board of Selectmen (BOS) meeting on Wednesday, June 4, the members tabled a discussion about setting the mill rate until a last-minute meeting on Thursday night. Why? Well, the Board of Finance (BOF) met to discuss a few things, including rethinking the budget.

After the BOF voted to continue flat-funding the budget after Tuesday's failed referendum, which would have increased the mill rate by .12, the town started rethinking that move. On Thursday, Chair Steve Geryk said First Selectman Bill Morrison asked for "a better solution."

That .12 mills represents about $107,000, so the town would need to decrease its already flat-funded budget by that much to eliminate it. Geryk pointed out that the library budget was, at this point, the only one with an increase, which represented about $7,200. If the BOF flat-funded that budget, decreased both the BOS and Board of Education (BOE) budget by $33,000 each, and took $33,000 from the General Fund, they could avoid a mill increase. And that's eventually what they voted to do.

Geryk said that he was not generally a fan of dipping into the general fund, but this relatively small amount could "help win back the goodwill of the people." The General Fund balance is currently over $4 million, which still isn't enough to meet the town's own goals.

The decision wasn't made without much discussion. Dave Walsh lamented the process, which he described as being "bypassed by a small group of people," and challenged the people who decry waste on social media to come to the meetings earlier in the process and point it out. "I'd like to hear what it is," he said.

Tony Pellegrino said it was a good plan, but did not want to make a habit of dipping into the General Fund. Harold Blake Hatch expressed concern about a loss of revenue after revaluations. Despite concerns that the upcoming revaluations will raise everyone's taxes, a big jump in home values will likely reduce the mill rate, perhaps enough to fall under the state motor vehicle cap. That could mean the revenue from car taxes will decrease next year. While that's still a long way off, the concern has come up more than once this week.

As the vote drew near, Anthony Armelin said he wanted to be clear that this is not a 0% increase. "This is actually going backwards," he said.

Matt McKenney said, "This is not a proud moment, just a necessary moment."

Hatch and Walsh voted against the decrease, while McKenney, Armelin, Pellegrino, and Geryk voted for it.

At different points throughout the meeting, Geryk also made it clear that the town could not continue to operate like this, and that voters should be prepared for even bigger increases in a year or two because so much is being put off now.

The BOS had a short meeting, sans John Whetton, who was away on a previously scheduled trip, to take a quick vote to set the mill rate at 38.59. With that, we should be done with budget referendums for a while, though one may still be needed to officially approve the budget.*

But stay tuned, because plenty more info is coming out of this week's many meetings.

*This article initially said another referendum would not be necessary if the mill rate doesn't increase.