New Haven Register (New Haven, CT)
Seymour budget vote set for May 6
SEYMOUR — Voters will go to the polls next month to say yea or nay to the town’s budget proposal for 20212022.
How many times they’ll be doing so remains to be seen.
The Board of Selectman voted unanimously to set May 6 as the referendum date for the $59.2 million budget proposal approved by the Board of Finance last week.
Polls will be open from 6 a.m. to 8 p.m. at the Community Center at 20 Pine St.
The board also set down May 20 and June 3 as possible referendum dates should voters reject the proposal.
The selectmen also scheduled a town meeting at 6 p.m. April 22 in the Middle School to discuss the budget.
The spending plan would see the mill rate decrease from 36 to 34.71.
However, a town-wide revaluation of real estate in town means that individual property owners’ assessments changed year over year.
No one from the public weighed in on the budget during a public hearing Tuesday.
Only First Selectwoman Annmarie Drugonis said anything about the spending plan during the Board of Selectmen’s meeting.
The first selectwoman said that roughly a third of residents would see their taxes go up, a third would see taxes go down, and a third would see them remain the same.
“Just because our grand list went up 8 percent doesn’t mean our mill rate goes down by 8 mills,” Drugonis said.
“Property taxes go up through the revaluation of a home, not because of our budget,” Drugonis said.
The budget proposal represents an increase in spending of about 1.9 percent from the current $58 million budget.
The town’s public schools would see an increase of 2 percent year over year.
The Board of Education had requested a 2.55 percent increase in January which was trimmed to 2 percent in the budget proposal Drugonis presented to the finance board this month.
The coronavirus pandemic was a challenge, the first selectwoman said Tuesday, but the town got through it in decent shape.
“Despite COVID, we did not run a huge deficit,” Drugonis said. “We managed this crisis well as a team and as a town.”
She also noted that the town was responsible for implementing socalled “unfunded mandates” from the state like the police accountability law passed by the state legislature last summer — and that the state didn’t increase the town’s Educational Cost Sharing grant.
“Our fundamentals are strong, the debt service and fund balance remain at good levels, and we continue to make investments in our town while keeping our taxes low,” Drugonis said.