Budget vote set Tuesday

School, town funding on the ballot at middle school

EAST HAMPTON — Polls will open at 6 a.m. Tuesday and will remain open until 8 p.m. as the town holds its annual budget referendum.

The venue has been moved to the middle school for the all-day voting. Residents will be asked to vote on two budgets under the new bifurcated system adopted last year: the $30.499 million education budget and the $15.139 million town budget.

The town budget includes funding ($10.725 million) for general government operations — police and public safety, public works, and town offices — debt service ($3.318 million), which pays down the cost of previously approved bonds, and transfers and capital expenditures ($1.096 million).

Capital expenditures are spending on so-called “big ticket” items such as dump trucks for the highway department or cruisers for the police department.

Taken together, the town and education budgets total $45.640 million. It will require a tax-rate increase of 1.70 mills to fund the budget, which would raise the tax rate to 33.02 mills.

For a house with a market value of $285,714, which is assessed at $200,000, the taxes now are $6,604. Under the proposed budget, the yearly increase would be $340, or $28 a month, according to figures prepared by the town’s finance department.

The debate that preceded approval of the proposed budget by the Board of Finance and then the Town Council saw a dramatic reduction in the proposed increase inspending for education. Superintendent of Schools Paul K. Smith and the Board of Education had proposed a 3.73 percent increase, based in large part by increases in spending for special-needs students.

However, the GOP majority of the Board of Finance said the town could not afford such an increase as the state wrestles with a burgeoning debt. With that, the finance board lowered the proposed education increase to 1.5 percent — and called upon school officials to charge high school seniors who drive to school a fee to park on campus.

Those actions, in turn, inflamed the passions of a number of education supporters, some of whom said they would vote “no” on

Up for vote are the $30.499 million education budget and the $15.139 million town budget.

the education budget in an effort to force a restoration of funding for schools. But following this week’s town meeting on the budget, Town Council Chairwoman Melissa H. Engel sought to dissuade education supporters from taking that step.

“They’d be wasting their

“They’d be wasting their vote.”

Melissa H. Engel, Town Council chairwoman, on a protest ‘no’ vote on the school budget

vote,” Engel said.

She said no finance board has interpreted a “no” vote as anything but a sign that the item residents were voting on was too high.