Budget spending would increase to include raises, road repairs

NEWTOWN – Spending would increase to pay for road repairs and raises in budgets recently proposed by Newtown leaders.

It’s too soon to say what the 2 percent spending increase proposed in the town budget and the 3 percent increase proposed in the school budget will mean for the tax rate, which was flat last year as the town and the rest of the state battled the coronavirus crisis.

“You never like to put forward any kind of (spending) increase but we were underfunded on the road budget, and we had been borrowing for roads,” said First Selectman Dan

Rosenthal. “We have been able to get a lot done, but we still have more to do.”

Newtown’s town and school budgets are released separately at the start of the year and are voted upon separately by taxpayers in late April. The tax rate, which is established during the public hearing process, depends on how much growth there has been over the year in the town’s tax base – a figure that won’t be computed until early February.

Rosenthal proposed a

$44 million town budget on Tuesday that calls for

$960,000 in new spending, a 2 percent increase over the current town budget.

The new spending would pay for road paving, debt service, increased benefits costs, and 2.5 percent raises for police and town workers.

Also on Tuesday, schools Superintendent Lorrie Rodrigue proposed an $81 million budget for 2021-22 that calls for $2.4 million in new spending, an increase of 3 percent over the current budget.

The school budget, 82 percent of which pays for salaries and benefits, calls for the elimination of 11 teachers at the middle school and high school, and the hiring of 15 teachers for elementary school, middle school, and special education.

Rodrigue’s proposed budget also notes that for the first time in a decade, an enrollment increase is projected when students begin the new year in August.

The projected enrollment of 4,011 students for the 2021-22 school year is an increase of 12 students over the current enrollment. In contrast, district enrollment was 5,300 in 2011-2012.

The next step for the school budget is a public hearing at 7 p.m. Jan. 28. The Newtown of Board of Education is scheduled to vote on adopting the budget on Feb. 2.

The budgets will be the subject of public hearings by the town’s Board of Finance on Feb. 11 and by the town Legislative Council on March 17.

The budgets would then be subject to a referendum on April 27, an in-person event the town expects will happen if the rollout of vaccines and the warmer weather makes it safe to go out to the polls.