At Monday night’s Annual Town Budget Meeting, voters overwhelmingly supported the proposed budgets, with recent reinstatements by the Board of Finance left intact. Only a handful of the 321 voters in attendance challenged the budgets.
The referendum has been called for May 17, which coincides with St Mary’s Carnival on the green area in front of the Municipal Center. Some in attendance thought the fair would interfere with the voting process, however First Selectman Matthew Knickerbocker said he would be sure that the parking lot behind the building would be reserved for voters.
The Annual Town Budget was approved at $25,565,784, with an additional $464,000 for the school building’s maintenance account. The Education Budget was approved at $39,660,925. The Town’s Annual Budget will commence Fiscal Year 2012 on July 1.
The Library Budget was also approved with the additional $3,000 reinstatement by the Board of Finance.
There were several capital expenditures approved as well, with the only change in the proposed budget being that Knickerbocker elected to remove $75,000 for wireless communications for the Police Department. Knickerbocker said that plans will soon begin to design a new police station with wireless communication.
There were other items that were called for consideration:
Road Construction $327,050
Highway Department Garage Roof $60,000
general Purpose Air Conditioning $50,000
Gymnasium heat and Hot Water System $50,000
Highway/Public Works Building-Conversion to Gas $165,000
Preliminary Architectural Drawings for Future Police Station project$80,000
Tennis Courts at School Complex-complete replacement $167,950
Replacement fire apparatus pumper/tanker for Stony Hill Fire Department $650,000
2010 Mill Rate: 22.44 2011 Mill Rate: 23.24 2012 Mill Rate: 24.07 (If this passes) 3 Years 24.07/21.64 = 11.2% Tax increase in 3 years Source: http://www.ct.gov/opm/cwp/view.asp?a=2987&q=385976 Inflation calculator, based on $100: + 7% http://www.bls.gov/data/inflation_calculator.htm Tax increase rising / Inflation >>> 60% Higher Even if you estimate inflation a bit higher, you still have taxes rising a lot faster. http://www.bls.gov/oes/oes_dl.htm Mean CT Wage in 2009: 50,950 Mean CT Wage in 2011: 52,830 2 year CT Wage increase: 3.7% 2 year Bethel Tax Increase: 7.4% Ya can't make this stuff up!
If the Town behaved like a community, or a family that had real world financial issues that needed to be properly attended to, and approached it with the mindset of, 'Hey, listen, we need to raise money like a normal family would do it', instead of forcing us to pay up, I think it would go quite far. All of our governments, be they local, State, or Federal, need to become like the every day citizen when it comes to managing, raising, and stewarding their money. A little belt-tightening, while uncomfortable, never killed anyone to the best of my knowledge. Just an observation.
2012 Mill Rate: 24.07 (If this passes) +3.57%