Following four hours of meetings between the Board of Finance and the Legislative Council over how to cut the proposed 2026-27 town and school budget, they settled in the end on approximately $471,000 in cuts to the town and $400,000 in cuts to the schools.

With the cuts, the budget now sits at $50,982,035 for the town, a 2.24% increase over last year; and $95,561,919 for the schools, a 4.16% increase over last year, for a total of $146,543,954, a 3.48% increase over last year. This would increase the mill rate to 29.30 mills, a .52 mill or 1.8% increase over last year's mill rate of 28.78.

Voters denied the previous budget on April 28, saying no to the $51 million town budget 1,791 no to 1,506 yes; and the $96 million school budget 1,798 no to 1,504 yes. Had it been approved, the total budget bottom line would have been $147,415,217, a 4.34% increase. The mill rate would have increased to 29.54, a 2.79% increase.

The turnout was 3,326 casting votes out of 18,367 registered voters, an 18% turnout, down from last year's 25.4% turnout.

Approved cuts by the council were a $65,000 reduction to roads, a $75,000 reduction to NYFS, reduction of a technology director salary by $15,000, $4,000 from registrars, $50,000 from mid-year hire of a new police officer, $10,000 from contingency, $5,100 from seasonal wages for a finance intern, $2,000 from EDC inflation cushion, $25,000 from a teen center furnace, $4,000 from the United Way, $25,000 from tree removal, $75,000 from a facilities maintainer, $54,464 from an assistant building official, $23,097 from a Parks & Rec excavator, $15,000 from ECD new spending, $9,000 from Highway Department random drug testing, $10,000 from police radar testing, and $4,600 from MDT replacement software.

The council does not have line item authority of the Board of Education budget, so did not outline any suggested cuts to the schools.

Councilman Ben Ruben said the council "lives in a box where we make a cut and they are going to threaten classrooms every time."

"I encourage them to cut from non-essential areas, administration, office furniture, whatever," said Ruben.

Councilman Jordana Bloom said she objected to that assertion.

The council noted they had received an e-mail from Superintendent of Schools Anne Uberti outlining possible cuts she would recommend at different levels of cuts. Below $500,000, according to Council Chairman Laura Miller, there is "nothing about teachers or class size," and she said cuts were from textbooks, equipment, supplies, and building projects. Above $500,000, Miller said, "they have to go back to the drawing board."

"There they anticipate program reductions, impacts to electives, and reductions of extracurriculars," said Miller.

Between the two bodies, there was much disagreement over how much to cut the school budget. At the finance board, Vice-Chairman Jim Gaston initially recommended a $300,000 cut, which board member Steve Goodridge called "too lean."

"Both budgets failed," said Goodridge. "That's a reflection on us that we didn't do our job quite as well as we thought. We owe it to the taxpayers to get to what they are looking for."

Gaston later recommended an $800,000 cut, and board member Steve Goodridge recommended $1 million, and in the end they agreed to "split the baby" and met in the middle for a $900,000 cut. That recommendation never received any consideration by the council, as the initial recommendation and final approved amount by the Council was $400,000, while $700,000 and $550,000 were both recommended and rejected.

The finance board never took a vote on any of its own recommendations, and while the council's list of town cuts did have a lot of overlap with the BOF's, the additional items were never considered.

The new budget will go to referendum from 6 am to 8 pm Tuesday, May 19. That referendum will also have an additional question for an appropriation that was missed during the April 28 referendum due to a "clerical error," according to Finance Director Glenys Salas. The Board of Selectmen at its May 4 meeting approved adding the question for a $2,317,210 special appropriation for the planning, design, engineering, and installation of HVAC system upgrades at Newtown High School.

Editor Jim Taylor can be reached at jim@thebee.com.