Date: Fri 15-Mar-1996

Publication: Bee

Author: KAAREN

Quick Words:

budget-council

Full Text:

Council Approves A $50.9 Million Budget

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B Y K AAREN V ALENTA

Legislative Council Wednesday night approved a $50.9 million municipal and

school budget that reflects a 12.9 percent spending increase mostly due to

debt payments on anticipated capital projects.

The council approved a municipal budget of $22 million, up 2 percent, and a

$28,286,212 school budget, up 4.57 percent but $250,000 less than the Board of

Education had requested.

The council recommended putting $575,000 of the $2 million audited surplus

into the capital reserve fund to help pay for the cost of renovating Town Hall

South. The remaining $1,425,000 would be used to help offset taxes next year.

Debt service will increase 91.6 percent, to $7,303,195, if voters approve

borrowing for the proposed high school and Hawley School additions, a new roof

for Head O'Meadow School, and $650,000 in road reconstruction. The debt

service includes the already-approved Booth Library expansion but does not yet

reflect the cost of the town's sewer project.

Public hearings on the proposed $50,913,305 budget will be held in the Middle

School auditorium at 8 pm on Tuesday, March 26, and at 9 am on Saturday, March

30.

The proposed school projects - $26.6 million for the high school, $3.9 million

for Hawley School and $630,000 for the Head O'Meadow roof - will increase debt

service by more than $3 million, but school officials pointed out that the

town will receive $1 million back from the state in school building grant

revenue, making the net cost to the town about $2 million. The high school and

Hawley School projects qualify for 40 percent state reimbursement and the Head

O'Meadow roof will be reimbursed 36.8 percent, if the projects are done now.

A separate vote will be taken later on the proposed school projects. If they

are not approved, the debt service will be removed from the town budget.

The tax rate has not yet been set but is expected to be approximately 26 mills

with the school projects. Under the current mill rate of 32, the owner of a

house assessed at $100,000 will pay $3,200 in real estate property taxes this

year. To compute next year's taxes, property owners must use their new

assessment, which was set in the town's recent property revaluation, and

multiply it by the anticipated mill rate.

According to the tax assessor, the average residential assessment increased by

about 40 percent in the revaluation. If an assessment increased from $100,000

to $140,000, the property owner who paid $3,200 this year would pay $3,640

next year if the mill rate is 26. Since revaluation, each mill amounts to

approximately $1.4 million in spending.

The budget passed 10-2 with council members Jack Rosenthal and Lisa Schwartz

casting dissenting votes because they disagreed with the council's decision to

trim the school board's request by $250,000. Councilman Joseph Borst, chairman

of the council's education subcommittee, said his committee took the

anticipated enrollment increase of 137 students for next year, multiplied it

by the $7,416 spent to educate each student, added $200,000 for the district's

new computer technology program, and added that total - $1,215,992 - to last

year's $27 million school budget to approximate next year's recommended

spending level.

School officials and parents pleaded with the council to retain the $250,000

and to support the three school projects. They pointed out that a report from

the New England Association of Schools and Colleges, an accredition agency,

this week said students are getting a strong education at the high school even

though it is "underfunded" by the community and needs improvements in the

facility and the programs.

Jack Ryan, a former council member, said the town is taking in $1 to $2

million a year in new revenue due to the building boom.

"These new residents are looking for us to improve the schools," Mr Ryan said,

"but we are in the bottom quarter of the state in per pupil spending."

"I don't think the Board of Education is asking too much," Paula Newberry

said. "As a taxpayer I don't like what I'm looking at either, but cuts are

going to end up doing more damage than we realize."

School Board President Herb Rosenthal said the school district has shown good

faith in cutting costs, returning $93,000 in unspent money to the town's

general fund at the end of the last fiscal year and putting another $230,000

of savings into its self-funded insurance plan.

"When you take into account the increase in enrollment, our spending is only

up two percent," he said. "We're spending less than 84 percent of the other

districts in the state per student yet our students score in the top 85

percent."

The proposed municipal budget includes $1,350,000 in road reconstruction

costs. Last year the operating budget included $1 million for roads and

another $1 million was bonded. Some council members wanted to put the entire

$2 million into the operating budget this year because the roads are an annual

expense; others wanted to bond the entire amount. They decided to recommend

bonding $650,000.