As School Populations Continue To Grow…
Superintendent’s Budget Appeals
For More Teachers, Administrators
By Larissa Lytwyn
Unveiling his $5...
Pasta Dinner & Bluegrass At NUMC
The next Saturday Pasta Dinner at Newtown United Methodist Church in Sandy Hook will be on February 7 in the church’...
For Healthy Hearts—
First Selectman Proclaims ‘Wear Red For Women Day’
Speaking on behalf of First Selectman Herb Rosenthal,...
Affordable Housing Rule Change Proposal Draws Opposition
By Andrew Gorosko
A developer’s second attempt to revise the zoning regulations, to effecti...
Bethlehem Fair Foundation Scholarships
Applications are now being accepted for the Bethlehem Fair Foundation scholarship program. Five renewable four-year schol...
The Demise Of An Old Stone Barn
To the Editor:
It is unfortunate and very sad that “progress” has hit below the belt in Newtown. My fa...
School Board Again Presses Its Case
For A Middle Gate Waterline
By Jan Howard
The Board of Education presented packets of information and its emphatic concerns ...
Many Faces, Many Meanings In Masque
By Larissa Lytwyn
Larry Hunt, a performer with the internationally known mask/movement company, Masque, recently bedazzled N...
Church Hill Classics: From Moonlighting To Merchandising
By Kaaren Valenta
A company launched by a working mother in the basement of her Newtown home has been r...
Friday night the Full Snow Moon rises just a few minutes after the 5 pm sunset. If you are driving home from work around that time, or happen to be home cooking...
BOE Referendum, Round Two, UnderwayRegistered Newtown voters are heading to the polls today, for the second attempt by the Board of Education to get a budget for the 2024-25 academic year passed.Registered Newtown voters are heading to the polls today, for the second attempt by the Board of Education to get a budget for the 2024-25 academic year passed.All voting is again taking place at Newtown Middle School, 11 Queen Street. Polls opened at 6 am and will remain open until 8 pm.Following a rejection of the school budget by 507 votes at a referendum on April 23, the Legislative Council at its April 29 meeting slashed $1,408,307 from the Board of Education’s proposed 2024-25 budget.The reduction was unanimously approved by all 12 councilmen, in contrast to a previous, pre-referendum meeting on March 27, where no bottom line for the school budget drew more than a simple majority of seven votes.The new bottom line of $87,409,066 is a $2,339,415 or 2.75% spending increase over the 2023-24 budget, which places it in line with the municipal budget, which was passed by voters.The previous proposed 2024-25 BOE budget rejected by voters was $88,817,373, which would have been a $3,747,722 or 4.4% spending increase.The education budget failed, 1,701 No votes to 1,194 Yes votes.On the secondary question to the education budget — If the proposed sum for the Board of Education is not approved, should the revised budget be higher? — the responses were 727 Yes and 2,071 No.The Registrar of Voters reported 15.1% of Newtown’s registered voters participated in the April 23 referendum, with 2,952 people showing up at the middle school to vote and another 47 turning in absentee ballots.
You have Capital Tax Recovery confused with a different company, Municipal Tax Services. Municipal Tax Services works with the City of Waterbury. That was discussed at a previous counsel meeting.
It is a shame but yes, we are so broke... The NIMBY crowd will not allow any new development so there is no ability to add to the tax base... got to hire strangers to park at our schools, and grocery stores and sneak around on our property to ensure our kindergartners Spanish class doesn't get canceled.
I was the recipient of such a invasion of my privacy when my daughter was visiting her boyfriend in Waterbury. They tried to get me to pay them taxes instead of Newtown. They were rude, offensive and threatening and I had to call the mayor of Waterbury to finally get it cleared up after being threatened. It was a long drawn out process to get this overturned. Are we that broke that we have to turn our residents over to these mercenaries? This is beyond belief. How dare you hire these rent a cops to harass and threaten us?
Thanks for the quote, many people don’t realize Newtown does not exist in a silo and we have peers to benchmark against. For example Trumbull also spends less per student and outperforms us.
ALL students benefit from consistent policies and quality education. Affordability matters, especially to less affluent families which tend to skew more heavily minority based on census data.