SEYMOUR — Voters rejected a $66.6 million town and school budget for fiscal year 2024 – 2025 during a referendum Thursday (May 2).
Voters shot down the $26.6 million town side of the budget by a vote 469 – 458.
They also shot down the $39.9 million Seymour Board of Education budget by a vote of 517 – 415.
The Seymour Board of Finance will now go back to the drawing board to make changes, according to finance board chairman Richard Demko. The finance board will meet at 7 p.m. Monday (May 6) at Seymour Town Hall to come up with a revised budget.
The revised budget will then be presented to voters at a second referendum scheduled for 6 a.m. to 8 p.m. May 16 at the Seymour Community Center, 20 Pine St.
Demko said the board has its work cut out.
“I do think we put forward a very fair budget,” Demko said. “When we go back to the drawing board, we’re going to have to look at some things and I’m going to tell you right now it’s not going to be some massive cut that everybody might be looking for. Unless things start to move in a more positive direction with building, getting more jobs and getting more businesses here to offset the tax base, we’re going to see slight increases every year. It’s just the way things are in this economy. Municipalities aren’t immune to inflation.”
Seymour First Selectwoman Annmarie Drugonis said the budget was “very, very lean,” and was disappointed not only that it failed, but also with the low voter turnout.
Out of 11,263 registered voters in Seymour, 930 voters – or less than 10 percent – cast ballots at the Seymour Community Center.
“There is no fat in this budget, it’s very lean, you want us to cut, where would you like us to cut?” Drugonis said. “This budget came in well under the inflation numbers. And nobody came out to vote. We have to start investing in this town. People are complaining that roads aren’t being done, but we had to cut our budget last year. Things aren’t getting done because we are cutting.”
Had the overall budget been approved, the mill rate would have increased to 37.25 mills. That’s 1.27 mills more than the current 35.98 mills.
That would’ve meant the owner of a house assessed at $300,000 would pay about $381 more in taxes next year.
The overall $66.6 million budget (town and school combined) carried an increase of $2.4 million, or 3.7 percent, over the current budget.
The town side of the budget – that is, everything but education – was $590,501, or 2.3 percent, more than the current budget.
The school side of the budget had an increase of $1.8 million, or 4.7 percent.
Superintendent of Schools Susan Compton had said the 4.7 percent school budget increase was necessary to address several state mandates, as well as allowed for the hiring of three permanent building substitutes, a new middle school teacher to address increased enrollment, and a bilingual teacher which Compton said would be shared between the elementary schools.
Last year, it took three votes to get a budget passed.
