Try, try again in North Stonington
Towns in the region long ago settled on their municipal and education budgets. That makes sense since the fiscal year began back on July 1, when summer was in full swing and the start of the school year nearly two months away.
Now a few of the trees are starting to change color and students have been back in their classrooms for three weeks.
Yet North Stonington still doesn’t have an approved budget.
That’s right, nearly one-quarter into the fiscal year voters in the small town, or at least some small percentage of them, will go to referendum today to adopt or reject the latest spending plan.
We won’t advise the locals on how to vote, but do observe it is sort of a mess.
The $18.8 million budget is $344,382 less than the proposal voters soundly rejected back in June. It is also less than First Selectman Shawn Murphy and the Board of Selectmen want. That is because the Finance Board used its authority to propose deeper spending cuts.
Murphy has said if the budget passes, he will have to delay some road maintenance, close the transfer station on Saturdays, and may have difficulty paying to get roads plowed come winter. Superintendent of Schools Peter Nero has said education would also take a hit, particularly in purchasing.
Voters get to act on the municipal, education and capital budgets separately. Those voting “no” will also have the opportunity to indicate whether it is because they consider the spending too low or too high. There have been instances when voters have rejected budgets because they felt their elected leaders were not spending enough, but it’s a rarity.
The tax rate has been set at 27 mills. That won’t change whatever the results. But if voters approve these austere budgets, it will set spending levels at a low floor for the negotiations on the budget that will follow it.
It also brings into question how voters will react to the tax hikes sure to come when work on the $38.5 million school project begins, approved by three votes back in May. The challenge is to get the education supporters who turned out for the construction referendum to participate in the annual budget votes.
If the fiscal conservatives are the ones who bother to vote on budgets, educators may not have enough operating money to meet the programming needs of students when they open their shiny, renovated schools in a few years.
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