On a rainy day that saw light voter turn-out, residents cast a vote of confidence in the town’s direction, approving both the town and schools budgets by overwhelming margins.

“I’m satisfied with the result because we had to bring the budget back into balance this year. I want to continue working positively for the taxpayer by continually giving them fair and responsible budgets,” said First Selectman Carl Fortuna. “Our work has just started.”

The general town government budget of $15,444,000 and a Board of Education budget of $22,667,000 were adopted by substantial margins of about four to one. On the town government budget, 350 voted to support the proposed spending while 87 opposed it.  For the schools budget, 340 voters cast affirmative votes while 103 voted against it.

Only seven of the votes were cast absentee and only two property-owners not registered to vote in town chose to exercise their right to vote in the budget referendum.

On the day of the referendum, the town had 7,252 registered voters.

Following the referendum vote, the Board of Finance met to set the new mill rate at the anticipated 14.62 mills, an increase of .56 mills over the current year’s 14.06 mill rate.

To learn the property taxes you’ll pay next fiscal year, you can enter the assessed value of your home and the new mill rate into Harbor News’ new online property tax calculator.

(Note: A home’s assessed value is calculated as 70 percent of the home’s market value as set by the most recent town-wide property revaluation.)