Stonington — The Board of Finance on Tuesday night voted 5-2 to approve a proposed 2022-23 budget that calls for a 0.19-mill tax rate decrease despite a 4.9% increase in spending.

Residents will vote at a referendum later this spring on whether to approve the $76.7 million proposal that would lower the tax rate to 23.66 mills.

The board was able to decrease the tax rate while increasing spending by $3.6 million because of an increase in the grand list and by applying $1.5 million from its $18.1 million unassigned fund balance to offset the tax rate.

Board members Lynn Young and David Motherway Jr. voted against the budget after expressing support for using $2 million from the fund balance to offset taxes and having reservations about committing $500,000 to help pay for an HVAC upgrade at Stonington Middle School when the estimated cost of the project will not be known until September and work would not begin until June of 2023, a month before the 2023-24 budget would take effect. 

"This is money already paid by the taxpayers. Why not give it back to them in a really hard year?" Young said about appropriating $2 million of the surplus to offset taxes.

The general government budget of $32.9 million would increase 3%, or $970,542; the $38.9 million school budget would increase 1.6%, or $648,957, and the $4.7 million capital improvement budget would increase by almost $2 million, or 71.7%.

After a short and sparsely attended public hearing Tuesday night, board members spent one hour and 15 minutes debating how to fund the replacement of the heating, air conditioning and ventilation system at Stonington Middle School.  

The school system already has $1.5 million set aside for the project, most of that from federal COVID-19 relief aid. The finance board meanwhile had preliminarily included $900,000 in the proposed budget for the HVAC work. That $2.4 million total is still thought to be at least $500,000 less than what would be needed to complete the project, as costs have skyrocketed over the past few years.

School system Director of Operations and Facilities Peter Anderson told the board that the full design and engineering of the project, which will generate a more specific cost estimate for the work, will not be complete until September. The plan is to seek bids for the project in January 2023 and begin the work in June 2023. The school system needs to complete the work during the summer when students are on vacation.

With many school districts seeking to do similar work using COVID relief funds and the cost of materials continuing to rise, the cost of the project could increase beyond $2.9 million. Anderson also pointed out that contractors are not guaranteeing prices for longer than 30 days due to the uncertainty over their costs. 

Board Chairman Tim O'Brien said that while he does not dislike the project, he dislikes the cost variances, which he said could be much as 30% to 45% of what is estimated. He added there is not enough data now to make a decision on funding the project.

In the end, the board decided to cut its $900,000 allocation to $500,000 while still showing support for the project. It is expected the board will have to meet when the final cost estimate is complete to decide whether or not to allocate more money for the work.

During its deliberations the board did not restore the $308,000 it had cut from the school budget at a previous meeting.

j.wojtas@theday.com