Budget Approved and Mill Rate Set at 29.50 mills

At last night’s joint meeting with the Boards of Finance and Selectmen, the Board of Finance per the Governor’s Order approved the Budget. In this 4 hour meeting, much debate and discussion took place with the Town Attorney helping to guide the Boards through their actions. If you are interested in the preceding please feel free to watch the video here…https://youtu.be/sSB6XJvvZwk

To be clear, no one on the Boards took the action lightly. While it is easy for everyone to come up with scenarios why a budget could, should, or might take place; the Governor’s Orders were clear, the 2020/2021 must be passed by the Board of Finance. Every town in the State is dealing with the same issue and towns are moving forward the best they can.

With this being said the Board made a couple of changes based on the public comments offered at the town hearing by adding back into the budget one per-diem paid firefighter at $50,000.00 and weed control for our lakes at $15,000.00.

While we realize some people would have liked to see the budget approval pushed to a later date, it was explained to the Boards that voting on this budget by the public would highly unlikely given the pandemic and uncertainty surrounding it. While many people are out shopping and living life normally, there are equally as many people who are vulnerable to this virus and are not leaving their homes.

We are certainly in unprecedented times and to that end the Board of Finance put forth a budget that will result in a .50 mill rate increase which is less than what had been proposed at the hearing. Funds will be taken from the “rainy day” fund which has a healthy balance to offset the impact to the taxpayer.

The Boards would like to thank you for your participation and understanding in this unprecedented year. Please know all Elected and Appointed Officials in Town are taxpayers and for those who have payed attention to the proceedings you would have seen strong debate and discussion resulting in the best budget.