Middlefield has a budget
Posted on:
Friday, June 26, 2009 - 11:21am
In the nick of time, mere days before the end of the current fiscal year (2008-09), residents passed both outstanding budget proposals. On Tuesday, voters in both towns passed the District 13 education budget for next year (beginning July 1) and on Thursday evening, Middlefield voters also passed a town budget for next year (also beginning July 1).
After a lengthy public hearing consisting mostly of citizen comment on the undesirability of cutting a constable’s hours, the assessor’s hours, lifeguards, overtime for Public Works and Durham Middlefield Youth and Family Services (DMYFS), as well as seemingly endless political sniping between members of the Board of Finance (BOF), with a Democratic majority, and Republican First Selectman Jon Brayshaw and Republican Town Committee chair Kathy Kokoska, resident Lucy Petrella cut to the heart of the matter and asked BOF chair Ellen Waff how to move the budget forward.
Waff replied that decisions could only be made in a town meeting, which prompted Petrella to ask that the hearing be ended and the town meeting start. Two hours after the hearing began, it was closed, and the town meeting called to order.
Mary Johnson was elected moderator without opposition, and resident Dick Boynton rose for the second time (the first time was during the public hearing) to offer his motion to amend the budget. That amendment was to delete various amounts of contributions to the reserve funds, which are used to fund large equipment purchases over time, and move those contributions into the assessor’s, constable’s, DMYFS, Public Works and lifeguard (Lake Beseck) line items.
The town charter states that budgets can be raised at town meetings only to the level of one-half of one percent; in Middlefield’s case that is just over $20,000. Boynton’s swaps equaled an addition of just over $19,000 so they met the town charter’s specifications, but the amendment had to be accepted by two-thirds of those present and voting.
Proceeding to a paper ballot, residents voted 133-29 to accept the amendment to the budget (way over the two-thirds threshold), and then after a bit of confused milling around because it was unclear to some whether passing the amendment was the same as passing the budget (it wasn’t), voted 118-14 to accept the whole budget.
Following the budget approval, the BOF set the new mill rate at 25.69, down from the current year’s mill rate of 25.92.
