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05/30/2014 12:00 AMA frustrated but resigned group of Deep River town officials voted unanimously on May 29 to cut $25,000 from a proposed $15.3 million 2014-2015 budget in an effort to appease town voters.
The boards of selectmen and finance voted to cut $12,500, each, from the general government budget and the Deep River Elementary School budget.
The new proposed budget, which would carry with it an 0.8 mill rate increase, will be voted on at a town meeting at 7:30 p.m. on Monday, June 9. The meeting will be held in the auditorium of the Town Hall on 174 Main Street.
The budget was cut after the originally proposed budget was rejected May 27 on a 115-78 vote after an eight-hour referendum. That $15,302,887 proposal represented an increase of $523,386 or 3.54 percent when compared with the present budget. The budget going to vote on June 9 represents a 3.37 percent spending increase.
First Selectman Dick Smith expressed the feelings of many at Thursday’s meeting when he said: “Nobody is tighter [with money] than me. There is no fat in this budget. Our hands are tied by the regional school budget.”
The selectmen and finance officials toyed with the ideas of major changes to the budget proposal, such as charging fees to use the town dump, but finally settled on the $25,000 cut split between the elementary school and governmental budgets.
The spending plan rejected by voters included a proposed $3.78 million town government budget, a $5.47 million appropriation for Deep River Elementary, and the town’s $5.6 million share of the Region 4 budget.
Because the Region 4 budget was already approved on a 319-253 vote in a May 6 referendum, it could not be cut at the special meeting of the boards of Finance and Selectmen.
The Region 4 budget was approved because Chester and Essex votes supported the budget over a 156-69 opposing vote in Deep River.
Smith noted with the Region 4 amount locked in, there is little the selectmen and finance board could do to significantly reduce the tax rate.
“You’ve got to get close to $100,000 in cuts to have any real impact on the mill rate,” said Smith, who said both the town and elementary school budgets “are already very, very tight.”
Many town officials, including Finance Board Chairman John Bauer, said they understand residents’ frustration with the budget increase, “but they [the voters] are fed up with the wrong people. We can’t do anything about the Region 4 budget.”
Bauer said he is glad the second vote will be held at a town meeting. He said the sparse attendance at the referendum vote and the cost of holding referenda votes versus town meetings didn’t make sense.