Weathersfield Town and School Meeting will be held on Monday, March 2, at 6 p.m. at the Weathersfield School, followed by all-day balloting on Tuesday, March 3, from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. at Martin Memorial Hall.
Weathersfield — Among the articles on this year’s annual town and school meeting warning is a five-year, $70,000 loan to the town for repairs to the former Perkinsville School, a nearly $240,000 bond for a new fire truck, a town budget of $1.25 million and a school budget of $6.2 million.
If all requested appropriations on the ballot are approved, the overall tax rate is projected to remain the same, with the town rate increasing about 1 cent to nearly 61 cents per $100 of assessed valuation and the school homestead rate decreasing by a penny to about $1.65.
If voters authorize the town to borrow money to repair the 1879 portion of the former Perkinsville Elementary School, improvements would include removing mold and asbestos, installing a new furnace and upgrading the electrical system, Town Manager Jim Mullen said. The renovated building likely would become the home of the Weathersfield food shelf and possibly a satellite location for the Proctor Library. Mullen said there would also be room for meeting space or classes and the bathrooms will be accessible to those using the nearby athletic fields without having to open the entire building on a weekend.
“It fills a void in that part of town,” Mullen said.
A related article that will be decided from the floor on Monday, March 2, asks voters to allow the town to sell about 33 acres of town-owned property that includes a pond on Tenney Hill Road. The net proceeds would go toward paying off the Perkinsville School renovations. A third article would establish a reserve fund for the 1879 schoolhouse, with the money going toward continued maintenance and improvements to the building.
The town budget of $1.25 million represents a spending increase of nearly $34,000 from this year’s, with the amount to be raised by taxes up $24,000, or 2.7 percent, to just more than $896,000.
Mullen said officials used a $30,000 surplus from the last fiscal year to help hold down the tax rate impact. Further, the highway budget appropriation under article 11 of just more than $1 million allows for a $9,000 decrease in the amount to be raised by taxes.
Increases in the general fund budget include $6,000 for consultants to hire a town manager to replace Mullen, who is retiring at the end of the year.
The fire truck bond would not increase the town’s debt service, Mullen said, because the first payment of $23,800 is due in 2017, after the final $35,000 payment will be made on engine purchase in 2013.
Also on the warning is a recommendation to move the floor meeting portion of the annual meeting to the Saturday before Town Meeting beginning in 2016.
“The idea (for article 6) is so people would not be so rushed,” he said
In the only contested race on the ballot, Lynn Esty and Mike Todd are running for the three-year seat on the Selectboard now held by Richard Clattenburg, who is not seeking re-election.
Todd, owner of Hawks Mountain Motorcycles, is the chairman of the Planning Commission and a member of the Budget Committee. He has run unsuccessfully for the Selectboard for the last three years.
“One of the things I don’t see is balance,” Todd said. “It is very slanted on many issues in one direction so we don’t have alternative discussion.”
Esty, who works as a job coach, is on the Zoning Board and fire commission.
“I just want to become more involved in the town,” Esty said. “Everyone seems interested in change on the board, but no one wants to run. It has been the same group for a while. I don’t have a specific agenda, but I think I will bring a different view to the board.”
The school tax rate would decrease under the proposed school budget, primarily because of the use of $220,000 in surplus from last year that is being used as revenues in 2015-16, School Board Chairman Nate McKeen said.
Overall, proposed school spending is up $273,000 because of a more than 20 percent increase in high school tuition. Windsor Southeast Supervisory Union Superintendent David Baker said the Weathersfield eighth-grade class head to high school next fall is larger than this spring’s group of graduating seniors.
Helping to offset the tuition increase is an elementary-school level reduction of $108,000 that Baker said can be attributed to replacing retiring faculty members with younger teachers who make lower salaries.
Patrick O’Grady can be reached at pogclmt@gmail.com.
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