By Susan MacEachron

The Board of Finance approved a 2.5 percent increase in the mill rate for the fiscal year 2024/25 budget at its special meeting on April 23. To keep the tax increase below 3 percent, the significant increases in the education components of the budget were partially offset by a larger than usual infusion from the town’s positive balance fund balance and no allocation of funds to the capital reserve. 

The total cost to run the town will exceed $9 million dollars in the next fiscal year, a significant increase over prior years owing to education expense at Botelle School and Northwestern Regional School Number 7. Generally, about 50 percent of the town’s budget is devoted to education and 50 percent to town government and the Public Works Department. In the upcoming year, education expense will account for 53 percent of the total budget. The education budget is $4,795,573, which is a $572,380 increase. Botelle’s budget was impacted by the unexpected need to send a special education student to a private school at a cost of $185,000. 

Regional 7 also had additional special education expense. However, the 19 percent increase in Norfolk’s budget allocation was primarily due to the increase from 69 to 75 students, as compared to a decrease in numbers from Colebrook, New Hartford and Barkhamsted. The cost sharing among the four towns fluctuates from year to year based upon the student population from each town.

Regional 7 faces the same issue of an overall decline in the number of students that Norfolk knows all too well. In school year 2020/21 there were 887 students from the four towns, and 750 are projected in the 2024/25 school year. The total number of students attending is somewhat higher with the addition of tuition-paying students and a cohort of agricultural education students.

After accounting for several sources of revenue available to the town, $8,016,209 must be raised from property taxes. The expenditure of $9,074,627 is partially offset by various revenue streams, including state programs projected to provide $444,560 of revenue under the Town Aid Road Grants (TAR), state Education Cost Sharing (ECS) and the Local Capital Improvement Fund (LoCIP), which allocates formula-based funds for qualified local capital improvement projects. 

The town also generates revenue from a variety of fees, of which the major sources are building permits, transfer station, bulky waste, conveyance taxes and town clerk fees. New in this budget is $40,000 from the landfill solar lease and interest income of $36,000 from the excess defined benefit plan funds. 

Board of Finance Chair Michael Sconyers recommended that the town allocate $250,000 from the positive fund balance to offset budget increases. Over the past several years, $150,000 has been allocated, but more was needed this year to achieve the goal of keeping the tax increase to less than 3 percent. The positive fund balance is an account that almost all Connecticut towns maintain to handle unexpected expenses and ameliorate the need for a significant tax increase in any given year. The town’s fund as of the end of the last fiscal year, 2022/23, was approximately $1.2 million. First Selectman Matt Riiska said it is considered prudent to have 15 percent of the town’s budget in the positive fund balance.

Another significant cost saving measure was a decision to forgo adding any funds to the town’s capital reserve. In the recent years the town budget has included $150,000 for the capital reserve.

The budget also reflects the decision to use some of the additional funds available to the town after the termination of the defined benefit plan to retire the remaining $367,000 of long-term debt the town owes for the Botelle windows and doors and the ambulance building. The payment eliminates approximately $135,000 of interest and principal from the 2024/25 budget.