State Reduces Norfolk’s Education Grant by 90 Percent

By Wiley Wood

The Board of Finance has readied a 2016–17 budget which it will present to the town at a budget hearing on Wednesday, June 8.

The budget is normally presented in late April but was held up this year by protracted deliberations in the state legislature.

The state budget that passed in mid-May reduced Norfolk’s education grant from $381,000 to $40,000, a 90 percent reduction. The $341,000 in lost revenue represents about 5 percent of the town’s annual spending.

Reluctant to raise taxes again after a 10 percent hike two years ago, Finance Chairman Michael Sconyers had asked the town’s selectmen and its Board of Education to make cuts to their respective budgets.

At a Board of Finance meeting on May 24, Sconyers praised First Selectman Sue Dyer for reducing the town’s operating budget by $180,000. He also announced that the Botelle School budget would be $30,000 less than last year.

“It’s going to be difficult for them to do,” said Sconyers, “but I think it’s only fair if the town is taking a $180,000 hit that Botelle share in the reductions.”

At the same time, the town will invest $43,000 in maintaining and upgrading the school’s infrastructure. “There’s stuff in the school that really has to be fixed,” said Sconyers.

Cuts were made to the fire department, road repairs, health insurance, the defined benefit pension plan for town employees, the Norfolk Library and many other line items.

The town planned to demolish the old ambulance building and the abandoned structure next to town hall in the coming year, but under the new budget, only one will be removed.

The budget does, however, provide funding for two new town trucks and a new pumper truck for the fire department. The cost is estimated at $120,000 per year for the next six years.

The mill rate, which is currently at 21.95, will rise to 22.09, or roughly half a percent. Taxes on a $200,000 house will be $28 higher.

“While the mill rate will increase, it’s less than 1 percent,” Sconyers pointed out, “and we’ve lost 5 percent of our income.”

Sconyers also noted that no money is being drawn from the town’s contingency fund, known as the positive fund balance, because of the general uncertainty of Connecticut’s finances.

“Under the circumstances, I think it’s a sane budget,” Sconyers concluded.

The budget hearing will be held in the Botelle School’s Hall of Flags on Wednesday, June 8, at 7 p.m.