BY ANDREAS YILMA
Citizens News
BEACON FALLS – The town’s 2024-25 operating budget has passed, resulting in 7% increase over current fiscal year’s spending and a small tax rate increase.
Town residents voted 30-2 to approve a $9.4 million town operating budget and $876,619 for the 2024-25 non-reoccurring capital projects/transfer schedule for a total of $10.3 million at the Beacon Falls Senior Center last Thursday.
Board of Finance Vice Chairman Stephen Leeper said town officials crafted a small budget with the thought of taxpayers in mind.
“We worked on this in detail line by line and to me this is a very responsible budget giving us sufficient funds to run the town properly while maintaining a very reasonable tax rate,” Board of Finance member James Carroll said.
The municipal budget doesn’t include the $43.9 million 2024-25 school budget for Region 16 which is made up of Prospect and Beacon Falls.
The school budget increased Beacon Falls’ net education cost by about $22,000 to roughly $15 million.
The town’s total budget is $25.3 million, an increase of about $ 1 million.
Immediately after the town meeting for the vote on the budget, the Board of Finance convened and set the tax rate to 29.90 mills. The budget increases the tax rate from 29.54 mills by 0.36 mills. The tax rate is the amount of taxes payable on the assessed value of property. One mill equals $1 for every $1,000 of assessed value. Under a 29.90 mill rate, property taxes on a home assessed at $100,000 are $2,990.
Some of the increases or decreases to the budget include debt service is at $1.1 million, down $32,500, or 2.7%, and employee benefits is at $1.4 million, up $66,000, or 4.7%.
Public works is rising $131,945, or 14.6%, to just over $1 million, while the police budget is up about $90,000, or 11.2%, to $897,000.
Caroll said town officials have added the seventh man to the public works department which they’ve been trying to do for years.
Board of Finance Chairman Kyle Brennan previously said when he got on the board about six years ago, there were several shifts each week that were not covered at all. Now they’re getting to the point where the town is trying to have multiple officers on around the clock.
Other increases include fire and EMS up 24.3% to $553,883, and trash and recycling 14.6% to $640,000.
Other changes to the budget include more hours for the tax collector position, and more hours for the election budget due to the unfunded state mandate for early voting.
“The budget process went really well and I’m glad that the Board of Selectmen and the Board of Finance were able to work together and bring a budget that was fiscally responsible,” First Selectman Gerard Smith said.
