UPDATE: This report was updated at 12:15 pm on April 19 to correct the name of the council member proposing to increase the first selectman's salary to $165,000. That freindly amaendment to a standing motion was made by William DeRosa.

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Following a round of reductions, with a large cut to the schools and another to the library that reduced next year’s request to below the current year, the Legislative Council approved the 2023-24 proposed municipal and school budgets and voted to send them to referendum on April 25.

The final bottom line is $47,526,140 for the proposed municipal budget, a $634,741 or 1.4 percent spending increase over the 2022-23 adopted budget. Note the municipal budget includes debt service for all school capital projects.

The proposed school budget final bottom line is $85,069,651, a $2,935,012 or 3.6 percent increase over the 2022-23 adopted budget.

The total bottom line is $132,595,791, a $3,569,753 or 2.8 percent increase over the 2022-23 adopted budget. This represents a tax rate increase of 1.29 percent at a new proposed mill rate of 26.24.

Last year’s mill rate was 34.67; the current mill rate was adjusted down due to increased property values from revaluation. A mill equals $1 taxation per $1,000 in assessed value.

The council voted 8-3 to reduce the proposed school budget by $550,000, with Chris Gardner, Dan Honan, and Michelle Embree Ku voting against. Embree Ku made a motion to reduce the cut to $200,000, but it failed along the same lines, with only Chris Gardner, Honan, and Embree Ku voting in favor.

Following that, Councilman Ryan Knapp made a motion to add $135,000 to the school budget, but remove $135,000 in funding from the capital and non-recurring fund that was meant to be used for Chromebooks. Knapp said the Chromebooks should be paid for from the regular operating budget and not through the CNR fund, to prevent a funding cliff in the future.

Councilman Phil Carroll said the council’s Education Subcommittee voted for the reduction, with the rationale being the increased tax burden from revaluation and the fact that the school budget has a half million in surplus in the 2022-23 budget that can be used to cover the gap.

Gardner asked if the Education Subcommittee had identified where the cut would come from in the education budget, but Carroll said that it was not the council’s job to identify where any cuts would come from; the council’s responsibility is the bottom line and how to meet that is up to the Board of Education.

Councilman Ryan Knapp characterized the reduced increase as “still significant over last year.”

Library Reduction

Following a motion to reduce the C.H. Booth Library’s increase to $10,000 from the Board of Finance approved $20,000 increase, Knapp proposed setting the library’s funding at $100,000 less than it received last year. Knapp noted that the library is holding a fund balance in two accounts, $668,000 in one account, and another $132,000 in an account with restrictions on how it can be used.

Knapp said he recommended the cut to “encourage leveraging those funds instead of taxpayer dollars.”

“We had a lot of discussion last year for contributions for outside agencies, including a policy at the Board of Finance level,” said Knapp. “A lot of what was talked about didn’t materialize. We are in a tough year; I’m having a hard time asking them for more money when they have significant money in the bank.”

Knapp noted the town was supporting the library through large contributions in the Capital Improvement Plan, including $800,000 for the roof and another $600,000 for an HVAC improvement. Additionally, he pointed out that the council did something similar when the Edmond Town Hall was holding a large fund balance.

“I’d like to see the fund balance spent down and we’ll talk afterwards,” said Knapp. “Their fund balance is more than half of their operating budget. That’s more than the town carries.”

Knapp said if something happens with a building, the town will likely be the ones to fund the repairs, meaning the library has no need for a “rainy day fund.”

C.H. Booth Library Director Doug Lord said that the cuts could mean a loss of some of its 50 full- and part-time employees, as well as reducing the ability to purchase books, films, and audio books, and funding for programming and educational programs.

“Every operational part of the library would be impacted [by the cut],” said Lord.

Knapp responded that the library is an outside agency and the only control the town has is in its contribution.

“The library can choose how to use its funding,” said Knapp. “If the library chooses to reduce services instead of backfilling its budget with its fund balance, that’s a choice they make. My idea is to spend down the fund balance before getting more taxpayer dollars. Other town agencies have done this.”

The reduction to the library was approved 7-4, with Chris Gardner, Dan Honan, Tom Long, and Embree Ku voting against.

Some other modifications to the budget made by the council include:

*Moving $65,000 for a third police vehicle from capital non-recurring to the regular budget;

*Reducing the salt line item by $60,000 and reducing the street lights line item by $3,500.

A proposed cut of $50,000 to the contingency fund was not approved after First Selectman Dan Rosenthal said the town has two union contracts coming up, and that credit agencies may downgrade the town’s sterling AAA credit rating if it expends all its contingency fund and is forced to plug the holes with fund balance money.

Lastly, the council approved increasing the first selectman’s salary to $135,000 per year; it is currently $113,069. Councilman William DeRosa made proposed a friendly amendment increasing the salary to $165,000, but that amendment failed 8-2.

Associate Editor Jim Taylor can be reached at jim@thebee.com.