By PATRICK ADRIAN
[email protected]
BELLOWS FALLS, Vt. — Approximately 550 Rockingham residents participated in the town’s two day Annual Town Meeting process, voting by voice and by ballot on 20 articles from the town and school district warnings.
Residents voted by strong margins to approve all tax-funded proposals for fiscal year 2018, including a town general budget of $5,478,141, with $4,487,846 to be raised by taxes, and a school district budget of $9,776,950.22. On Tuesday residents also approved a $6,684,078.88 budget for Bellows Falls Union High School; and $2,748,573 to defray expenses for the ensuing fiscal year at the River Valley Technical Center.
The annual meeting began Monday night at the Bellows Falls Opera House auditorium, where residents voted by voice on 17 town and school district articles. Residents approved all tax-funded proposals, including the town’s general budget; a $412,352 budget for the public library, with $357,300 to be raised by taxes; and contributions of $88,500 to local social services and community partnership groups.
The approved town expenditures for 2018 total $4,960,199 in taxes — a total tax increase of $40,771 from the current fiscal year. The town tax rate with expenditures for 2018-19 will be $1.08, equivalent to $40.35 on a $150,000 home.
The town operating budget includes $80,000 to restore the position of a public works director.
Voters also approved several articles to appropriate current year surpluses from the town and school budgets to reserve funds for future expenditures.
Approved town articles will create three capital reserve funds for maintenance and repairs — for town highways, $50,000; the Rockingham Meeting House, $20,000; and the Rockingham Town Hall and Bellows Falls Opera House, $50,000. Voters also approved school articles to create reserve funds with $380,000 of unspent funds from the current school year, appropriating $180,000 to capital reserves for building maintenance and $200,000 to offset tax-funded expenditures in the 2020-21 budget.
Total funds remaining from the current year school budget approximate $780,000. District Superintendent Chris Kibbe told the public that the other $400,000 was already appropriated to paying down costs to taxpayers in this year’s and next year’s budgets.
“I would remind you that it’s nice to have a surplus but the Rockingham district also has a very large budget,” Kibbe said. “It sounds like a lot of money and it’s [much] better than having a deficit, but it’s not an outlandish surplus either.
On Tuesday residents voted by Australian Ballot at the Masonic Temple on Westminster Street on the three school budgets and to elect town and school officials. The approved $9.7 million school district budget for 2018 increases spending by $4,559 from the current year, though with projected revenue offsets next year the tax impact is a four cent decrease. The $6.68 million high school budget approved for 2018 is a $244,247 increase from current year’s budget of $6.44 million.
For the Town Selectboard, voters elected two candidates to three-year seats: incumbent Gaetano Putignano, 307 votes, who defeated incumbent Ann DiBernardo, 260 votes; and Stefan Golec, 399, who ran unopposed. Residents also elected Doreen Aldrich, 383 votes, and Peter Golec, 308, to one-year terms over incumbent Cass Wright, 203, and Jonathan Wright, 154.
“I served eight years before on the selectboard, but thought I could retire,” said Peter Golec, cousin to Stefan. “People had asked me to run again.”
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