The town of Windham projects a $41.7 million budget for the next fiscal year starting in June. School and town officials spent months calculating the numbers and now the results are in the hands of Windham’s Town Council.
The budget includes town expenses of $13.42 million, a revised school budget of $27.92 million and $360,000 in Adult Education expenses. County tax is $817,000.
Town expenses are projected to increase 4.4 percent from the previous year and public education costs will increase five percent.
With an additional $1.4 million in state education aid and $450,000 from town surplus helping to offset the local share of costs, the overall property tax increase at this time is an estimated 1.4 percent, or roughly $266,000 pending Town Council amendments.
Town budget
At Tuesday night’s council workshop, Town Manager Anthony Plante told councilors that this budget reflected “what it would cost to do next year what we did this year.”
The increase in town expenses is primarily due to inflation, annual wage raises and high fuel costs. In explaining the budget process and how he derives his projections, Plante said the budget is comprised of many little “moving parts.”
“The budget is a plan for what we intend to do in terms of dollars and cents,” Plante said.
Despite an increase in expenses, the town budget is under the state-imposed property tax cap by $325,000.
This leaves councilors room to address certain “unmet needs” in the community if they so choose, Plante said. These “unmet needs” are additional town services, staff, projects or other contributions that councilors may recommend be added to the budget.
“We don’t necessarily expect all of them to be met, but if we never put them on the table, we can’t even have the discussion,” Plante said.
While Plante encouraged councilors to think about what the town may be lacking in terms of unmet needs, he did advise councilors not to use all of the $325,000.
At the workshop, Councilor Elizabeth Wisecup suggested that the councilors come up with suggestions before their final budget vote scheduled for the end of May.
She offered one possibility for an additional town expense: to mark potential grave plots and expand Smith Cemetery on Gray Road into the abutting 23-acres of land that the town acquired last spring.
Unmet needs suggested during staff budget review include $30,000 for a planning consultant to guide the town’s Comprehensive Plan and $5,000 for the Windham Historical Society.
School Budget
On the school side, officials have trimmed their budget by half-a-million dollars since a preliminary school budget was first proposed.
School costs will now increase $1.3 million with $437,000 over the state’s Essential Programs and Services (EPS) recommendations.
This additional money addresses rising fuel costs, extracurricular activities like sports and other programs not addressed by the state’s evaluation of school funding under EPS.
The $437,000 above the EPS limit will be voted on by secret ballot at Windham’s annual town meeting in June.
Even with voter approval of these expenses beyond EPS, the local taxpayers’ share of education costs will remain unchanged at $12.9 million, same as this fiscal year.
“I think it’s a very responsible budget,” said School Board Chairman Mike Duffy. “As it sits now, we’re not asking for a dime more from the taxpayers of Windham.”
Reval’s impact
How exactly the combined town and school budget will affect the pocketbooks of local taxpayers is yet to be seen.
Due to a property revaluation now underway, the tax rate could drop as low as 12 mil, or $12 per thousand of property value. That means an owner of a property valued at $250,000 could expect to pay $3,000 in property taxes.
With the revaluation however, the taxable value of homes and businesses in Windham will fluctuate as these properties are assessed at current fair market value. Windham’s last full property revaluation was in 1997, but town assessors did update residential values in 2002.
The Town Council will meet with school officials and town department heads in coming weeks to discuss the proposed $41.7 million budget. Once approved by the council, a final budget will appear before voters at the annual town meeting on June 17.
Send questions/comments to the editors.
