Total town spending up less than 1 percent

SALISBURY — The annual town meeting to vote on the town’s municipal and school spending plans is Wednesday, May 19, 7:30 p.m. at Town Hall.

The total spending proposed for the 2010-11 fiscal year, including town government, Salisbury Central School and Salisbury’s share of the Region One School District budget, comes to $12,542,658, a total increase of $118,306, or .95 percent over the 2009-10 fiscal year.

At the public hearing last month, Board of Finance Chairman Bill Willis said if these budgets were approved, the mill rate would probably rise from the current 9.3 to 9.5, which represents a tax increase of 2.2 percent.

The mill rate determines property taxes in Connecticut towns. A mill represents $1 in tax for every $1,000 of assessed property value. A 15-mill tax rate would translate into a tax bill of $1,500 for the owner of a home assessed at $100,000.

Salisbury Central School currently has 312 students in grades kindergarten to eight, according to Principal Chris Butwill, who gave the cost-per-pupil figure as $17,129 at the public hearing.

The Board of Education was able to bring in a budget  of $4,626,160, up $21,707 or .47 percent. Salisbury’s share of the Region One budget (which passed at a regionwide referendum last week, see story Page A1) is $3,022,681, down $17.718, for a decrease of .58 percent.

Total education spending for 2010-11 is $7,648,841, an increase of $3,989, or .05 percent.

Several factors came into play with the education spending plan: Salisbury Central elected not to hire an extra classroom teacher; several teachers, both at the elementary school and at Housatonic Valley Regional High School, opted to take advantage of an early retirement offer; Salisbury Central found it had overbudgeted for heating oil.

“We got lucky,� Board of Education Chairman Roger Rawlings said at the public hearing. “I’m not sure we can do this again next year.�

The Board of Selectmen’s spending plan for town government calls for a total of $4,893,817, an increase of $114,317, or 2.3 percent.

Two items of note: The Planning and Zoning Commission requested a total $65,000 ($61,000 in addition to $4,000 that was already budgeted for the commission) to hire a consultant to help implement reforms suggested by consultant Donald Poland in a December 2009 report on the town’s land use administration.

The selectmen included the $65,000 in a draft budget presented to the Board of Finance on April 13. At that time, the finance board asked the selectmen to trim $20,000 from their overall budget, which they did — from the Planning and Zoning line.

So the commission will receive $41,000 (not $61,000) more than last year.

And the selectmen added $25,000 for a new position, that of “housing coordinator,� in anticipation of a recommendation from the Affordable Housing Advisory Committee in a report expected by early June.

Latest News

South Kent School’s unofficial March reunion

Elmarko Jackson was named a 2023 McDonald’s All American in his senior year at South Kent School. He helped lead the Cardinals to a New England Prep School Athletic Conference (NEPSAC) AAA title victory and was recruited to play at the University of Kansas. This March he will play point guard for the Jayhawks when they enter the tournament as a No. 4 seed against (13) Samford University.

Riley Klein

SOUTH KENT — March Madness will feature seven former South Kent Cardinals who now play on Division 1 NCAA teams.

The top-tier high school basketball program will be well represented with graduates from each of the past three years heading to “The Big Dance.”

Keep ReadingShow less
Hotchkiss grads dancing with Yale

Nick Townsend helped Yale win the Ivy League.

Screenshot from ESPN+ Broadcast

LAKEVILLE — Yale University advanced to the NCAA men’s basketball tournament after a buzzer-beater win over Brown University in the Ivy League championship game Sunday, March 17.

On Yale’s roster this year are two graduates of The Hotchkiss School: Nick Townsend, class of ‘22, and Jack Molloy, class of ‘21. Townsend wears No. 42 and Molloy wears No. 33.

Keep ReadingShow less
Handbells of St. Andrew’s to ring out Easter morning

Anne Everett and Bonnie Rosborough wait their turn to sound notes as bell ringers practicing to take part in the Easter morning service at St. Andrew’s Church.

Kathryn Boughton

KENT—There will be a joyful noise in St. Andrew’s Church Easter morning when a set of handbells donated to the church some 40 years ago are used for the first time by a choir currently rehearsing with music director Susan Guse.

Guse said that the church got the valuable three-octave set when Harlem Valley Psychiatric Center closed in the late 1980s and the bells were donated to the church. “The center used the bells for music therapy for younger patients. Our priest then was chaplain there and when the center closed, he brought the bells here,” she explained.

Keep ReadingShow less
Picasso’s American debut was a financial flop
Picasso’s American debut was a financial flop
Penguin Random House

‘Picasso’s War” by Foreign Affairs senior editor Hugh Eakin, who has written about the art world for publications like The New York Review of Books, Vanity Fair, The New Yorker and The New York Times, is not about Pablo Picasso’s time in Nazi-occupied Paris and being harassed by the Gestapo, nor about his 1937 oil painting “Guernica,” in response to the aerial bombing of civilians in the Basque town during the Spanish Civil War.

Instead, the Penguin Random House book’s subtitle makes a clearer statement of intent: “How Modern Art Came To America.” This war was not between military forces but a cultural war combating America’s distaste for the emerging modernism that had flourished in Europe in the early decades of the 20th century.

Keep ReadingShow less