Latest Update on Budget Process
A Special Board of Selectmen’s meeting was held Friday May 7th at 2 pm to cancel the referendum scheduled for May 11th. A data error in the Assessor’s Office was detected this week by the Tax Collector and brought to the Assessor’s attention. The error resulted in a need to revise the 2020 Grand List. The situation was promptly looked into and handled by the Assessor, who informed the First Selectman and Finance Director of the corrected Net Grand List amount.
As a result, the FY 22 combined Board of Education and General Government budgets will need to be reduced by approximately $32,000. A Special Board of Finance meeting will be held May 11th at 7 pm to discuss and act on adjusting the FY 22 combined budgets based on the change to the 2020 Grand List. The BOS will hold a special meeting May 12th at 4 pm in order to discuss and approve the FY 22 budget adjustments in order to comply with Prop 46. They will warn a Special Town Meeting at a later date. The purpose of the Town Meeting will be to adjourn the vote on the FY 22 combined budgets to a referendum. The new dates will be May 27th for the Town Meeting and June 3rd for the Referendum.
First Selectman Jay Swan stated “The entire budget process has been labor intensive. Unfortunately, due to this recent discovery we must go back and reduce some amounts in the budget. We want to be transparent and make sure the budget being voted on is correct.”
Agendas for these and other town board and commission meetings can be found on the town website, www.woodstockct.gov. All agendas contain the link to join or call in to the Zoom meetings, and all minutes contain a link to the recording of the meetings.