Category Archives: Budget

Lyme Board of Finance Proposes $11.37 Million Budget With No Tax Increase

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Despite Increase in D18 Spending, Budget Down Over $1M Primarily due to Reduction in Capital Costs

LYME – The Board of Finance is predicting a flat tax rate after they unanimously approved a proposed $11.37 million 2025-26 spending plan that will go to a public hearing next month. 

The budget proposal is down $1.02 million, or 8.2%, from the current budget. 

The Board of Finance on Tuesday voted to send the proposed budget to a public hearing on May 8. The finance board will then take a vote on sending the spending plan to a Town Meeting preliminarily set for May 22.

If the proposed budget is approved by voters, the finance board said it will set the tax rate at the current 14.5 mills immediately following the town meeting. 

The budget proposal includes town operating and capital expenses, as well as Lyme’s share of the Region 18 education budget. 

Education costs in Lyme’s proposed budget come out to $6.96 million for the town’s estimated 231 students. That’s up $299,504, or 4.5%, from the town’s current share. The increase is driven by debt payments on a multi-building renovation project approved by voters at a cost of $57.5 million. 

The Region 18 budget, which totals $39.7 million for the district covering Lyme and Old Lyme, is set to go to a referendum vote in both towns on May 6.

Lyme’s $10.84 million town operations budget proposal is up $513,372, or 5.0%, over the current budget. Proposed capital spending comes in at $530,400, a decrease of $1.53 million, or 74.3%, from the current budget. 

First Selectman David Lahm in a Tuesday interview at the Town Hall attributed the decrease in capital spending to the completion of bridge projects on Birch Mill Road and Macintosh Road that had driven up the budget in previous years. 

He said the town is looking at a flat tax rate because officials are not extravagant in their budget planning. 

“We take care of what needs to be taken care of, but we understand the difference between ‘I want’ and ‘I need,’” he said. 

Planning for Tomorrow’s Needs Today

The town’s projected general fund balance – referred to informally as a Rainy Day Fund – amounts to $4.14 million in the proposed budget. The figure represents about 33% of total anticipated revenues, which is one of the figures credit agencies look at to gauge a town’s financial health. 

Finance board Chairman Alan Sheiness at this week’s meeting said the bond agent for the school district told him S&P Global Ratings likes to see reserves in the area of at least 19% to secure a AA or AAA credit rating. 

Finance board policy dictates that the town maintain a “target” fund balance equivalent to two months of operating expenses, but Sheiness in a Friday phone interview said two months’ savings is more of a minimum than a target. 

Nearby towns like Old Lyme have debated how much money to keep in the Rainy Day Fund in order to save for emergencies while not overtaxing residents. 

In a phone interview Friday, Sheiness acknowledged the fund balance in Lyme has historically exceeded the two months’ target. But he said the number fluctuates based on big-ticket capital expenses that may be needed in any given year. 

Sheiness said the finance board looks several years ahead when determining how much money should remain in the town’s reserves. 

“I do understand the number is high today for today’s needs, but it’s not too high today for the next few years’ needs,” he said.

After Much Disagreement, Old Lyme Board of Finance Decides to Take $800K From ‘Rainy Day Fund’ to Offset Tax Increase

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OLD LYME – With many residents concerned by the recent revaluation that hiked the value of taxable property in town by more than 60%, the Old Lyme Board of Finance on Wednesday evening agreed to use $800,000 from the town’s ‘Rainy Day Fund’ to help mitigate the impact to taxpayers of a proposed $45.39 million 2025-26 spending plan. 

The proposed budget – which includes town operations and capital expenses as well as the town’s share of the Lyme-Old Lyme Schools regional district budget – represents an increase of $3.28 million, or 7.8%, over the current budget. 

It includes education costs in the amount of $31.52 million, which is up $1.99 million, or 6.72%, from the town’s current share of the regional school district budget. The increase is driven by debt payments on a multi-building renovation project approved by voters at a cost of $57.5 million. 

The Old Lyme budget proposal will now go to a public hearing on Monday, April 28, at 7:30 p.m. in the Town Hall meeting room. 

Based on preliminary numbers provided by Finance Board Chairman Bennett J. Bernblum, a Democrat, the  decision to use $800,000 from the town’s reserves will result in a projected tax rate of 16.2 mills, an increase of 4.5%. 

The tax rate would be going up 6.8% if the finance board didn’t move to offset the increase, he said.

A mill represents $1 in tax per $1,000 of assessed property value.  

The current tax rate is 24.4 mills. After taking the revaluation into account – and if spending did not change at all in the coming year – the tax rate would be 15.5 mills. 

The board of finance will not set the final tax rate until immediately after the budget is approved at the Town Budget Meeting on May 19. The Lyme-Old Lyme Schools budget referendum is scheduled for May 6.

Contacted by phone on Wednesday, Assessor Melinda Kronfeld said that she will not be able to detail the potential tax impact until the town’s Grand List of taxable property is finalized after the Board of Assessment Appeals concludes its hearings next week. 

She said the median increase in real estate values was 64% based on preliminary numbers. That means anyone whose property value went up more than that will see a tax bill higher than the projected 4.5% increase. 

Finance board member David Kelsey, a Republican, said during this week’s meeting that about 2,200 of the 5,500 households in town were looking at above-average property tax increases. 

First Selectwoman Martha Shoemaker on Thursday said the budget increase is driven by debt service on the school renovation project as well as the renovation to the Lymes’ Senior Center that is nearing completion. On the town side, the $702,350 debt service line that includes the senior center project represents a 62.9% increase over current spending.

In the capital budget, the town allocated $443,500 to save for the purchase of three fire department apparatuses. Also included in the budget is an additional $200,000 for road-paving projects, bringing the total line item to $1 million.

Shoemaker last week carried out a finance board directive to come up with some last-minute cuts by working with Finance Director Anita Mancini and department heads to slash $171,350 from the proposed budget. While decreases to individual line items were typically less than $5,000 each, a notable savings came from paying for a $50,746 equipped police cruiser using revenue collected from the fund for officers’ road construction detail assignments rather than the capital budget.

‘Who Knows?’

Finance Director Anita Mancini in budget documents estimated the Rainy Day Fund, known in accounting parlance as the Undesignated Fund Balance, currently represents 35.15% of the total operating budget. 

Using $800,000 to offset the tax increase will bring the Rainy Day Fund balance to an estimated 29.6% of the total operating budget, according to budget numbers. 

The move was a compromise between Republicans, who wanted to take out less from the Rainy Day Fund, and Democrats, who wanted to use more. 

Democrat Kimberly Thompson put it this way: “There are a lot of people who’ve had major adjustments to their evaluation of their property. And I think whatever we can do to minimize the impact of that this year, we should try and do.”

Republicans Kelsey and Andy Russell said they want to make sure there’s enough money in reserve in case a catastrophic storm wipes out the shoreline tax base. 

Russell invoked the idea of a 100-year storm when he said the Hurricane of 1938 occurred almost a century ago. A storm of that magnitude has a 1% chance of occurring each year, but hasn’t happened since. 

“Well, here we are,” he said. “That’s only 13 years away. So who knows?” 

Kelsey pointed to large-scale projects that could impact future budgets such as the installation of sewers in the town’s beach communities which will require extensive appropriations in coming years.  

He also pointed to unknown costs that could hit at any time. This year, those unexpected costs amounted to $1.65 million. Included in that amount were the construction of the Emergency Operations Center, reconstruction of the Hawk’s Nest sluiceway, construction and paving of accessible parking spaces in the Sound View parking lot and a comprehensive revision of the town’s zoning regulations.  

Finance Board Chair Bernblum said the town’s bond attorney advised him creditors like to see undesignated fund balances in the amount of 30% of the total budget, but that the town’s AAA rating with S&P Global Ratings would be unlikely to change if the amount went down to 25%. 

“In general, I’m informed by what I think the sentiment of the taxpayers would be, and without having done a study, my gut tells me that they would argue for a larger withdrawal in order to mitigate their taxes this year,” he said. 

He cited those on fixed incomes as the most vulnerable to the tax increase. He said he was less worried about himself and fellow finance board members Kelsey and Russell. 

“I don’t care too much about Dave or me or Andy, for that matter, if our houses went up in value because we can afford to pay it,” he said. “But there are folks in town who can’t, and for them it’s a real burden.” 

Thompson, who also serves as chairwoman of the Democratic Town Committee, expressed confusion about the unwillingness of the Republicans to agree to a larger withdrawal from the Rainy Day Fund when the finance board under Kelsey’s leadership set aside money to mitigate tax increases several times, including $600,000 in 2023 and $800,000 each year in 2022, 2020 and 2019. 

“And in all those years, I don’t think we ever actually ended up needing that money,” she said. 

Meanwhile, the Undesignated Fund Balance (Rainy Day Fund) has grown from 22.2% in 2020 to the current 35.2%. 

Finance board member Anna Reiter, a Democrat, pushed for a $1 million withdrawal from the Rainy Day Fund. 

“We could take out another million next year and another $900,000 a year after that, assuming we don’t increase this fund at all. And we would still be at over 25%,” she said. 

But Kelsey and Russell pointed to debt levels in the school district and the town that will be felt for years to come. 

“I think the stakes have changed,” Russell said. “I think the increases we’re seeing and are going to see in the next few years are going to be more significant consistently than we’ve seen in the past.”

Ultimately, the group decided against a suggestion from First Selectwoman Martha Shoemaker to let voters decide at the budget referendum how much to take out of the Rainy Day Fund and then against Bernblum’s subsequent idea to leave it up for discussion at the public hearing. 

The vote to set aside $800,000 was endorsed by Republicans Kelsey, Russell, and Matthew Olson along with Democrats Bernblum and Thompson. Reiter (D) was the lone nay vote.

Editor’s Notes: i) This article has been updated to correct some budget terminology and figures
ii) Bennett Bernblum is a financial supporter of LymeLine.com, but has no input to the editorial process, which remains completely independent.
ii) A reminder of Our Policy on Comments.

Lyme-Old Lyme Schools BOE Reinstates Sixth Music Teacher to Proposed Budget with No Increase to Bottom Line

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OLD LYME – The Lyme-Old Lyme Schools Board of Education on Thursday voted unanimously to reinstate an elementary school music position to the district’s $39.7 million 2025-26 proposed budget while calling for harmony between the music department and district administration. 

The district school board called for the special meeting amid vocal opposition from some community members after the position held by Mile Creek School music teacher Matthew Guevara was not included in the proposed budget. The school board approved the spending plan in February. 

There are currently six music teachers in the district, including Guevara. He was hired in January. 

Superintendent of Schools Ian Neviaser on Friday said the bottom line of the 2025-26 budget proposal will remain the same despite the added position. The cost, which he valued at $70,201 in salary and benefits, will be absorbed in the proposed budget. 

It hasn’t yet been decided exactly where money will come from, according to Neviaser. 

The budget proposal represents an increase of $2.7 million, or 7.39 percent, over the current spending plan. It’s the highest increase among comparable schools in the shoreline area, according to a presentation given by Neviaser earlier this week. 

He said $1.8 million of the $2.7 million increase is attributable to debt payments for the renovation project happening in all district buildings except the high school. 

The move to reinstate the music position came after school board members heard from members of the music department about how to enhance the program using the existing ensemble of six teachers. 

The school board members were receptive to the music department’s plan and surprised it was the first they were hearing of it. 

School board member Chris Staab, who made the motion to add the sixth teaching position and to require the administration and music department to work together in coming up with an implementation plan, voiced concerns about the dynamic he was seeing in the district. 

“The departments don’t seem to be working in conjunction with the administration, at least in this case, and that’s concerning to me,” he said. 

Kristine Pekar, music department chair and Lyme-Old Lyme High School choral teacher, said members of the department have not been asked for their thoughts like this before.

“It’s the first time anybody’s hearing it because when we put ideas out there, it doesn’t feel like they are really looked at for what they can do for kids,” she said. 

Neviaser has cited underenrollment, rather than cost cutting, as the reason the district could not maintain current staffing levels. 

Pekar said she’s heard over and over that the cut wasn’t a financial decision. 

“We’re not asking for more finances,” she said. “We’re asking for the opportunity to grow this program.” 

Critics said eliminating the music teacher at Mile Creek School would have negative implications at all grade levels by spreading the five remaining teachers too thinly across the district’s five schools. 

Pekar gave an hour-long presentation on the structure of the district’s music program and how it compares to area districts. She also laid out how the program could better serve students whose musical education had been interrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic with lasting effects. 

Some of the strategies to more fully utilize existing staff included introducing instrument lessons, band rehearsals and chorus classes earlier in elementary school; scheduling one-on-one lessons for students with disabilities at the middle school; and promoting existing music electives at the high school to make more students interested in taking them. 

Key to increasing enrollment at the high school is classifying the high school’s music theory class as a Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) credit students can choose from to satisfy graduation requirements, Pekar said. 

She used the example of a current student planning to study music in college who signed up for marine biology as his STEM credit. 

“He’s going into music education and he had to take marine bio to fulfill his STEM credits, instead of taking music history to get ready for college, or AP music theory to get ready for college. And I think that is a huge disservice to our students,” she said. 

Pekar pointed to data showing 121 of Lyme-Old Lyme High School’s 368 students, or 33%, are enrolled in chorus or band ensembles. She said the number compares favorably to area districts, including 11.7% in East Lyme and 20.4% in the Region 4 school covering Chester, Deep River and Essex. 

Members of the school board agreed they can still cut the music position after the proposed budget is approved by voters if the administration and music department doesn’t come forward with a compelling plan for implementing the ideas laid out at the meeting. 

Neviaser on Friday remained focused on enrollment.

“We look forward to building upon the creative ideas presented by the music department last night in order to grow student enrollment in this area,” he said.

The board did not discuss a suggestion from Mary Powell-St. Louis, a former district school board member from Lyme, to offset the cost of the sixth music teacher’s salary by paying for the high school sound system and middle school lighting system out of the district’s undesignated fund balance, or rainy day fund. 

She said the move would end up lowering the overall budget increase to 6.85%.

There is $3.1 million in the undesignated fund balance, according to Neviaser.  

He said it is “yet to be determined” whether the district will consider Powell-St. Louis’ suggestion.

The referendum on the proposed budget will be held May 6.

Lyme-Old Lyme School Board to Hear from Music Department Amid Outcry About Threatened Cut to Elementary School Position

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OLD LYME—After backlash to a proposed budget cut that would eliminate an elementary school music position from the proposed 2025-26 Region 18 schools’ budget, the district Board of Education has invited members of the music department for a conversation about how to maintain a vibrant and appropriately-staffed music department amid declining enrollment.

The proposed cut comes as part of the $39.7 million budget proposal coming in at an increase of $2.7 million, or 7.39 percent, over the current spending plan. It goes to voters at a May 6 referendum.

The district school board heard from about a dozen people each at its March and April regular meetings, who were clamoring to keep the music program undisturbed. 

Neviaser in a phone interview Tuesday cited “underenrollment” as the reason the district cannot maintain current staffing levels. 

“We just don’t have the students to support that, or the student interest in music that we used to have,” he said. 

Neviaser said the remaining five music teachers would ensure continued coverage throughout the district. While the schedules have not yet been decided, he suggested a framework that could involve the middle school choral teacher moving to Mile Creek to take over both chorus and band duties, with some support from both the high school band teacher and the music teacher at Lyme Consolidated School. 

“The high school choral teacher, because we have so few enrollments in chorus at the high school, would teach two classes and the rest of her day would be spent at the middle school teaching chorus there,” he said. 

Data provided at an April 2 school board meeting shows there are 40 students in the chorus program at the high school and 73 students in the high school band. At the middle school, there are 119 students in chorus program and 87 students in the band.

Small group chorus lessons at the middle school would combine under the new framework but would not exceed 10 students each, according to Neviaser. 

He has emphasized throughout the budget season that programs available to students would not change due to the staffing cut. 

Overall, the budget proposal assumes there will be 23 fewer students districtwide in the coming year than there are currently. Data in a January budget presentation by Neviaser showed enrollment at the high school is expected to go down by 13 students, while middle school enrollment is expected to increase by 17 students. 

Sara Goldin, a 2014 graduate of Lyme-Old Lyme High School, presented the school board at their April 2 meeting with a petition she started on change.org. It has since garnered 918 signatures. 

Goldin said the change has implications that will affect to varying degrees the number and quality of the ensembles, concerts, music festivals and small group classes in which students are able to participate. 

“Ensembles would be reduced and students at both the middle school and high school level would be losing dedicated staff. This is the definition of affecting programming for students,” Goldin wrote. 

Mary Powell-St. Louis, a former district school board member from Lyme, said retaining the Mile Creek music teacher at an estimated cost of $100,000 for salary and benefits could be accomplished by paying for planned upgrades to the high school sound system and middle school lighting system out of the district’s undesignated fund balance, or ‘Rainy Day Fund,’ rather than the operating budget. 

She said the move would end up lowering the overall budget increase to 6.85%.

There is $3.1 million in the undesignated fund balance, according to Neviaser.  

He said the Board of Education will hold a meeting with music department teachers this Thursday to gauge their thoughts, “and what their solutions might be to address these underenrollment and staffing issues.” 

The school board at the May 5 district budget meeting will vote to send the budget to referendum the next day. 

Neviaser said the budget proposal can be revised prior to or during the May 5 district budget meeting. 

“You can change those numbers right up to the last minute,” he said. “We’ve done it in the past.”

The meeting will be held Thursday, April 10, at 7:30 p.m. at Lyme Consolidated School. A livestream will be available here.

Editor’s Note: This report was updated with details of the time and location of the meeting with the district school board and music department .

Region 18 Schools’ Spending Plan Goes to Voters with $2.7 Million Increase Over Current Budget

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OLD LYME – Voters in Lyme and Old Lyme will be asked to weigh the implications of a relatively steep increase in education spending now that the Region 18 Board of Education’s proposed $39.7 million budget is on its way to voters. 

The district school board on Monday voted unanimously to set a May 5 district budget meeting prior to the May 6 referendum. The vote followed a 10 minute public hearing with a presentation from Superintendent of Schools Ian Neviaser during which no residents spoke. 

The public silence was a departure from previous meetings that drew a cacophony of concern from members of the school community regarding the cut of a music teacher at Mile Creek School that they said would affect music department staffing at all levels.

The proposed budget represents an increase of $2.7 million, or 7.39%, over the current spending plan.

District budget documents show that Old Lyme would be responsible for $31.51 million of the budget, while Lyme would pay $6.96 million. Both towns are billed by the regional school district based on enrollment.

That’s a proposed increase in Old Lyme of $1.99 million, or 6.7%, and in Lyme of $299,504, or 4.5%.

The figure comes from calculating the average number of students over the course of the current school year based on enrollment data from Oct. 1, 2024 and April 1, 2025. 

Neviaser in a phone interview this week attributed the bulk of the proposed budget increase to debt that is coming due on the extensive renovation project in all the district’s schools except Lyme-Old Lyme High School. 

The project involves heating and ventilation system work in the four buildings, plus the addition of new classrooms at Mile Creek School. Voters in late 2022 authorized spending up to $57.5 million on the project.

Of the proposed budget’s $2.7 million increase, $1.8 million is attributable to debt payments on the renovation project. 

“What I want to remind people is, yes, we have a 7.39% increase, but 4.7% of that is in debt service alone. So the operating budget is really only increasing 2.69%, which is exceptionally low if you look at surrounding districts,” he said. 

Proposed school board increases in shoreline districts range from 2.5% in Madison to 6.72% in East Lyme. But the East Lyme Board of Finance last week slashed that town’s proposed $4 million education increase by $1.5 million, leaving it up to the school board – as required by state statute – to figure out where the cuts will come from. 

In the Lyme-Old Lyme schools’ budget proposal, special education spending is up $726,721 over the current year, employee benefits are up $448,485, salaries for certified staff members are up $278,654 and transportation costs are up $164,234.

Neviaser said the increase in special education costs is driven by more students who need to be placed in programs outside the district to meet their needs. There are four students requiring outplacements in the coming year compared to one student when the current budget was approved. 

There are currently 180 kindergarten through grade 12 students with disabilities in the district compared to 162 in 2020-21, according to budget documents. 

The proposed budget includes maintenance and improvements to district facilities totaling $359,200 for a sound system in the high school auditorium, lighting in the middle school auditorium, replacement of the preschool playground and paving of the sidewalk in front of the middle school. 

Other staffing reductions include turning the high school assistant principal position into a ten-month position rather than a full-year position and reducing middle school education staffing by one position. 

The certified staffing cuts in total amount to the equivalent of just over three full time positions.

Neviaser during the public hearing pointed to district budgets going back five years, including the proposed 7.39 increase, that combine for an average increase of 2.73% per year. The second highest jump during that time period was 3% in the budget approved last year. On the opposite end, the budget decreased 0.1% in 2022-23.

But he also included historical data to illustrate that the impact of the renovation project will continue. 

“Just to remind you, anytime we take on new debt service it drives the budget up, especially in the first few years,” he said. 

When debt came due on the last round of elementary school renovations in 2000-01, budget increases hovered around 10% for the first two years and 8% in the third. 

This time around, he emphasized increases won’t be as extreme because the district will spend about $17 million less than what was projected when the project was put out to referendum due to grant funding and good interest rates.