The Princeton Council was scheduled Monday to adopt a $61 million budget that lowers taxes by around $135 on average, the first budget of the consolidated government.
By Philip Sean Curran, Staff Writer
The Princeton Council was scheduled Monday to adopt a $61 million budget that lowers taxes by around $135 on average, the first budget of the consolidated government.
Mayor Liz Lempert, addressing reporters earlier in the day, said the town still was awaiting word from state authorities who were looking over the spending plan. She said the council cannot adopt the budget until after the state approves it.
Mayor Lempert said officials are “excited” and “proud” to be lowering the municipal tax rate, even as the town increases services like community-wide residential trash pickup. In recent years, when the two towns were separate, both municipalities had kept the tax rate flat.
She said one would need to go “way, way back” to find a municipal tax reduction in Princeton.
Town administrator Robert W. Bruschi, who joined Mayor Lempert, touted that Princeton was able to cut taxes and at the same time it was able to offset increases in other parts of the budget, like pensions.
”That to me is the amazing thing,” said Mr. Bruschi, who said the town is on “solid” footing financially.
Mayor Lempert said there is “tremendous” interest around the state in the first budget of the merged town. At a conference she attended last week, officials from other towns approached her to say they were interested in how the town was putting together a budget this year.
”We think it’s a great success story,” she said.
Yet when asked how much money the town was saving this year compared to what the two would have spent last year, she said: “That’s been the sort of like the struggle was to figure out how to do that, because it’s really a hypothetical.”
Mayor Lempert said as the years pass, there would be additional savings through consolidation.