Mill rate increase held to 2.8% despite protests calling for more school funding
- Guy
- 2 minutes ago
- 1 min read
In the face of organized protests from public school advocates who were hoping for a 5-6% increase, Greenwich Republicans on the BET (Board of Estimate and taxation) held firm, cutting $4 million of the requested increase. Last year, the increase for public schools was a high 6%.
The Republicans on the BET also cut out a portion of the geothermal request for Hamilton Avenue Schools asking for more info on conventional systems and cut funds to purchase electric leaf blowers for the Town claiming this was an unfunded mandate by the RTM.
Bottom line, the mill rate is expected to increase 2.81% to 12.041. This was a far better result than the 5-6% increase that would have occurred with Democrat approved spending.
Knowing that they did not possess the tie-breaking vote, the Democrats tried many tactics to get their way. See summary here. They prolonged the process by calling for many long caucus breaks, they encouraged a large number of public school advocates to attend who were rowdy during the meeting and they delayed the meeting twice in order to start the school discussions at 8 am right after the school drop off so the crowd could be there in force. It didn't work.
Between the Lines: No cuts were made to sidewalks on Shore, fire department vehicles, accessibility and renovating the Wallace Senior Center, or the Hamill rink study. These hardworking volunteers on the BET deserve our thanks.