OLD LYME–With the crowd spilling out of Memorial Town Hall onto Lyme Street Monday evening, the Annual Town Budget Meeting was postponed as town officials put out the call for a venue large enough to accommodate the response to a sharp budget increase amid rising property values.
Fire Marshal Dave Roberge immediately put a halt to the 7:30 p.m. town meeting with his announcement that the capacity of 124 people had been reached in the Town Hall Meeting Room and its lobby. He said an additional 25 to 40 people were still waiting in line.
Against the background of a blue screen with a presentation slide warning that the meeting would be rescheduled in the event of a “larger than expected turnout,” the three-member Board of Selectmen made its unanimous vote to find another date and time for the meeting.
First Selectwoman Martha Shoemaker, a Democrat, was joined by Democratic Selectman Jim Lampos and Republican Selectwoman Jude Read.
Shoemaker said no budget vote in the past seven years had attracted more than 60 people. She called for postponement “so that everyone can hear what they wanted to hear, and vote on what they want to vote on.”
The $45.39 million 2025-26 proposed budget – which is up $3.28 million, or 7.8%, over the current year – was on the agenda along with several proposed changes to the local law books. The proposals on the agenda for the evening ranged from an ordinance on golf cart usage in the Sound View and Hawk’s Nest Beach areas to a $1,000 increase in the tax abatement available to volunteer first responders.
Outside the Town Hall as the crowd dispersed, beach area resident Laura Parent said her taxes are going up 100% due to the recent revaluation.
Assessor Melinda Kronfeld last week said the average tax increase townwide, based on the proposed budget, comes in at 4.7%. She said 3,312 properties in town would see their tax bills go up more than that, while 2,331 properties would be looking at an increase less than 4.7%, or a tax decrease.
Parent was one of the residents with sticker shock when she saw how much her home had increased in value.
“My taxes are going to increase at least $1,800,” she said.
She said she was concerned with the size of the town’s $31.52 million share of the regional Lyme-Old Lyme school budget, which is up $1.99 million, or 6.72%, from Old Lyme’s current payment. The hike is driven by debt, which is just starting to come due, on a large-scale renovation project affecting four of the district’s five buildings. The expense includes heating and ventilation system work in the four schools, plus the addition of classrooms at Mile Creek School. The project was approved by voters in 2022.
Parent said enrollment numbers have not kept pace with estimates publicized at the time of the vote, based on numbers from the New England School Development Council.
She said she felt the district justified the new classrooms by saying attendance was going to increase.
“It’s not,” she said. “But we’re paying.”
Parent acknowledged she did not vote at the referendum on the school district budget, which passed earlier this month by a vote of 457 to 297. But she will next time, she said.
Parent’s friend Mariella Shea said the town should have “planned a little better” for a town meeting crowd attracted by votes on several ordinances as well as the budget.
“It’s regrettable that it has to be rescheduled,” Shea said. “So many things were on the agenda that they should have known.”
Resident Michael Hansen said rescheduling the meeting was the appropriate thing to do.
“There was obviously a big showing. People wanted to participate in their local democracy, which anyone should applaud,” he said.
But he described as “disingenuous” the arguments by those who are opposing the proposed budget this late in the process.
“We agreed several years ago that we were going to update the schools,” he said. “It’s time to start paying that bill. It’s not really something up for debate. The town has the money. If people were actually upset about it, it could have been addressed at the Board of Finance.”
A public hearing last month on the proposed budget by the finance board lasted just over a half hour in front of roughly two dozen people in the Town Hall meeting room. There were only a few questions from the public.
Also last month, the finance board agreed to use $800,000 from the town’s predicted $14.2 million ‘Rainy Day Fund’ to help mitigate the impact to taxpayers. The vote was a compromise between Republicans, who wanted to take out less from the Rainy Day Fund, and Democrats, who wanted to use more.
Hansen was critical of those on the finance board who did not want to use more than $800,000 to lower the tax increase for property owners.
“And then some of those members are now also being, again, disingenuous, claiming that it’s (Democratic First Selectwoman) Martha Shoemaker’s fault that the mill rate’s going up, and that’s really not the case,” he said.
Shoemaker after the meeting said the Board of Selectmen put together a fair budget. She cited scant attendance at public meetings throughout the months-long budget planning process.
She also pointed to a request from the finance board in April for the selectwoman to work with department heads to further reduce the budget, which resulted in a cut of $171,350 to the proposed budget.
“So we did the best we possibly could for the budget,” Shoemaker said.
With the school district budget approved by voters, the town is obligated to pay its $31.52 million share.
“So where do you start cutting?” she said. “Do we cut capital projects? Do we cut people? Do we cut hours? If you do those things, you’re going to cut services.”
The Board of Finance was initially set to formalize the new tax rate immediately after the town meeting. Instead, finance board members agreed to convene again after a vote at the rescheduled town meeting.
Shoemaker said she has reached out to Superintendent of Schools Ian Neviaser to see if he has a larger space in the schools available on May 28, 29 or 30. State law requires notice of the meeting to be published in a newspaper at least five days before the meeting.
Asked what would happen if the budget doesn’t pass, Shoemaker said she didn’t know.
“I will have to call up to the state to find out,” she said.
Republican Board of Finance member Andy Russell after the meeting said he can’t remember residents voting down a budget in his 32 years as a resident.
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