Updated at 9:47 p.m.
Morristown voters on Tuesday overwhelmingly rejected the town government’s proposed budget for the 2024 fiscal year. The package would have raised municipal spending by more than 30% over the current budget and drew vocal opposition from some residents.
The vote was 391 in favor of the budget, 1,441 opposed, according to unofficial results provided Tuesday night by Sara Haskins, the Morristown clerk and treasurer.
The proposed $10.1 million budget — which, if passed, would have been the largest in town history — had some residents worried about their property tax bills. Had it gone ahead, Morristown’s municipal tax rate was estimated to go up by about 25%.
Morristown has about 5,500 residents and includes the village of Morrisville. About 45% of registered voters turned out Tuesday, an increase over last year’s Town Meeting Day, when 35% cast ballots.
In the leadup to Town Meeting Day, Morristown officials had chalked up the 30.8% increase largely to higher salaries for municipal employees. The goal was to keep town jobs competitive at a time when many local governments are hiring, they said.
All town employees were slated to get an 8.7% “cost-of-living adjustment,” though some would have gotten larger raises than that, Town Administrator Eric Dodge said.
Officials on the town’s selectboard and in its administration have acknowledged that the budget was a big ask. “None of us are pleased with the size of the proposed increase,” Dodge, whose salary was slated to go up 8.7%, wrote in the town’s annual report.
Dodge has said this year’s sharp budget increase would also make up for years of budgeting by previous town governments that has since proven to be too conservative. Morristown’s population has grown, and with it a need to bolster municipal services, he argued. The budget also included funding for a new full-time police officer.
Town officials will now head back to the drawing board to see what they can cut from the proposed budget before it goes to the voters again. The town started its FY24 budget discussions in the fall with a package that was 40% higher than its current budget.
“We’ll just keep pushing the rubber band tighter and tighter to see where we can trim some more funds out of there and bring that percentage down,” Dodge previously said.
Morristown voters on Tuesday also elected one of the budget’s most outspoken critics — Travis Sabataso — to a two-year term on the selectboard over longtime incumbent Brian Kellogg, according to unofficial results. Sabataso received 1,118 votes to Kellogg’s 644. Laura Streets also beat out Richard Craig for an open three-year seat on the selectboard, 868-812.
“I’m mostly excited that the budget failed,” Sabataso said Tuesday night after the results were released. “I think we need to have some in-depth conversations about what’s truly needed now versus what can wait one, two, three, four years here.”
Voters also approved spending $335,000 on an ambulance and powered stretcher, 1,216-629.
