Town Meeting: Tunbridge, Chelsea voters narrowly approve First Branch school budget
Modified: 5/26/2021 9:56:59 PM
CHELSEA Voters in the First Branch Unified School District narrowly approved the annual budget by Australian ballot on Tuesday. The vote tally was 117-111.
Last year, the district’s two towns, Chelsea and Tunbridge, struggled to come up with an acceptable budget, finally approving spending for the merged school district last October, well into the school year, after defeating it twice.
The $6.85 million budget for the coming year is about $40,000 lower than the current year’s spending, and the residential education tax rate is due to rise by about 2.5 cents per $100 of assessed value in Tunbridge and a bit less than 3 cents per $100 in Chelsea.
Town Meeting preview: First Branch Unified District’s budget plan dips as cost per pupil grows
Published: 5/19/2021 11:26:51 PM
Modified: 5/19/2021 11:29:02 PM
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Hot topic: The warning for the First Branch Unified District’s annual meeting contains only seven articles, all of them straightforward. The budget will draw the most attention, as residents of Chelsea and Tunbridge, the district’s two towns, twice voted down budgets last year before finally approving a spending plan in October, well after the school year had begun.
Budget: The proposed budget of $6.85 million is $41,000 lower than the current school year’s spending plan, but because enrollment is projected to decline slightly, the district’s cost per equalized pupil, a measure that determines its tax rate, is projected to increase by 4.3%. The education tax rates will increase more modestly, by about 2.5 cents per $100 of assessed value in Tunbridge, and by a little less than 3 cents per $100 in
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