Voters destroy Avons city/school budgets

In a budget referendum that wasn't even close, voters on Wednesday soundly rejected a 2024-25 city and school spending plan.

May 16, 2024, 11:05 a.m. EDT

AVON, CT – The City of Avon's budget referendum on Wednesday consisted of a simple, one-question vote that voters answered with a simple, one-word answer.

“NO.”

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Voters soundly rejected a $116.09 million city/school budget that would have increased taxes by an average of more than 3 percent.

It wasn't even close – 299 “yes” votes to 1,378 “no” votes.

According to the Avon City Clerk's Office Thursday morning, voter turnout exceeded the 9 percent threshold required by the charter for a vote on the budget to be valid. It was 12.4 percent.

If less than 9 percent had voted, the budget would have been automatically passed regardless of the vote count.

It appears the budget's fiscal impact on voters may have played a role.

How these budgets would have affected individual taxpayers depended on the new assessments following the reassessment.

A tax rate of 30.34 million was proposed for 2024, which is lower than the current tax rate of 35.39 million.

However, due to the recently completed reassessment, this does not mean that taxes would have decreased, although the proposed mill tax rate would have been much lower than a year ago.

The City of Avon had set up a website that allowed taxpayers to calculate their tax bill based on the 2024-25 budget proposal submitted to voters.

According to the latest budget figures, the city and school's total budget was $116.09 million, a 5.44 percent increase in spending, or nearly $6 million more.

This spending plan included a city operating budget of $31.06 million (4.25 percent increase) and an education budget of $72.28 million (4.9 percent increase).

Click this link for more information on all of Avon's 2024-24 city/school budget proposals.

To calculate how the 2024-25 budgets would have affected your taxes in Avon, click this link.