Canterbury Board of Finance revises budgets, votes to send package to town meeting with mill-rate target of 17.66

Canterbury's Board of Finance on a special meeting remodeled its budgets after a failed referendum and voted to send revised town, capital improvement and education budgets to a town meeting for further consideration. The board adopted a package that includes using $118,661 from the unassigned fund balance and assumes a baseline mill rate of 17.66 while staff work through additional numeric checks.

The board's Chair framed the vote as a response to voters rejecting the prior package and warned that a "no vote will cause cuts to be made in services provided by the town and in the quality of education for our students," urging earlier public involvement in future cycles. Finance staff described a supplemental ECS (Education Cost Sharing) grant of $195,944; when that revenue is entered into the worksheet it reduces the starting mill-rate baseline from 18.26 to roughly 17.95 before any program cuts are applied.

Board members debated two basic approaches: set a mill-rate target (an absolute mill-rate starting point) or apply cuts as a percentage across budgets. Staff simulations presented during the meeting showed that a half-percent across-the-board reduction would yield roughly $90,000 in savings shared among the town, CIP and schools; other scenarios mixed draws from the unassigned fund balance, CIP rephasing and discrete budget cuts to reach the target.

After agreeing on a blended approach to reductions and use of the supplemental ECS grant, Matt moved the formal motion "to send the Board of Selectmen to schedule a town meeting" with the budgets read into the record as presented. The motion as read put the town budget at $3,754,695, the education budget at $13,683,614 and a total package roughly totaling $17,943,512, with $118,661 to be drawn from unassigned fund balance and an assumed 17.66 mill rate. The motion was seconded and carried; roll-call voting recorded Joy and Jason voting yes, with Sarah recorded as abstaining or having a connection issue; the board declared the motion passed and scheduled a follow-up Board of Selectmen meeting to finalize dates.

Public commenters used the meeting's public-comment period to press the board on perceived transparency gaps and tax impacts. Speakers raised concerns about revaluation-related tax changes (one resident said their taxes rose by about 55% after revaluation), questioned lingering line items such as a historical COVID-related expenditure shown in the worksheet ($582,530), and urged clearer online revenue worksheets so taxpayers could follow where funds come from and how they are spent. Several residents also criticized charges tied to tuition/transportation to Woodstock Academy and asked whether the town's transportation fleet and routing were being managed efficiently; school staff responded that an external audit completed in 2024 supported current operations and that two smaller passenger vans had been added to the fleet.

Board members and staff repeatedly emphasized that the budget process runs for months with weekly meetings and encouraged residents to participate earlier in the cycle. The board said it will present the revised figures to the Board of Selectmen and schedule a town meeting, giving voters another opportunity to consider the adjusted package.

What happens next: the board has instructed staff to provide final numeric checks to the Board of Selectmen ahead of the planned town meeting; the board also signaled that members will continue to work through reallocation options for CIP and departmental budgets to balance fiscal prudence with service and school priorities.