The Pomfret Town Board passed its 2021 budget in a 4-1 vote with Councilman Chris Schaeffer abstaining.

“The proposed townwide rate for 2021 is $4.05 per $1,000 of assessed valuation, which is a 8 cents per $1,000 increase or 1.89%, well under the cap, and the outside the village rate is a combined total of $8.58 per $1,000 which is a zero increase over the previous year,” said Supervisor Dan Pacos.

The original proposed budget was a 14% increase, which would have been roughly a 58-cent increase for the townwide rate and 38 cents for the outside of the town. The town did a lot of work to get it down, Pacos said.

“We tried our best to get the increase as low as possible without laying off employees and cutting services, Pacos said. “Loss of state aid, sales tax revenues and court fines and fees made this a really tough budget. It’s a tight budget and we’re going to have to watch our bottom line and our costs this year, but it’s a workable budget.”

Schaeffer said the town was able to get the costs down enough that he felt they could have gotten it down to zero and therefore chose to abstain, no reason other than that given.

“I think we could have made that 8 cents a zero inside the village as well as outside the village,” Schaeffer said. “I’m not going to stand in the way of this budget, but I’m going to abstain from the vote.”

The total budget for 2021 is $6,532,432.