Weathersfield Budgets Pass; Additional Spending Rejected

Weathersfield — During all-day balloting on Tuesday, voters passed the general fund, highway fund and school budgets by comfortable margins but rejected several articles, including one to borrow $30,000 over three years to build a handicap access ramp at the 1879 Schoolhouse in Perkinsville.

Also defeated were $500 for the Weathersfield Directory; $320 for Green Mountain RSVP; $500 for the HIV/HCV Resource Center; $2,250 for The Current, a bus service, which lost by eight votes; $600 for Windsor County Partners; and $400 to support WISE, which provides crisis intervention, shelter and support services for victims of domestic and sexual violence.

The article to put $30,000 in the highway equipment fund lost by six votes, and $30,000 for the fire equipment motorized reserve fund lost by five votes. Also defeated was $7,000 for the police cruiser reserve fund.

Appropriations for the Red Cross, Vermont Adult Learning, Vermont Association of the Blind and Visually Impaired, the Vermont Center for Independent Living, Vermont Green Up and Windsor County Youth Services all passed.

Also approved was an article to borrow $170,000 over five years for a new truck/snowplow.

Besides the $5.6 million school budget, voters approved putting $220,911 from the fund balance at the end of the last fiscal year in a property tax reduction fund to offset tax increases the next two years.

There were no contested races on the ballot. Laura McNaughton was elected as a write-in to a three-year seat on the School Board.

Turnout was 22 percent, or 487 of the town’s 2,219 registered voters.