By Sarah Opdahl
The tumultuous New Fairfield budget season continues to follow a rocky path, with the failure of the proposed Town and education budgets on Saturday, May 20. Complicating the Yes/No votes was the addition of advisory questions to ascertain whether residents felt the budgets were too high or too low.
Despite efforts to encourage school supporters to vote yes and too low by parties such as the New Fairfield teachers’ union, the school budget was rejected.
Final tallies were split as follows:
Town Budget:
Yes 926
No 894
Education Budget:
Yes 871
No 946
Advisory Questions:
Town Budget:
Too High 829
Too Low 814
Education Budget:
Too High 787
Too Low 944
The largest turnout for a budget vote since 2010, there was a total of 1,833 votes cast—19.7% of eligible voters—including 76 absentee voters. Comparatively, also considered to be a difficult budget year, there were 1,580 votes cast in 2022.