LISBON — Lisbon residents voted by a slim margin Wednesday night to accept an $18 million school budget.

In the final tally, 126 people voted in favor of the budget while 90 voted against it.

The budget represents a $448,345 increase over the previous year’s budget and translates to a $232,000, or roughly 3%, tax increase for the 2021-22 budget.

Taxpayers will contribute about $7.79 million to the school budget, which will add 36 cents to the tax rate of $23.10 per $1,000 of property value. However, town officials have said that when factoring in the municipal and county budgets, the overall projected tax rate for 2021-22 is a decrease of about 25 cents.

The school budget is down from the original proposal in February, when The Times Record reported a proposed $18.3 million budget that would have raised local taxes by $680,990, or about 9%.

Only 216 out of the town’s 7,136 registered voters cast ballots.

filed under: