HERMON – “Restrained” and “conservative” were words outgoing Town Manager Steven Tuckerman used to describe the municipal and school budgets residents will be asked to vote on at a June 11 town meeting at Hermon High School.

Despite efforts to keep costs in line, taxes will increase if the budgets are approved due to items not within local control, according to the town manager.

The local mill rate is predicted to rise to $17.03 from the current rate of $16.30. The final mill-rate figure will not be “cast in stone” until fall, Tuckerman said. If the rate remains as predicted, the owner of an $80,000 home would pay $1,362.40 in property taxes, up $58.40 from the $1,304 in taxes paid last year.

The total municipal appropriation, including the county tax, is $2,288,577. The total school appropriation request, including debt service, is $8,923,115. A sum of $6,000 is requested to fund adult education, bringing the grand total to $11,217,692. Revenues include $5,432,597 for the town’s schools, $1,445,300 for the municipal side of the budget and a surplus balance of $214,000, mostly unanticipated excise taxes that will be returned to the budget.

The revenue or “applied service” total is $7,091,897, leaving the amount to be raised by local taxation at $4,125,795. Totals from last year reveal expenditures of $11,138,432 offset by revenues of $7,063,042. The amount raised by taxation was $4,075,390.

Despite the increase, the budget reflects an earnest attempt to control costs, according to the town manager.

The budget contains no fluff, according to Tuckerman. “There’s nothing in there,” he said. “We’re actually down – that is, everything we have control over is down” compared with last year.

Municipal spending is “down $20,679 from last year,” Tuckerman said. Educational expenditures reflected in various budget line items are down $255,760 from last year, but the decrease is offset by the debt service increase of $117,991, according to Tuckerman.

The key items that caused an increase are debt service payments on $1.4 million in renovations done at the town’s elementary and middle schools. “We were getting strong direction from the townspeople” to do the needed projects, said Tuckerman, who was on the building committee. The county budget asked for a $36,659 increase.

Adding to the complicated budget picture is the fact municipal revenues have decreased by $175,200 because of a decrease in state revenues and changes in the revenue sharing program.

The town is forecasting it will collect less money in excise taxes after seeing a big increase because a lot of people apparently bought new vehicles “because of the good deals,” Tuckerman said.

In addition, the town’s largest taxpayer for the past three years has left. H.E. Price, which stored millions of dollars of construction equipment on Coldbrook Road, left when the gas pipeline was completed. The company paid more than $200,000 in taxes each year it had a local presence, Tuckerman said.