BOF Survey Results: Residents Want Lower Mill Rate & BOS Budget, but OK with School Spending Increase

Though response was smaller than last year, the majority of people who took the Board of Finance’s annual budget survey in 2025 were not in favor of the Board of Selectmen‘s FY 2026 budget proposal, nor the Mill Rate as originally calculated.

On Tuesday, Apr. 1, BOF Chair Matt Raimondi reviewed some of the findings of the survey, in which 720 residents participated.

“This is a lot less than last year,” Raimondi said. “Last year, we had about 1,200 people take it. Not sure what to make of that.”

Of those surveyed, 59% rejected the BOS budget, which at the time of the survey still represented a 4.41% increase at $37.4 million, while 33% shared their support for it and 8% said they supported an even higher amount.

A last-minute reduction brought that budget down to $37.2 million and then the BOF reduced it even further to $37,130,471, which now represents a 3.65% increase over the current $35.8 million BOS budget.

On Tuesday, the BOF unanimously approved a proposed total operating budget of $145,835,795 for Fiscal Year 2026, which represents a 3.92% increase over the current $140,339,906 budget.

There was also a substantial last-minute reduction in the town’s Debt Service, with that number decreasing by $1,179,222. This brought it from $11.1 million, or an 11.1% increase over the current year, down to $9.9 million, which represents a slight decrease.

Consequently, the BOF was able to reduce the projected 2.7% increase in the Mill Rate — the figure referenced in the budget survey — down to a 1.93% increase over the current year.

The survey results found that 60% of residents rejected the 2.7% Mill Rate increase, 31% supported it, and 9% said they would support an even higher amount.

According to survey results, only 47% of residents rejected the Board of Education’s $97 million budget, which is a 4% increase over the current year. Of those responding, 38% supported it and 15% said they would support an even higher amount.

“One way, I think, (that’s) interesting to split the data is to look at how it breaks out between residents who have children attending Wilton Public Schools and residents that don’t,” Raimondi said. “Based on that, interestingly and perhaps not surprisingly, folks with kids in the school are more likely to support the school budget and actually all budgets in general.”

According to survey results, 37% of the respondents have children currently enrolled in WPS.

Demographic results also showed that 79% of respondents were 45 years of age or older, and that 93% of them planned to vote on the budget.

The length of time people who responded to the survey have lived in Wilton was somewhat evenly spread across years. Those who lived in town for shorter amounts of time, however, were the demographic that offered the strongest support for the BOE budget at 66%.

A slim majority of respondents, 52%, had homes valued between $750,000 and $1,250,000.

More than two-thirds of the respondents who offered commentary in the survey were against the Mill Rate increase, with 43% of those 265 specific respondents stating they believed taxes are too high.

Among that group, 17% stated that the BOE budget was too high, and 15% said the BOS budget was too high. There were 16%  of those 265 respondents that commented that costs needed to be reduced, and 15% said last year’s Mill Rate increase was high. Also among those respondents, 10% said they were “concerned” about the BOS process.

Of the 129 respondents who shared commentary in favor of the Mill Rate, 20% said they agree with the budgets, while 16% said the town needs to invest in infrastructure. Among that group of 129, 11% said they were concerned about the BOS process, while 10% said the BOS budget at that point was too high.

BOF Clerk Prasad Iyer also did a presentation Tuesday night that featured a consolidation of the communications the board had received via the public hearings and emails over the last several months regarding the budget.

“We did the same kind of process last year,” Iyer said, with 54 residents expressing opinions this year, versus 64 last year.

“The emails started earlier in the cycle,” he said, with input beginning just after the new year.

While residents expressed a desire to maintain financial discipline, there was also support for both the capital funding of the Ambler Farm renovation projects and the hiring of two new firefighters.

“Everybody is concerned about the tax increases,” Iyer said, also noting that praise and support were expressed for the school budget proposal.

The Annual Town Meeting is scheduled for Tuesday, May 6, at which time people can begin voting on the BOF’s Mill Rate levy proposal of 24.4054 mills, as well as its budget recommendations.