East Haddam Budget Passes at Second Referendum

Around 8:10 PM Thursday night the votes were tallied for East Haddam's second budget referendum. With 849 total votes, 16 of which were absentee ballots, 482 'yes' votes were submitted and 367 'no' votes came in. The $28,359,313 budget was passed.

"I'm very happy about this, after 6 months of budget work," said First Selectman Mark Walter. "Usually we get in about 200 'no' votes on any budget referendum, and I think in the first referendum the folks who would have voted 'yes' were content and the first budget's failure was a wake-up call that everyone needs to come out and participate."

"I also think that many parents came out to vote because they knew the next cuts would be to the Board of Ed since the town side was already slimmed down," Walter continued. 

Walter also stated that the town has a smaller budget compared to other similar sized towns.

"And even with a steady increase in costs in all areas, the current budget of $28,359,313 is very close to our budget 6 years ago, which was at $28,139,913," Walter concluded.