RIPTON — Ripton residents at their annual meeting next Monday will be asked to support a fiscal year 2018 general fund budget of $250,947 and a highway spending plan of $323,600. That combined $574,547 request is slightly less than the combined $576,701 Ripton voters approved last year by voice vote.
Other articles on Ripton’s town meeting warning seek voter support for:
•  Applying any surplus from the fiscal year 2015-2016 general fund budget to the town’s building fund.
•  Earmarking $40,000 to the Ripton Volunteer Fire Department and First Response.
•  Appropriating $13,000 for the Ripton Cemetery Commission.
•  Giving a combined total of $21,266 to a variety of Addison County social service organizations.
For the first time in many decades, Ripton residents won’t field a local school budget on their town meeting day. They — along with other voters in the newly unified Addison Central School District (ACSD) — will instead decide a K-12 budget for the entire seven-town district.
The proposed ACSD budget for 2017-2018 calls for approximately $37.7 million in spending to cover the combined operating costs for all nine district schools. The budget reflects $30,428,802 in net, local education spending, which represents a 0.6-percent decrease compared to this year, according to ACSD officials.
Ripton’s new homestead education property tax rate is projected to decline from the current $1.92 per $100 in property value to $1.802, according to the ACSD budget documents
There will be no contested elections in Ripton this March. Those running unopposed include Laureen Cox, three years, selectboard; Tim Hanson, one year, moderator; Alison Joseph Dickinson, one year, town clerk; Carolyn Smith, one year, town treasurer; Perry Hanson, local school director, 10 months; and Jerome Shedd, UD-3 school director, 10 months.
The local school boards will go out of existence at the end of this calendar year as the ACSD board gradually assumes all responsibilities for K-12 public education throughout the ACSD.
Ripton’s annual meeting will be held at the Ripton Community House at 7 p.m. on Monday, March 6, beginning at 7 p.m. Australian ballot voting will take place the next day, from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., also at the community house.