At a meeting Wednesday that stretched past midnight, the Board of Selectmen voted on the capital and general government budgets and approved a recommendation for the schools budget, all now bound for the Board of Finance.

For the schools, the selectmen recommended that about $489,500 be cut from the budget, bringing the schools to $77.82 million, a 1.37 percent increase—a percentage which, minus those cuts, increased this year's budget by 2.06 percent. (The selectmen's school budget recommendation to the Board of Finance is nonbinding.)

The possible reduction was divided into chunks: $294,434, the amount the schools will be reimbursed next year by an ARRA grant, part of the federal stimulus package; a $40,000 fuel reduction contingent on building a gas main that connects to Veterans Park and East Ridge Middle School; $195,000 in operating budget cuts, which may include cutting the $95,000 literacy resource teacher position.

The approved capital budget was $3.7 million, which the selectmen reduced by $220,000 during the meeting. They approved the purchase of a fire apparatus to replace Tanker 10 but rejected the expense to convert the older machine for highway department use instead of selling it. They also cut a proposed $225,000 to replace the windows at Branchville Elementary School as well as reducing the number of new police cars the chief hoped to purchase from five to three. Boiler replacements at Branchville remained.

The general government budget was only decreased by $10,000 during the meeting, lessening the amount given to the Economic Development Commission. The general government budget proposal currently totals $30.94 million budget, a 3 percent increase over this year's $30.04 million budget. These figures increase the mill rate 1.96 percent, to 20.40 mills.

Once the three budgets head to the board of finance, members there can change the capital budget however they like and dictate the bottom lines of the general government and school budgets.