By Jodi Hausen,Staff Writer

WILTON – Town officials expect a 1 percent decrease in the tax rate this year despite a slight increase in the town budget.

Residents will have the final say when they vote on spending articles that total just over $878,000 at the annual town meeting in June.

Selectman Norman Gould said the most controversial item discussed at Tuesday’s joint meeting of the Finance Committee and selectmen related to funding the town’s property revaluation. Selectmen had proposed allocating $180,000 from the reserve account to have the assessment completed soon. Finance Committee members were split but voted against funding a revaluation at this time, according to member J. Dwight.

Selectmen argued that professional assessors are booked for the next two years, and they wanted to have the money in hand to hire a company to prevent further delay. The last revaluation took place in 1986, according to Gould, and the state recommends doing one every 10 years, he said.

But opponents to the measure said the town is nowhere near the 70 percent valuation rate that would legally require the town to have the revaluation, according to Dwight. They were also concerned that older residents living on presumably more valuable lakefront properties would be taxed out of their homes once they were reassessed.

Although the article on the warrant will probably propose allocating the $180,000, a split recommendation will be noted on the warrant, said Gould.

“It is expensive, but revaluation will eventually pay for itself,” Gould said Wednesday. However, waterfront property values will probably increase, he admitted.

Also discussed was a request by the Fire Department for a new pumper truck at a cost of $240,000. No money was allocated for the purchase, with both Finance Committee members and selectmen agreeing they want more information before committing to the expense, Gould said. A regionalization study is currently under way, and town officials would like to explore other options, he said.

The issue will most likely be addressed again next year “when we have all our ducks in a row,” Gould said. But if more problems arise with a recently problematic engine, it may come up sooner.

Both selectmen and Finance Committee members said this year’s joint budget meeting went smoothly, due in large part to last week’s meeting when department heads presented their requested budgets to officials. This was the first year department heads appeared before the committee during budget negotiations.

Selectman Russell Black said the discussion on the revaluation lasted almost 45 minutes, but everything else was “pretty much rubber-stamped” as a result of last week’s meeting.

It was his best year on the Finance Committee, said Dwight, who has served on the committee for three years.

The meeting took less than two hours, according Gould, who also praised the new process.