The $1,149,134 town budget - an increase over the budget of $1,027,293 that was turned down at the revote in May by a 294 to 174 vote - was passed by a 183 to 169 margin.
"We were (the board) all very happy especially because it puts this behind us, which has been a real struggle, and it gives us more time to concentrate on next year's budget," said Select Board Chairman Chip Wright. "We're very happy that we have a little extra time to do that."
Wright said the town has a $167,000 surplus this year. Unlike in past years, that money will be applied to reduce the tax rate because of an article that voters approved at Town Meeting this year directing the select board to do so.
By applying the surplus, Danby's tax rate will decrease from 45 cents per hundred dollars of assessed property value to 38 cents per hundred, Wright said.
The budget includes $175,000 for repaving of the roads - something that was not performed last year due to Tropical Storm Irene.
There are two areas the town is planning to repair. One is on Tinmouth Road beginning at the Douglas White Farm to the Tinmouth town line - a 1.8 mile stretch. The other is a one-mile stretch on Danby-Pawlet Road beginning at Sargent Hill to the Pawlet town line, according to town documents.
In his presentation to the crowd of about 30 people who attended the special Town Meeting on Monday evening, Wright
However, in calculating a number of things in the budgets from the 2006-07 year to the 2010-11, Wright said that it resulted in a total surplus of $865,000 - money that seems to have gotten lost in the shuffle.
"Where is it? I don't know," said Wright. "I've been to a number of select board meetings where the question has been asked and I will say that the only answer that really came was from Janice (Arnold, the town clerk) and she said we used it to pay bills."
Wright continued to say that the missing money seemed to indicate a "very casual accounting of public funds" by both the select board and the people that work in the town office. However, he made it clear at the meeting that there was no evidence of deliberate wrongdoing by members of previous administrations.
How the board will proceed to address the subject of the missing funds is something Wright said they have not yet discussed, but conveyed the displeasure the issue has caused for board members.
"It's frustrating to a great many of us at this time to not be able to track that down," he said.
Wright along with William Gormley and George Stone are new additions to the select board this year. The other two members of the board - which was expanded from a three to a five member board in May - are Michael Blair and Margo Stone. Blair was most recently elected to the board in 2009. Margo Stone has served continuously on the board for more than a decade and had been serving as the chairman until after the revote in May.
Another point of contention for some residents was the union that currently exists for the road crew. A new three-year contract for the crew went into effect on Jan. 1 of this year and some residents at Monday's meeting expressed displeasure about being locked into a contract with a union. Though they are locked into the current contract for the next three years, Wright said they plan to examine other line items in the budget in an attempt to reduce expenditures.
SCHOOL BUDGET
The Danby School budget of $1,896,834 - the same budget that was presented at both the revote in May and Town Meeting in March - was approved by an overwhelming margin of 220 to 132.
In a previous interview, Superintendent of the Bennington-Rutland Supervisory Union (BRSU) Daniel French said that if voters were to approve the budget would result in a .29 cent reduction to the tax rate.
If voters had insisted that money be cut out of the school budget, transportation was the only line item where a reduction could have been made because the amount of money earmarked for special education and Burr and Burton Academy's tuition had already been approved. Making that change would result in reducing the southbound bus - something that has not received support in previous years.
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