A public hearing on the recommended budget for the coming year in Bethel will be held on March 19th at 7pm at the Bethel Middle School Auditorium.  The recommended municipal budget is little more than $32-million.  The proposed Education portion of the spending plan is $46.4 million. 

The budget has a proposed increase in spending of 5.2 percent, but the tax increase is slightly less than half of that, at 2.49 percent.  The proposal includes new revenue to offset some of the tax increase, but the new debt for the police station and the school projects is leading to a lot of the increase. Almost 2 points of the increase is debt only.

Without the new debt, First Selectman Matt Knickerbocker says the tax change amounts to .6 percent.