§ 703-12. Annual budget, apportionment, assessment, taxes

(a) The Board of Water Commissioners of the District shall at each annual meeting present to the District its budget for the ensuing year, which shall include an estimate of the revenue from water rates and other sources, except taxes and the expenses for the ensuing year, and the District shall appropriate such sum as it deems necessary for such of said expenses as are not disapproved, which disapproval may not include interest on or principal of any indebtedness created or assumed by the District, together with the amount required to pay any balance left unpaid from the preceding year as will not be met from such estimated revenues, expressing said sum in dollars in its vote.

(b) The Board of Water Commissioners may add any expense in excess of revenue to the next year's budget. In which case it may not be disapproved, provided that such expense shall not be so included to an amount greater than 20 percent of such budget except to the extent a larger amount can be included, as determined by the Board, without increasing the rates charged by the District. Any such excess which is not so included shall be divided among the member towns as follows:  one-third of such excess, or all of such excess until the water system has been in operation for at least one full calendar year, shall be divided among the member towns in the proportion which the population of each such town according to the last national census bears to the total population of the District, and the balance of such excess shall be divided among the member towns in the proportion which the total number of gallons sold by the District for distribution in each member town bears to the total number of gallons so sold for distribution in all the member towns in the calendar year in which the excess arose. Where one or more municipalities maintaining public water systems (the "contained municipalities") lie within a member town (the "containing town"), the following rules shall apply:

(1) A share based on population shall be computed for the containing town but not for any of the contained municipalities;

(2) Shares based on gallonage shall be computed as if each contained municipality were a separate member town and as if the territory of the contained municipalities were excluded from the territory of the containing town.

(c) The legislative branch of each member town shall, upon receipt of the notice of the shares of the District expenses to be paid by the member town, assess upon the grand list of such member town, in addition to any tax previously voted thereon, a tax sufficient to raise the member town's shares in such expenses. Where there are contained municipalities, the taxes to raise the population share of the containing town shall be assessed and collected by the containing town on a town-wide basis, and the taxes to raise the gallonage shares of the contained municipalities and of the containing town shall be assessed and collected by the containing town, but the territory of each contained municipality and the remaining territory of the containing town shall be treated as separate taxing Districts for the purpose of raising their respective gallonage shares. The taxes assessed under this act shall be collected as are other taxes of the assessing Town and be deposited in the account of the assessing town. The legislative branch of the assessing town shall order the additional taxes to be paid over to the Treasurer of the District as collected by the 20th of the month after such taxes become payable. If by the end of its fiscal year a member Town has failed to collect and pay over to the Treasurer of the District a sum sufficient to pay the member's population or gallonage share of the expenses of the District, or the gallonage share of any contained municipality, the legislative branch of such member town shall assess a special tax of five percent on the applicable grand list, or such multiple thereof as is necessary to make up the unpaid balance of said share, which special taxes shall be collected as are other taxes of the assessing town. Upon the collection of said special taxes, the same shall be paid over to the Treasurer of the District. If by the end of its fiscal year a member town fails to pay any population or gallonage share of expenses of the District which it was to have collected, or fails to make up a deficit therein from the preceding year as above provided, the Board of Water Commissioners of the District may bring an action of contract on this statute in the name of the District to recover of the member town twice the amount due from it which remains unpaid, and upon judgment may levy its execution against any of the real or personal property within the town or the applicable taxing District as the case may be. (Added 1971, No. 135, § 12; amended 1971, No. 266 (Adj. Sess.), §§ 4 and 5.)