The Cape Elizabeth Town Council voted unanimously to approve the $27.4 million town budget on Monday, May 9. The projected tax rate is $15.92 per thousand dollars of assessed valuation, up 3.77 percent from this year.

The proposed budget has changed since the public hearing two weeks ago. A new state-imposed cap on local property taxes had resulted in a $17,000 reduction in the municipal budget. The state tax cap could not be calculated until now because the town’s valuation, taken as of April 1, had not been completely determined.

The $17,000 reduction, taken from the roadway drainage account, changes the municipal budget increase to 3.08 percent, down from the 3.3 percent cap imposed by the Town Council.

The Town Council’s vote comes two weeks after a public hearing on the budget. The School Board had asked the Town Council to hold the vote two weeks following the hearing, which only produced two speakers, to allow citizens time to respond – in the past the public hearing and the vote had occurred on the same night.

Since the hearing the Town Council has received a handful of e-mails questioning the 3.3 percent cap the council imposed on the budget, the same concern raised by one of the speakers at the hearing two weeks before. The responses did not change the minds of councilors, who defended their budget and decision to cap spending.

Before the vote Town Manager Michael McGovern presented a set of benchmarks that compared Cape Elizabeth with nine other local communities, including Falmouth, Yarmouth, Freeport, Windham, South Portland, Brunswick, Cumberland and Gorham. Cape Elizabeth ranked lowest in benchmarks such as full value tax rate, expenditure as percentage of valuation and spending on public safety per capita. Cape Elizabeth also ranked first in instruction as a percentage of school expenditure.