Milford voters held one of their shortest annual town meetings in recent memory, with all warrant articles passing in less than 90 minutes.

According to Town Manager Dawn Adams, the town side of the budget was wrapped up in 22 minutes, with just one question asked. Only a few questions were raised about the school budget, and the one motion to amend, which would have cut the school line item by $125,000, failed. The meeting was lightly attended, with just 53 residents in attendance, with that number including three members of the school committee and four members of the board of selectmen.

The quiet meeting no doubt was because residents had the rare opportunity to vote on a budget that lowered their taxes. The town’s total budget for fiscal year 2015 will be about $7.9 million; while the school portion of the budget is up slightly (– about $24,000 – the town side, which is for $3.02 million, is down by roughly $276,000 from the current fiscal year.

Based on preliminary valuation figures, Adams recently said that would mean a projected mil rate of $16.75 per thousand dollars of valuation, or 50 cents less than this year.

Adams added that the main reason for the lesser budget was due almost entirely to one item – the lack of a need to repeat a $234,000 payment for the Milford dam that was included last year after an agreement was reached with the dam’s owner for a lesser valuation.

The budget allows the town office to have a staffer who currently works 16 hours a week at the town office become a full-time employee. As a result, the town office will be open five days a week once again; it has only been open Tuesday-Friday since 2010.

On the school side of the budget a part-time foreign language teacher is being brought on board – a position the school did not have previously – and the hours of the art teacher are being increased slightly.