The Derby tax board is mulling a budget that would raise taxes by about 1.2 percent.
The 11-person board 10-person board is scheduled to adopt a preliminary budget for 2014 – 2015 at a meeting scheduled for 7 p.m. Tuesday, May 6 in the Aldermanic Chambers on Derby City Hall’s second floor.
A public hearing will then be scheduled.
At a meeting of the tax board Tuesday, elected officials reviewed a proposed spending plan totaling $38,315,422. That total dollar amount is roughly a $1 million increase in spending over the $37.2 million budget adopted last May.
If the tax board adopted the budget it reviewed Tuesday, the mill rate would increase by .43 mills, to 35.77.
The current mill rate is 35.34.
A single-family house assessed at $105,000 would see a property tax increase of roughly $45.
Mayor Anita Dugatto is recommending a $38.2 million budget with a slightly lower tax rate increase of .39 mills.
(To calculate your possible tax increase, take the latest assessment of your house, multiply the dollar amount by the current mill rate of 35.34 and divide by 1,000. That will give you your current tax bill. Repeat the process using the proposed mill rate of 35.77 to get your new tax bill. Subtract the two numbers to see the increase.)
Readers should note the numbers are not final and could change in the next few days — but they are taken directly from the documents distributed to the tax board at Tuesday’s meeting.
Article continues after a summary of the proposal.
Questions
The tax board has been working on a proposed budget since February.
On Tuesday, tax board member Sam Pollastro questioned why the budget included a raise for the city’s new director of public works and the town clerk, saying such decisions should be approved first by the Derby Board of Aldermen.
Pollastro and tax board member Carlo Malerba also questioned a $29,000 line item Dugatto wants to use to pay a “community engagement” employee in her office. The position is still under review by the Aldermen and various subcommittees, Malerba pointed out.
The money for the raises and the community engagement employee were put aside in the budget under the city’s “special working balance.”
The tax board is considering allocating $16,583,315 for Derby Public Schools — an approximate 2.6 increase over the district’s current budget.
The school board requested $16.6 million, or a 2.9 percent increase. Click here for a previous story detailing the school district’s funding request.
However, the tax board allocation could change by Tuesday, as school and city officials are discussing how to assign workers’ compensation costs in the budget.
Is This Transparent?
No members of the public attended Tuesday’s meeting.
Just before the meeting started, tax board member Judy Szewczyk gave a reporter from the Valley Indy a copy of the documents being reviewed in order to follow the conversation during the meeting. It was an extra copy, since one tax board member is on vacation.
However, Tom Thompson, Derby’s finance director, said the documents would have to be returned because he only made enough copies for members of the tax board.
Thompson declined to make an additional copy, telling a reporter copies could be made available the day after the meeting.
Thompson said the reporter should have told him he was coming to the meeting, as a professional courtesy, and an additional copy would have been prepared.
The documents were not returned.
Thompson’s conditions on civic engagement are curious, in an era of government “transparency,” as the documents were offered by an elected official.
The state’s Freedom of Information Act gives the public the right to prompt access to inspect or copy public records.
The Freedom of Information Act states requests for copies should be made in writing.
The state’s Freedom of Information Act prohibits anyone from placing any conditions on anyone seeking to attend a public meeting.
Meanwhile, Pollastro, a tax board member, questioned whether Tuesday’s meeting was legally noticed.
The tax board was initially scheduled to adopt a 2014 – 2015 budget at Tuesday’s meeting. The agenda changed at some point prior to Tuesday.
Pollastro asked whether the new agenda was legally noticed for the public. Both Thompson and tax board chairman Jim Butler said it was.
The Valley Indy confirmed this Wednesday. A stamp on the meeting’s agenda in Derby City Hall showed the meeting was posted in Derby City Hall at 10:38 a.m. Monday.
No Minutes Filed
However, there were no meeting minutes of any kind available at the Derby Town Clerk’s office as of 11 a.m. Wednesday (April 30) for any of the tax board budget meetings dating back to February.
The minutes were missing for at least five public meetings.
According to the state’s Freedom of Information Act, the minutes should have been filed within seven days of each meeting.
No one appeared to be taking minutes at Tuesday’s meeting, and the meeting was not recorded because there was no more room on cassette tapes city officials often use to tape meetings.
Minutes were available in the Derby Town Clerk’s Office for the tax board’s regularly scheduled monthly meetings, but not for any of the budget “workshops.”
State law defines a public meeting as any hearing or proceeding by a public agency to discuss or act on any matter which it has authority. State law does not make exemptions for “budget workshops.”
A “budget workshop” is a meeting.
From state law (emphasis added): “A public meeting is ANY hearing OR OTHER PROCEDURE of a public agency, or gathering of, or communication by or to a quorum … TO DISCUSS or act on ANY matter over which it has authority.”
Thomas Hennick, the public information officer for the the Connecticut Freedom of Information Commission, said minutes must be kept, regardless of what Derby calls its meeting.
Ansonia posts meeting minutes from budget workshops.
Seymour posts meeting minutes from budget workshops.
Shelton posts meeting minutes from budget workshops.
Derby’s budget proposal is posted below.
