The Ansonia Board of Aldermen’s finance committee Jan. 29 endorsed a budget proposal for next year that carries a $2 million increase over the current budget.
It now moves to the full Board of Aldermen, whose members are scheduled to meet Feb. 12.
NOTE: The Blizzard of 2013 canceled the Feb. 12 Aldermen meeting. The city’s legislature is now scheduled to turn the proposed 2013 – 2014 budget over to the tax board Feb. 19.
The proposed budget for the 2013 – 2014 fiscal year totals $60,778,052. That is a 3.5 percent increase over the $58.6 million budget currently in place.
“It’s an austere budget. The Aldermen and department heads are doing the best then can to keep expenses down,” said Alderman David Knapp, who represents the city’s Seventh Ward.
The Board of Education — responsible for the largest single chunk of the overall budget — had requested a $1.8 million increase to run the schools next year.
Click here for a previous story detailing the school board’s request.
The school district has been battered in recent years as federal and state grants meant to bolster student performance have been disappearing. Last year the district laid off 24 staffers.
This year they’re having trouble working within their budget because of increased costs connected to kids with special needs — a huge costs the school never gets reimbursed to the extent it is supposed to be reimbursed by the feds.
In addition, the employee health insurance costs are on the increase, and so is unemployment costs for all those laid off workers.
However, the city can’t simply afford to give $1.8 million to the schools, Alderman Edward Adamowski, chairman of the Aldermen’s finance committee, said Wednesday.
Instead of $1.8 million, the finance committee recommended allocating a $540,0000 increase to Ansonia schools.
That is a 2 percent budget increase from this year and would bring the total school budget to $27,540,000.
Still in play for the schools — a potential $559,845 in additional school aid from the state. The fate of that money won’t be known until the state budget is finalized and that annual political firestorm only kicked off Wednesday.
The overall budget’s impact on the city’s mill rate isn’t known, according to the city’s comptroller’s office, because Ansonia is finalizing a state-mandated property revaluation.
“We ran a real tight budget this year, as we did last year,” Adamowski said. “With the economy the way it is, we’re making sure that nobody is over spending. We have a responsibility of not stripping the city of what it needs to run, but we also have a fiscal responsibility to the taxpayers not to bury them.”
The proposed budget is scheduled to land on the desks of the full Board of Aldermen during their monthly meeting scheduled for Tuesday, Feb. 12 Feb. 19.
Adamowski said he expects the Aldermen to unanimously endorse the spending plan Tuesday and send it to the Board of Apportionment and Taxation, whose members also meet Tuesday.
Adamowski’s finance committee held meetings with city department heads starting Jan. 9 to go over city funding requests for next year. He said the budget was a joint effort of Democrats and Republicans.
“There was bipartisan support. We all worked together well and there were absolutely no issues with the budget,” he said.
A public hearing on the budget will be scheduled on the budget in May, after deliberations by the tax board. Click here to see the Ansonia city calendar.
In Ansonia, the city’s tax board has the final say on the budget each year.
The Aldermen’s finance committee recommended budget includes spending cuts for city government, elections, flood control, fire marshal, the senior center, economic development and the assessor’s office, to name a few.
Some of those departments — city government, elections, flood control, the senior center — had actually requested less money for next year. The finance committee obliged.
The largest increase in the budget is slated for capital improvements, which is jumping to $1.2 million next year from $409,000 this year.
That money is being laid out on paper for the city’s river walk, but $800,000 is being returned from the state and is listed on the budget as revenue, Adamowski said.
“It shows up as a million, but the state gives us back $800,000, so it really only costs us about $200,000” Adamowski said.
The Ansonia Police Department would receive an additional $263,956 if the budget is approved as is.
“Most of that is contractual obligations, (and for) two police cars to replace old cars. We’re not asking for anything special,” Ansonia Police Chief Chief Kevin Hale said.
The document below was distributed by Ansonia City Hall Tuesday evening:
Ansonia Budget, Alderman Finance Committee Level by ValleyIndyDotOrg
