Ansonia Aldermen on Tuesday (April 14) unanimously approved a 2015 – 2016 budget that will deliver a tax decrease to residents for the second year in a row.
By The Numbers
The budget’s bottom line is $62,395,098, up $1,009,775, or about 1.65 percent, from 2014 – 2015.
The mill rate will be 37.52, down from 38.61.
That’s a decrease of 1.09 mills, or 2.82 percent.
So on a house assessed at $150,000, property taxes would decrease $163.50.
Article continues after summary of the budget.
Tuesday marked the first time in at least a century that the Aldermen have set the tax rate.
Since 1905, the appointed members of the tax board would have the final say on the budget, after getting a recommended spending plan from Aldermen.
Voters approved a 2013 charter change reversing the roles of the boards in the budget process.
Schools
The spending plan means an increase of $1,155,888 for the city’s school district, for a bottom line of $30,053,095, up roughly 4 percent.
The school board had requested an increase of about $1,901,931, saying that’s the increase it needed to avoid staff cuts.
Mayor David Cassetti recommended the increase Aldermen endorsed Tuesday when he unveiled his own budget proposal in February.
William Nimons, the school board’s president, who also serves as the city’s finance director, said after the meeting that the budget will mean some layoffs because of the shortfall.
“There will be some reallocation of resources and there will be a couple layoffs,” Nimons said.
“There’s nothing we can do about it,” he went on. “We have contractual obligations and we’re doing the best we can.”
Nimons said the school board will likely decide what adjustments to make at their regular meeting May 6.
Comments
Cassetti told Aldermen Tuesday that the budget is “fiscally sound and financially prudent” and fulfills a promise he made to voters when he took office in 2013.
“If I were to ask each and every one of our Ansonia residents to list out their priorities, lowering taxes would be at the top of their list,” Cassetti said. “Since I was elected, I have made that a mandate.”
The budget garnered a handful of comments from the public and other officials Tuesday.
Benz Street resident Michael Egan thanked Aldermen for the modest tax decrease, but said the school district’s increase was too high.
Jared Heon, the director of Ansonia Rescue Medical Services, which will receive an increase of $15,455, said the ARMS budget is “leaner than we’ve ever been before.”
That’s fine, he said, but he asked Aldermen to support replacing one of the ARMS ambulances in a five-year citywide capital plan.
ARMS has had its own plan since 2010, he said, and requested the new ambulance the past two years without success.
City officials are still hammering out details of the long-term capital plan, which tentatively totals about $32 million — including how to fund it. They are eyeing a bonding referendum on the November election ballot for a good chunk of the money.
Nimons said after Tuesday’s meeting a new ARMS ambulance has been included in the draft of the city’s capital outlay for 2016.
Discussion?
Discussion among Aldermen centered on the budget’s use of $2 million from the city’s fund balance as revenue.
Last year, the city used $550,000 from the fund balance as revenue. The mayor and others have said the fund balance was unnecessarily high.
First Ward Alderman Edward Adamowski asked how long the city could continue doing so.
“How long can we withstand year after year after year of constantly taking from our reserve to supplement the budget that we are spending?” he asked.
If not for the fund balance money, the mill rate would have gone up about 3 mills on Cassetti’s watch, he said.
“Where is our long-term planning to when we’re going to stop using money that’s been saved and funding our budget and start working on what we need to, and bringing business into the city of Ansonia?” he asked.
The city’s corporation counsel, John Marini, rose to respond, agreeing with Adamowski that the city can’t rely on the general fund for revenue year after year.
“The reality is, where we are right now, where the history of the budget falls the last 10 years, we’re in a position where we can leverage the general fund to get tax relief,” he said. “Is it a long-term plan going into the future? Of course not.”
Marini summarized some of the city’s economic development efforts under Cassetti’s administration, from an agreement to begin demolition at the Ansonia Copper and Brass property downtown to the Farrel Corp.‘s move to the Fountain Lake industrial park.
“That’s the plan,” he said. “We’re getting more business, we’re getting more tax revenue.”
