DERBY – The Derby Board of Apportionment and Taxation approved a $53.1 million budget Tuesday (April 16) that raises the mill rate by 11.9 percent.
The budget goes into effect on July 1.
The new mill in Derby is 43.2 mills. That is 4.6 mills higher than the current mill rate of 38.6.
A single-family house on Hawthorne Avenue assessed at $112,000 will pay an additional $515 in property taxes.
A house on Sentinel Hill Road assessed at $220,150 will pay $1,000 more in taxes.
This is the first budget under Mayor Joseph DiMartino, who was elected in November.
Mayor DiMartino said there was no way around the tax increase because previous Derby budgets (under former Mayor Rich Dziekan) were built on bad financial forecasts and used the city’s fund balance – or reserves – to close budget deficits.
The 2023 – 2024 budget in place when he took office had a $2 million deficit because the city under-funded employee benefits, overestimated the tax collection rate, and didn’t budget for an increase in sanitation costs.
Derby used federal stimulus money to close the budget hole, and cut its pension contribution for one year by $500,000.
The mayor said the new budget, while painful, is honest and was built under the direction of a finance director, something that has not happened in Derby for two budget cycles.
“This is what we need to do,” he told members of the tax board.
Officials noted the city, because of budgeting errors and financial problems dating back to at least 2016, is under the eye of the state’s Municipal Finance Advisory Commission (MFAC).
That commission, composed of municipal finance experts, said in August 2023 they were not satisfied with the financial data coming from the Dziekan administration. They voted to give Derby a “tier 1” designation. The move made the MFAC meetings mandatory.
Officials from the DiMartino administration said the new budget keeps a potential state takeover of Derby finances at bay.
Tuesday’s budget adoption meeting was held in-person at Derby City Hall and carried online using Zoom.
While only one person from the public spoke during a recent public hearing on the budget, Tuesday’s meeting had lots of public input.
One resident whose name was not audible on Zoom called the city an embarrassment.
Gino DiGiovanni Jr., a former Alderman and current chairman of the Republican Town Committee, told the tax board he understood the tough spot Derby is in.
However, he noted the fix for the problem was a tax increase for Derby residents, one that could make the city too expensive to live in.
He repeatedly asked what concessions the city offered in the budget, referring to spending cuts. He said the pattern in Derby is for the government to run into trouble, and then the citizens have to fix the problems by paying more taxes.
He urged the board to look for places in the budget to reduce spending, noting year to year spending in the budget was way up.
“It looks like the burden is on the taxpayer,” DiGiovanni said.
Tax board members Mike Gray, Colleen Germain-Ezzo, and Tina Parelli-Silkoff said they scoured the budget for areas to reduce but could find none.
Germain-Ezzo noted the budget process started in January when city department leaders started meeting in public with the board.
Parelli-Silkoff said she thought the tax increase was ridiculous and lost sleep looking for ways to bring it down but came up empty.
Gray said no one wants to raise taxes – and conceded the tax hike might get him voted off the board in the next campaign cycle. But Gray said the budget has the chance to finally take Derby finances in the right direction.
Tax board member Isa Simmons-Derby said the board should wait another week before voting, but the suggestion was not supported.
Derby’s new, 2024 – 2025 budget totals $53.1 million. That is a 10.4 percent spending increase over the budget the tax board approved last year under Mayor Dziekan.
However, DiMartino administration officials said spending last year actually totaled $50.4 million, which makes the new budget a 5.4 percent spending increase.
The new budget allocates an additional $673,983 for Derby Public Schools, a 3.4 percent spending increase but well below the $1.2 million requested by the Derby Board of Education.
However, school board chairman Jim Gildea said the school district plans to use $235,000 from a‘non-lapsing fund’ established in 2019 to address the difference. That’s essentially a reserve fund of school money previously allocated by the city but not used by the schools.
In Derby, the city’s tax board takes separate votes on expenses, revenue and the mill rate.
The budget’s expenses were approved with seven ‘yes’ votes, one ‘no’ vote and one abstention.
The budget’s revenue was approved with seven yes notes, zero no votes and two abstentions.
The new mill rate was approved 7 – 0 with two absentions.
The meeting is posted below:
