Which town had the highest tax increase?
Who spends the most on schools?
Why is the sky blue?
Ok, we can’t answer that last question, but we DID crunch the budget numbers from all five Valley towns to give you answers to the first two — and more.
Budgets, Budgets, Budgets
It was a long budget season.
Most towns proposed their budgets in February, and then fine tuned the proposals over the following three months.
One town — Seymour — finally has a budget after voters approved its Board of Education budget at a fourth referendum last week.
The local strategies varied.
Shelton Mayor Mark A. Lauretti presented a spending plan with no increase — leaving the tax board and the Board of Aldermen to determine if more money was needed.
The strategy resulted in hoards of parents fighting for more school money. The schools budget was left at a $95,000 increase over the current year, which will mean more than 100 positions will be eliminated.
In Ansonia, city leaders did the opposite: They started off high, and left it up to the tax board to whittle down the proposal.
When the Ansonia Board of Aldermen passed the budget proposal on to the Board of Apportionment and Taxation in February, it had an 8.4 percent tax increase attached.
The tax board trimmed the proposal down to a 1.98 percent tax increase instead.
Ansonia residents also were active in the process, packing hearing rooms and workshop meetings on the budget.
In Oxford, the process was punctuated by a relative calm. The budget passed on its first vote.
The big issue in Oxford ended up being whether the town should fund a new roof for Great Oak Middle School. Voters said yes, the town should.
In Derby, the school district received $850,000 less from the city than expected. Parents came out late in the process, urging the tax board to allocate more money.
Education Funding
The hot topic in most towns centered on education funding.
Like in Shelton, parents in Ansonia, Derby and Seymour came out fighting for more money.
Ansonia schools received $500,000 more than the current budget, when the Board of Education had requested an increase of $1.25 million.
The smaller increase means three tutors, a custodian and four classroom aides will be cut from the Ansonia school budget. Three teachers currently on special assignment will be reassigned to classrooms. An assistant principal who currently oversees alternative education at Ansonia High School will be shared with Ansonia Middle School next year.
Ansonia athletic programs will also face cuts, but exactly what has not been identified by the district yet.
In Shelton, the district proposed a ‘Pay to Play’ program to help keep athletic programs in tact there.
Shelton will eliminate more than 100 positions — including teachers, paraprofessionals, and tutors. Some of those positions will be freed up due to early retirements, but most will come from non-renewal and layoffs.
In Derby, the school board avoided layoffs by rearranging budgets, hiring a part-time nurse instead of a full-time nurse and bringing forward $60,000 worth of utility cost savings from this year.
The district had warned that underfunding its budget would mean job losses and program cuts, but it was also able to salvage full-day kindergarten programs too.
Seymour’s school budget — at $29.1 million — was the only one in the Valley to remain flat. (Although Shelton parents argued that with only a $95,000 increase, their school budget was essentially flat.)
The Seymour Board of Education, in an attempt to get voters to pass the zero-increase budget at its fourth referendum, said it would not replace five retiring teachers and two non-certified staff members.
Comparison
As cohesive as the Valley is, the five towns are each vastly different. Therefore, it’s hard to make apples-to-apples comparisons in budget numbers.
The Valley Indy presents these charts based on the most level comparisons possible: Percentages spent on schools, per-person spending and total dollar increase in taxes on a $200,000 assessed home.
Here’s a summary of the data in these charts: Derby citizens will see the biggest increase in their taxes, Oxford spends the biggest portion of its budget on education and Ansonia spends the most money per-person.
The following is a summary of the final budgets for each Valley town:
Ansonia
Total Budget: $57.63 million
Education portion: $32.10 million
Municipal portion: $25.53 million
Tax Rate: 25.75 mills
Tax bill increase: 1.98 percent
For a full list of articles on the Ansonia budget, click here.
Derby
Total Budget: $34.90 million
Education portion: $17.7 million
Municipal portion: $17.3 million
Tax Rate: 27.4 mills
Tax bill increase: 3.78 percent
For a full list of articles on the Derby budget, click here.
Oxford
Total Budget: $38.60 million
Education portion: $25.40 million
Municipal portion: $13.20 million
Tax Rate: 21.07 mills
Tax bill increase: 3.08 percent
For a full list of articles on the Oxford budget, click here.
Seymour
Total Budget: $49.4 million
Education portion: $29.1 million
Municipal portion: $20.25 million
Tax Rate: 26.78 mills
Tax bill increase: 3.79 percent
For a full list of articles on the Seymour budget, click here.
Shelton
Total Budget: $111.30 million
Education portion: $63.10 million
Municipal portion: $48.2 million
Tax Rate: 18.61 mills
Tax bill increase: 0 percent
For a full list of articles on the Shelton budget, click here.
