CORRECTION: The Valley Indy has been reporting that a referendum in Ansonia is required if a mill rate increase totals three percent or more. THIS IS WRONG.

Ansonia City Corporation Counsel John Marini and Ansonia Economic Development Director Sheila O’Malley told The Valley Indy on April 8 that a referendum is triggered if the budget approved by the Ansonia Board of Aldermen represents an increase of three percent or more in net taxes to be collected from the previous year’s budget.

The Valley Indy regrets the error.

April 8, 2025

ANSONIA – In a robocall sent to city residents Feb. 24 to clear up confusion about new sewer bills, Mayor David Cassetti said the sale of the city’s sewer system last year prevented a “massive” 10-mill increase.

However, that number is 49 percent larger than the mill rate increase the administration cited last year when officials lobbied the public to support the sale of the Ansonia Water Pollution Control Authority for $41 million.

In a presentation created in April 2024 by budget director Kurt Miller, Miller estimated that the city would need to raise the tax rate by 6.75 mills if the WPCA wasn’t sold. Elected officials then presented that number to residents in a public hearing on the sale.

A Q&A document prepared by the city afterward said the sale would keep the mill rate “low for the foreseeable future,” but it does not attach a number to that claim.

It’s not clear why the administration opted to pad the potential tax increase in a robocall two months after the sale closed and the buyer, Aquarion, took over.

Miller said Feb. 25 that he did not provide the mayor’s office with a 10-mill increase for Cassetti’s script.

However, he also said he understood how they got there.

In his robocall, Cassetti also said selling the WPCA “has helped ratepayers avoid the cost of $15 million in imminent plant repairs.”

The $15 million repair cost estimate comes from a 2019 regionalization study.

Miller said the 10-mill increase makes sense if the $15 million in repairs was financed directly by Ansonia’s budget, where a 1 mill increase equals about $1.2 million to $1.3 million.

“You could make the argument that that’s equivalent to raising 10 mills,” he said.

But the city almost certainly would have borrowed the money for a $15 million project instead of paying for it out of an operating budget, like the city did previously for major WPCA repairs.

In addition, mill rates that large would have triggered referendums. The city has to go to voters for any increase above three percent.

Ansonia WPCA users were already paying an extra $230 paying off those past repair bills.

Had the city not sold the WPCA, that extra fee would have gone up – along with some level of mill rate increases. That’s what city officials told the public in the runup to the sale.

That extra fee is gone under Aquarion ownership. The city’s remaining debt from the last round of repairs was paid off using $14 million from the sale proceeds.

However, the first bill from Aquarion caused confusion and anger – at least on social media, where people started asking why their WPCA bills were going up. They had been told repeatedly that bills would not go up after the sale.

The mayor’s robocall was meant to clear that up:

“Please be aware that your total annual cost for sewer THIS year should be about the SAME as it was LAST year. This is thanks to the Rate STABILIZATION Fund established for the benefit of ratepayers.

However, it appears that many residents are relying on misinformation and calculated their new sewer rate by multiplying their very FIRST Aquarion bill by 12. This MISTAKE will make it appear that your bill is much higher than it really is!!

The first Aquarion bill covers a period of 44 days, and is therefore HIGHER than future bills will be.

To determine your REAL annual sewer cost, just take your SECOND Aquarion bill and multiply it by 10 ½ months.

Using the SECOND bill, you will see that your annual cost for sewer this year is roughly the SAME as it was last year.”


People with additional questions about their WPCA bills should call the mayor at 203-736-5900 ext. 1.