ANSONIA – A referendum is scheduled for Friday, April 25 on the proposed city and school budgets.
Voting hours are at the Ansonia Armory (5 State St.) from 6 a.m. to 8 p.m. Voters will be asked the following two questions:
Shall the city portion of the budget, as recommended by the board of aldermen of $30,053,120 for the fiscal year 2026 be adopted?
Shall the board of education portion of the budget, as recommended by the board of aldermen, $39,560,719 for the City of Ansonia for the fiscal year 2026 be adopted?
Voters will also be able to vote “too high” or “too low” on each of the proposed budgets.
Click here to read the city’s proposed budget. Click here to read about the Aldermen’s vote to send the budget to referendum.
Voters will decide on each of the budgets (city and school) separately. If both budgets pass, the city will adopt them for the fiscal year beginning July 1. Any budget that’s rejected goes back to the Aldermen for revisions.
Absentee ballots are available for pickup from the town and city clerk’s office at city hall, according to Democratic Registrar of Voters John Feddern. All absentee ballots must be filled out and returned to that office by Friday.
Budget Details And Property Tax Bills
The budget includes a mill rate increase of 29.62 mills. That’s a 3.13 mill increase from the current mill rate of 26.49 mills. That is a mill rate increase of about 11.8 percent.
If voters approve the budget, a single-family home on Holbrook Street assessed at $180,000 would pay $563.40 more next year in taxes.
A house on Gardners Lane assessed at $248,000 would pay $776.24 more next year.
A house on High Acres Road assessed at $366,000 would pay $1,145.58 more next year.
Members of Mayor David Cassetti’s administration said the proposed budget includes a decrease in the motor vehicle mill rate from 32.46 mills to 29.62 mills. That’s an approximate nine percent decrease.
Members of the administration have said the budget is a tax cut for renters who don’t pay property tax. However, speakers at a recent public hearing on the budget said car tax bills are much smaller than property tax bills. They said the car tax cut doesn’t cancel out the mill rate increase.
City Budget Up 1.8 Percent
The budget includes city-side spending of $30,053,120, an increase of $526,027 from the current year. That’s a 1.8 percent increase.
The biggest city-side increase is an 8.7 percent increase in employee benefits and pensions. The budget includes $6,672,602, which is $536,475 more than the current year.
The budget includes $6,670,783 for the police department. That’s a $253,215 increase, or 3.9 percent more than the current year.
It also includes a budget cut for public works. Public works is budgeted at $5,121,179. That’s a decrease of $243,731, or 4.5 percent. Most of the decrease is to the curbside trash pickup budget.
School Budget Up 5.3 Percent
Meanwhile, the school budget allocation totals $39,560,719. That’s an increase of $1,984,507 from this year, or 5.3 percent.
The largest increase is a $1,045,744, or 40.5 percent increase, in student transportation costs. Board of education president Richard Bshara said in March that past budgets haven’t included enough for transportation costs, and that the district consistently overspends its budget as a result.
It also includes a $549,763 increase for school salaries across the board. That’s a 2.9 percent increase over the current budget.
Click here for a previous story about the school budget.
School boards in other cities have also said that special education and out-of-district transportation costs are becoming unmanageable. Click here for a story from Derby. Click here for a statewide story from CT Mirror.
Why Is There A Referendum – And What Happens If The Budget Is Rejected?
The budget requires referendum approval because of charter changes proposed by Mayor David Cassetti’s administration and approved by voters in 2015. The charter requires voter approval for any budget with an increase in ‘net taxes to be collected’ of more than 3 percent.
‘Net taxes to be collected’ refers to the total amount of tax dollars the city anticipates collecting in the year. That number can change based on the mill rate, changes in the city’s grand list, and other factors.
The budget includes $41,289,085 in net taxes to be collected. That’s an increase of about 9 percent, compared to the $37,864,585 in the most recent budget.
This is the first budget to require referendum approval since the charter changes were made.
If voters reject a budget, the Aldermen would then make revisions and send it to another referendum. The cycle will continue until one of two things happens. Voters could approve the budget. Alternatively, the Aldermen could make cuts so that the ‘net taxes to be collected’ increases by less than three percent, in which case it could be adopted without another referendum.
If no budget is approved by June 20, the charter says the city must send out tax bills based on the previous year’s mill rate. That mill rate in Ansonia is currently 26.49 mills.
However, once a budget is approved, the city would then send out a second bill. That second bill would collect the difference between what taxpayers already paid, and what they owe under the new mill rate.
Ansonia Corporation Counsel John Marini said at an April 21 meeting that budget meetings and referendums will be held every other week until a budget is adopted. If voters reject the current proposed budget, then another public hearing and budget meeting will be held May 5. A second referendum would be held May 9.