DERBY – It looks like residents will see an increase in their property taxes, but not quite as high as initially presented.

The current mill rate in the City of Derby is 43.2 mills.

Mayor Joseph DiMartino presented a proposed $51.3 million budget to the Derby Board of Apportionment and Taxation March 10 that would have set the mill rate at 39.1. That’s a 9.5 percent decrease in the mill rate.

At a tax board meeting March 24, Derby Finance Director Brian Hall unveiled a new potential mill rate of 38.86.

Hall said the city’s insurance company had predicted a 13.5 percent increase. Since the mayor presented March 10, the insurance company shaved its increase to an 11.5 percent increase, approximately.

The city is also expecting a little more money from telecommunications companies. Each year companies such as Verizon and Frontier make “payments in lieu of local property taxes,” which government officials call “PILOT” payments.

Derby is forecasting a $63,000 increase in PILOT payments from telecommunication companies.

In all, about $180,000 in savings has been found in the budget since the mayor first presented it March 10.

As of March 24, the proposed mill rate in the budget was 38.86. 

The budget this year is being put together with new assessment figures thanks to a state-mandated reevaluation.

The average property assessment increased in Derby by 60 percent (please note officials said this percentage was adjusted from 61 percent). The new mill rate means that the average property tax bill will increase by .75 percent next year. The increase when the mayor first unveiled the budget was 1.4 percent.

The city is phasing in the new assessments over five years.

“Due to the approved phase-in, only 20 percent of the 60 percent increase (12 percent year on year Grand List increase) will be utilized in the 26-27 budget and applied to the 26-27 budget mill rate of 38.86,” Hall wrote in an email to The Valley Indy.

However, the mill rate and the budget as a whole is not final until the members of the tax board vote to adopt it. The Derby City Charter says that has to happen by the end of April.


Visit the Derby city calendar to find out when the tax board meets.