Ansonia Tax Board Chairman Responds To Guest Column, Clarifies Mill Rate

The Valley Indy received this submission Monday morning in response to a guest column authored by Republican Alderman Charles Stowe.

Yes, on May 13, 2013 BOAT held a Public Hearing on the 2013-2014 budget.

ALL of the public comment was in regard to the underfunding of the BOE budget.

BOE always seems to be ready for these public hearings.

For three years now, I have been asking BOA members to get their constituents to come out in support of keeping taxes down.

NOT ONE person spoke about “not raising taxes”. We usually get two or three.

Yes, there were several Aldermen present. NOT ONE Alderman chose to speak.

Yes, we unanimously approved the TENTATIVE budget.

We ALWAYS approve the tentative budget at this time. It is REQUIRED.

It is not the SAME budget that the Aldermen approved.

We had made some cuts and some additions, although yes, the BOE budget had remained untouched.

On May 16, 2013, as previously scheduled, we held our final budget meeting to discuss changes that we might want to make after considering comments/information from the public hearing.

We had already spent an entire evening taking public comment.

However, any BOA members would have been asked to join in our discussion, just as with our entire budget process this year.

We did approve an additional $460,000 for the BOE. We also made changes to several revenue lines totaling $200,000 and approved the use of $100,000 from the Reserve funds to reduce the effect of the BOE increase.

This is NOT the first time changes have occurred between setting the TENTATIVE budget and the FINAL budget.

This is NOT the first time such changes have been for the BOE. And yes, there have been many times when no changes have occurred.

WE did NOT raise the mill rate from 27.65 to 39.15.

That is a ridiculous statement!

The changes from the 2012-2013 budget to the 2013-2014 budget raise the mill rate to 29.74 under the old valuation — a 2.09 increase.

It is the revaluation that changes this to 39.34.

Richard Sturges
The writer is the chairman of the Ansonia Board of Apportionment and Taxation.