Shelton Aldermen will adopt a 2012 – 2013 budget Tuesday (May 15) at a special meeting after they review changes to the spending plan over the weekend.
Mayor Mark Lauretti said after a regular Aldermen’s meeting Thursday that even though the economy continues to stall, it “hasn’t really been that bad of a budget year” because of diligent spending in years past and the city’s diverse tax base.
The result, Lauretti said: most homeowners will see their tax bills decrease, as the tax burden shifts toward Shelton’s more than $800 million in commercial and industrial properties.
So even though the mill rate for the budget Lauretti proposed in February would go up from the current rate of 18.57 mills nearly 18 percent to 21.85, on average, residents’ homes lost more than that in assessed value.
“The challenge this year is always revaluation because you don’t know how the shift is going to impact different sectors of our community,” the mayor said of this year’s budget preparations.
Even though businesses will shoulder more of the tax burden than they did before, residential properties in the city total $2.9 billion in assessed value, more than three times the amount of commercial and industrial real estate. The mayor said Shelton is still one of the most affordable places around for businesses.
Board of Aldermen President John Anglace said during the meeting that on Friday Aldermen will get copies of proposed changes so they can review them before Tuesday’s meeting, which the mayor said will be devoted exclusively to the budget.
Lauretti proposed a $113,346,754 budget in February that represented a year-over-year increase in spending of 1.3 percent.
In March, the Board of Apportionment and Taxation sent a budget to Aldermen $228,044 less than that, mainly because of last-minute adjustments in state grants.
Both budgets would result in the same mill rate.
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Smooth Sailing, So Far, For Proposed Shelton Budget.
