Photo By Bill Bittar
Ansonia officials listening to the public at the senior center Thursday.
ANSONIA — City Aldermen approved a $56.6 million budget with a tax-rate increase of .48 mills following a hearing at Joseph A. Doyle Senior Center Thursday night.
The new tax rate is 37.8 mills.
A single-family house assessed at $150,000 — the city’s average — will see a tax bill increase of $75.The impact on the tax bill depends on the property assessment. Lower-valued houses could see a tax increase of $30. Houses with higher assessments could see a tax bill increase of $200, according to meeting minutes from a budget workshop.
“This is a fiscally responsible budget for the best interest of the city, long term,” said Lorie Vaccaro, president of the Board of Aldermen. “It is a lean budget, a very lean budget, which trims the fat. The mill rate is still lower than six years ago.”
The Board of Alderman passed the budget by a vote of 8 to 3, with Aldermen Philip M. Tripp, Richard Joseph Kaslaitis and Charlie Stowe voting no.
Stowe acknowledged the work of both the boards and the mayor, but said the city was spending too much money.
“I can’t support a tax increase,” Stowe said.
It’s the first time Ansonia elected officials have voted to increase taxes since Mayor David Cassetti took office.
Several residents who spoke at the hearing pleaded with the board not to raise their taxes, including Chris Perry, a former Marine and current member of the Connecticut National Guard who just returned from his third deployment in Iraq.
Perry, who supports a family of six, was hit hard by last year’s revaluation, which raised the property assessment of his Wakelee Avenue home by about $50,000, resulting in a tax increase of $301 a month, he said.
Perry said the new city budget will mean another $91 $9 a month in taxes. NOTE: Perry misspoke and corrected his tax bill in a Facebook post.
“I would rather save the money in a college fund for my two boys,” he said.
The budget allocates $32.1 million for education (including state aid), a small increase from the school district’s 2018 – 2019 adjusted budget. The school board had requested $37.7 million for next year.
Several residents complained over the lateness of the mayor’s budget proposal and the resulting shorter time for public scrutiny.
Steve Erlingheuser noted how the budget was not submitted until April, though the city charter sets that deadline for February. He also called the $30,000 paid to Seymour First Selectman Kurt Miller as a budget consultant was a “waste of money.”
“Our mayor is too lazy, then he throws Kurt Miller under the bus when its late,” Erlingheuser said.
Bryan Sorek wondered why Cassetti did not attend the budget hearing.
“He’s supposed to be here,” Sorek said. “I don’t see him. That is a disgrace and taxpayers should be angry.”
Tarek Raslan, the chairman of the Democratic Town Committee who lost to Cassetti in the mayoral race two years ago, echoed criticism over violating the charter. He also complained of conflicting budget information.
For instance, the city said the reserve was 7.1 percent, but Miller had a different figure, according to Raslan.
“We need to have confidence that the information we’re given is accurate,” Raslan said.
As noted by the public, Ansonia hired Miller as a budget consultant to help the finance department create the new spending plan.
Miller advised Ansonia to work toward stabilizing taxes over the long term, and to stop relying on using the city’s fund balance to prevent mill-rate increases, according to minutes from the June 12 meeting of the tax board and the Aldermen’s finance committee.
The fund balance strategy had worked, Miller and “Team Cassetti” members said, because zero-percent tax increases helped to attract commercial entities to Ansonia and grow the grand list.
But Miller said continuing the practice could drain the fund balance or result in a bond-rating downgrade, according to meeting minutes.
Instead, Miller suggested a formula that was instituted in Seymour: small mill rate increases, coupled with a long-term fiscal and organizational plan for the city.
Miller was elected First Selectman in 2011. The town hasn’t had a tax increase in four years.
Miller said it could take Ansonia two or three years reach a mill rate not bolstered with fund balance money.
The budget approved Thursday starts the process.
“It is not a clean break from (relying on fund balance), it’s probably going to take two more budgets to get you completely off that,” Miller said June 12.
In addition, Miller advised Ansonia to identify “structural inefficiencies” within the local government. That includes talking about regionalizing services with other towns, such as libraries, senior centers, or building departments.
During that same June 12 meeting, Rich Bshara, the city’s assistant comptroller, said Ansonia’s fund balance was about $5.3 million last June. About $1 million of it went to the school district to resolve a well-documented funding dispute, and $300,000 went to a project on Prospect Street.
The city expects to close this fiscal year with a fund balance of about $4.3 million, Bshara said, according to meeting minutes, which is right around the 8 percent mark bean counters like to see.
Bshara also explained why this year’s budget was unveiled so late in the fiscal year compared to previous budget cycles.
He said while the city usually gets a first look at a budget around January or February, the well-publicized school district lawsuit was clouding the financial picture. Information about state aid and insurance costs were also unknown early in the year.
Bshara indicated a budget unveiled at that time might have carried a rather speculative 1.5 to 2 mill tax rate increase, which would have “incited” the public, according to meeting minutes.
