Ansonia Mayor David Cassetti presents a budget proposal at the Ansonia Aldermen virtual meeting on Feb. 11.
ANSONIA – Mayor David Cassetti’s newly proposed budget contains a tax increase of 2.61 mills.
The proposed mill rate is 29.1 mills, a 9.85 percent increase compared to the current 26.49 mills.
According to the Ansonia Charter, that increase would require a public referendum. That remains to be seen since it’s an early draft of the budget. A mill rate increase of three percent or more triggers a referendum.
A public hearing has been scheduled on the proposed budget for 6:30 p.m. Feb. 24 in the Aldermen Chambers at Ansonia City Hall, according to the legal notice.
Under the increase, a single-family home on Holbrook Street assessed at $180,000 would pay $469.80 more per year in taxes.
A house on Gardners Lane assessed at $248,000 would pay $647.28 more per year.
A house on High Acres Road assessed at $366,000 would pay $955.26 more per year.
Tax bills are calculated by multiplying the assessed value (not the appraised value) by the mill rate and then dividing by 1,000. Click here to look up your address and find the value.
Cassetti said the budget is subject to change. He said the increase is based on incomplete financial information from the state.
Ansonia relies heavily on state and federal aid to fund the city and the school system. The state won’t have a budget until June.
“I don’t have all the state numbers, so now I’ve got to wait another month and a half to see where we are with the state,” Cassetti said in a phone call with The Valley Indy.
Cassetti announced the proposed budget during the monthly meeting of the Board of Aldermen on Feb. 11, and said that he had presented a budget to the city tax board on Feb. 10.
A detailed budget book detailing line item expenses and revenue has not been made available to the public yet. However, the city gave The Valley Indy a budget summary, which the mayor said was the same summary given to the city’s tax board.
The summary includes modest increases to most departments. It projects total spending of $68,577,331 – an increase of about $1.5 million, or 2.23 percent, compared to last year’s $67.1 million budget.
The largest increase is to the board of education’s budget. The summary proposes a $38,426,212 school budget. That’s an increase of $850,000, or 2.26 percent, compared to last year.
A cover letter from the mayor included in the document notes that these increases are lower than the national rate of inflation, which is 2.9 percent.
The budget also forecasts cutting approximately $420,000, or 7.83 percent, from the public works department compared to this year. Its new total in Cassetti’s budget is $4,944,689.
Cassetti told the Valley Indy that the cut to public works was because the city had saved money on a new trash contract.
The mayor’s cover letter blames the increase on state policies regarding motor vehicle mill rates and state education funding, and it emphasizes that the proposed budget is subject to change.
“The city has yet to receive confirmation of crucial numbers, including updated health insurance renewal rates,” the letter states. “Given the above, my budget proposal must be considered preliminary and subject to change; it will be a ‘work in progress’ until all projections and assumptions can be confirmed.”
Further details on the budget were not available.
Budget Presentation Differs From Past Processes
With his budget unveiling, Cassetti keeps a promise made earlier this year to follow a process more in tune with the Ansonia City Charter.
The Ansonia City Charter is the blueprint for city government. It dictates everything from term lengths to the mayor’s power.
Regarding the budget, the charter gives the public a timeline to follow to track how members Ansonia Board of Aldermen and the Ansonia Board of Education are spending the public’s money.
Last year, The Valley Indy reported extensively that the Cassetti administration’s budget process clearly violated the charter. Mayor Cassetti’s budget presentation was on April 25 last year, more than two months after the requirement set in the charter.
Last year the Cassetti administration wouldn’t give the public a copy of the budget until the mayor formally presented it. The administration claimed the document was still in “draft” mode, with changes being made to the document the day of the presentation.
State law allows the government to keep “preliminary drafts or notes” private, as long as “the public interest in withholding documents outweighs public interest in disclosure.” Click here and here to learn more.
State law requires boards of education to submit their budget requests to the tax board at least two months before a final budget is adopted. Last year the school board didn’t approve a budget until June – after the city set the school district’s bottom line.
Cassetti defended the past timeline in a phone call with The Valley Indy, saying that it gave the city more certainty regarding state aid numbers.
“That’s the reason why I waited until April or so to come out with a budget in the past,” Cassetti said. “But everybody’s squawking, so that’s why I said ‘Okay, but it’s not going to be a final budget, I’ll tell you right now. I’m just going to show preliminary numbers. That’s where we are until we can see what we get from the state.’”
The budget summary document – while meeting the charter’s definition of a budget – is much less detailed than last year’s, which Cassetti said is because of the earlier timeline.
According to the charter, the next step in the budget process is the tax board’s public hearing on Feb. 24. Then they must submit a proposed budget to the Aldermen by the second Tuesday in March. Cassetti said he expects a detailed budget to be available to the public by that point.
