Ansonia's City Seal
ANSONIA-DERBY – An organization that advises local governments sent erroneous budget information in April that may have contributed to Ansonia and Derby budgeting for about $1 million each in state grant money that was not coming.
In Derby, the city’s finance director announced in December that the city budgeted for a $1.2 million distressed municipalities grant from the state it was not scheduled to receive.
In Ansonia, the city’s chief financial officer announced in early January that the city was not receiving about $1 million from the same state grant.
The state aid had been proposed initially by Gov. Ned Lamont when he unveiled his proposed state budget last February.
However, Lamont’s proposal did not make it through the legislature’s all-important budget committees in April 2021 – at roughly the same time officials in Ansonia and Derby were in the final stages of putting their budgets together.
Both Ansonia and Derby opted to budget for the money.
When asked why, administrations in both Ansonia and Derby pointed to an April 22 letter and chart provided by the Connecticut Conference of Municipalities, a respected advocacy and advisory group made up of municipal leaders from throughout the state. Derby cited the letter last spring, Ansonia cited the letter last week.
The communication in April showed the distressed municipality money had survived state appropriations and finance committees – when it had not.
The mistake was acknowledged in an email Feb. 4 from CCM to state Rep. Kara Rochelle.
Rochelle had asked CCM a series of budget-related questions as The Valley Indy prepared a story on Ansonia’s projected revenue shortfall.
In an email, Brian O’Connor, CCM’s director of public policy and advocacy, said Rochelle’s inquiry and the fact towns were referencing a CCM document caused him to review communications sent to municipalities during last year’s budget season.
The review revealed Ansonia and Derby received communications with incorrect dollar amounts.
“While we recognized and conveyed verbally to our membership that the $100 million Distressed Municipalities Grant was not included in the Appropriations Committee budget passed in April at our May Legislative Committee meeting, we inadvertently sent out two written communications with the error that indicated that the $100 million was included in the Appropriations Committee budget,” O’Connor wrote. “These two communications were sent in April prior to our Legislative Committee meeting, which was held on May 11, 2021.”
The distressed municipality funding was effectively killed April 21. Ansonia and Derby received the CCM letter April 22, indicating the money was on its way.
Ansonia adopted its budget on May 11. Derby adopted its budget on May 18. The state budget was finalized June 9.
Just as Derby’s tax board was voting on its budget on May 18, Brian Coppolo, a Democrat on the tax board, raised a red flag, asking specifically if the distressed municipality grant was coming.
The day the budget was adopted Mayor Rich Dziekan’s administration cited CCM and state Sen. Jorge Cabrera as sources who said the money was coming. However, Cabrera (along with Rochelle and state Rep. Mary Welander) had sent the Dziekan administration a letter advising them not to rely on information from Lamont’s initial budget proposal.
In Ansonia, CFO Kurt Miller cited CCM information as well, and last week criticized Rochelle for not communicating with Ansonia government, a statement with which Rochelle took umbrage.
Rochelle pointed out in an email Friday that the information about the distressed municipality grants were discussed in public sessions as local budgets were being prepared.
“CCM is a non-profit and not an official state source of legislative and budgetary information. However, it seems a small fraction of distressed municipalities based their budgets on the erroneous document and did not directly check the CGA website, bill tracking, with the intergovernmental agency at their disposal, or inquire with elected or appointed state officials, who were unaware of CCM’s error as we are not included on their correspondences,” she wrote.
Walt Mayhew, Mayor Dziekan’s chief of staff, indicated that Derby’s early budget deadlines – a budget is supposed to be in place by the end of April – plays a part in the issue because the city’s budget is supposed to be completed long before the state adopts a budget.
Ansonia officials have expressed similar concerns, saying it doesn’t make sense to adopt a local budget so early when the community relies heavily on state aid.
Miller, Ansonia’s CFO, said the city became aware of the revenue shortfall when the state set its budget.
“As Brian (from CCM) mentions, we did become aware of the funding issue when we received the final budget numbers. At that point it was too late to make any changes and immediately started to plan out how we would address the issue. Other than communication from CCM, we received no other information on the budget from our legislative delegation,” Miller said.
