An image from an online Derby BOAT meeting held earlier this month.
DERBY — The city’s Board of Apportionment and Taxation is edging closer to adopting a new budget for the fiscal year starting July 1.
In Derby, the elected 10-member board reviews budget requests from each department, then sets a bottom-line budget, including the mill rate.
The board’s meetings have been happening online for weeks, and are open to the public. Draft versions of the budget have been posted online, along with videos of the meeting.
As of Tuesday the board was considering a spending plan that would reduce the current mill rate at 40.2955. That’s down roughly 3.57 mills from the current mill rate of 43.869.
Does that mean your taxes will go down as well? Not necessarily.
It’s a state-mandated revaluation year. Every property owner in Derby received a letter within the last year informing them of their new assessment (which is determined by a third-party company).
To determine whether you will be paying more, less or the same taxes, follow these steps:
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1. Find your old tax bill and look at how much you paid. Put that number aside.
2. Find your new assessment, which is available online here.
3. Multiply your new assessment by 40.2955, then divide that answer by 1,000. That’s your new property tax bill.
4. Compare your answer from step 1 to your answer in step 3.
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Spending in the new budget currently under consideration by the tax board is roughly the same as the budget in place, according to images shared at Tuesday’s tax board meeting (embedded below).
An image shared at this week’s Derby BOAT meeting.
Appropriations in the current budget totaled about $48.1 million. In the proposed budget, it’s roughly $48 million. Derby is getting help in the form of COVID-19 relief coming down from the feds.
The tax board is on track to adopt a preliminary budget April 6.
After that, there’s a public hearing, which most likely will be scheduled for April 13. Those dates are tentative and could change.
A budget must be adopted by April 30, according to the Derby Charter.
