DERBY — Update here.
The tax board could adopt a new budget at a meeting scheduled for 7 p.m. Thursday (April 28). The meeting will be held on Zoom (identification number 833 5934 8842). The agenda is posted at the top of this story.
The proposed budget totals $48,385,128. It carries an increase in spending of $997,551 compared to the budget approved a year ago.
Members of the tax board said the preliminary budget does not change the current mill rate.
The current mill rate is 38.6, according to the City of Derby website.
Click here to read the budget.
The budget allocates an additional $100,000 for Derby Public Schools, bringing the total preliminary school budget to $19,177,364.
The school board had asked for an increase of $913,805, citing union contracts and past years of flat-funding education in Derby.
At a meeting Tuesday, tax board members asked whether more money could be allocated for education. Specifically they asked about whether revised insurance figures are coming in $72,000 less than anticipated, and whether that money could go toward the schools instead. They also asked about money the mayor wants to allocate for financial software, and whether those dollars could be given to the schools instead. Answers to those questions could arrive during Thursday’s meeting.
On Wednesday the tax board held a public hearing on the proposed budget.
The most comments during the 28-minute public hearing involved Derby Storm Ambulance, the city’s ambulance service. It’s a nonprofit that the proposed budget allocates $125,000 toward. Members who spoke at Wednesday’s public hearing took exception to previous comments made by tax board member Jenifer Desroches, who questioned whether the organization was transparent with its financial information.
Members called Desroches’ comments “malicious” and “defamatory.”
Daniel Abrams, the finance director of the ambulance corps, said the organization has provided all financial information requested by the city, and that, as a nonprofit, its annual tax returns are public documents.
The video from Wednesday’s public hearing is embedded at the top of this story.
