DERBY — Members of the city’s tax board voted 7 – 1 to take a little more time before casting a final vote on a $47.5 million budget.
The budget, if adopted in its current form, would lower the tax rate by .4 mills, according to Walt Mayhew, Derby Mayor Rich Dziekan’s chief of staff.
A single-family house assessed at $160,000 would pay $64 less in taxes if the budget is adopted as is.
The mayor, who chaired Monday’s meeting, expected members of the tax board to vote on a final budget. He made a motion to adjourn the meeting after the board voted to delay a final vote.
The board adjourned without saying when they planned to vote. The city’s charter says a budget has to be in place by the last business day in April, which is Friday.
However, the city’s website shows a tax board meetings scheduled for Tuesday April 25), and has slots open for Wednesday and Thursday — so there is still time.
On Monday the tax board hosted a public hearing on the budget.
Click the play button above to watch the meeting, which was streamed live on Valley Indy social media pages.
Ten people spoke, including school board members Jim Gildea, George Kurtyka and Laura Harris.
The school board members asked the tax board to do all they could for Derby Public Schools. The city’s board of education initially requested a 4.29 percent budget increase. The tax board is considering a roughly 1 percent funding increase — if comparing the school budget bottom line adopted last April with the budget now proposed. The school board’s current total budget is $19,177,364. The new budget, if the tax board approves, would total $19,375,690.
Derby Town Clerk Marc Garofalo and Aldermanic President Sarah Widomski asked the tax board to make sure the dollar amounts stated in the budget are accurate. Widomski questioned whether the budget’s prediction of a 99 percent tax collection rate was inflated. Garofalo noted the budget projects $100,000 more in revenue from his department, something he doubted would happen.
After the public spoke, tax board chairman Roberto Santos said the public and board members had questions that needed to be answered, and suggested the board take more time before voting to adopt a final budget. Tax board member Jennifer Desroches concurred. Desroches said there is a list of questions that the administration has not answered.
The delay seemed to annoy Dziekan, who asked for a motion to adjourn the meeting.
Desroches said she thought the vote was being pushed, but not the discussion. Dziekan said both the discussion and vote were pushed by the board.
“You’re confusing me now, Jen. I know you’re confused a lot, but you’re confusing me,” Dziekan said.
Tax board members wanted to keep discussing the budget, but didn’t seem to know whether they could reopen the budget discussion against the mayor’s wishes.
Instead the meeting ended after 40 minutes.
“That was weird,” Garofalo said before the Zoom call ended.
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