Derby residents have endured two years of tax increases totaling in excess of 10%. This gives Derby the highest mill rate in the entire Valley at 43.86 mills far ahead of 2nd place Ansonia with a mill rate of 37.8 (no increase this year), Seymour at 36 mills (no increase this year) and Shelton at 23.77 mills. Such increases are simply unsustainable.
Coupled with high taxes, for the last 7 years, the city’s school district has been designated as an Alliance District, which means they are among the 30 lowest scoring districts in the state as measured by standardized test scores. These two factors have a significant negative impact on the city’s ability to attract new business, industry and residents. They have also had a significant negative impact on real estate values with Derby trailing behind other valley communities in recovering real estate values from the 2008 Bush/Obama recession, which devastated housing values.
The Board of Apportionment and Taxation (BOAT) is the only board, according to the City Charter, that has the direct responsibility for establishing the budget. The BOA and the Mayor have no direct involvement in the process. Yet, both the Mayor and BOA can, should and in fact do have a significant indirect effect by their actions or inaction in fashioning the circumstances the BOAT has to deal with in setting the budget. Here’s just a few quick examples. The BOA negotiates and approves labor contracts. They are responsible for various municipal agreements. They along with the Mayor play a significant role in economic development/redevelopment, which impacts the growth of the Grand List, the value of real estate, personal property and motor vehicles that are taxed to generate revenue to fund city spending.
Without direction from the Mayor to hold the line on taxes, it is unreasonable to expect the BOAT to slash spending and services to accomplish such a feat. Lacking such direction, the BOAT this year, as I have stated publicly, has done a good job of playing the hand they were dealt, which simply was not a very good one.
It’s time for all parties who impact the budgeting process to have direct involvement as is the case in both Ansonia and Shelton. I have submitted a proposal to the Charter Revision Commission to do just that giving the Mayor, BOA and BOAT direct involvement, authority, ownership and responsibility for the budget and the resulting mill rate. It keeps the BOAT, which some would like to eliminate, as the board responsible for the primary step for gathering revenue estimates, spending requests and fashioning a preliminary budget, which is then forwarded to the BOA for action and ultimately to the Mayor for approval or veto.
This or a similar proposal that provides direct involvement/accountability for the BOAT, BOA and Mayor needs to be put before voters as part of Charter Revision.
Walt Mayhew
The writer is the Derby City Treasurer
