A screen capture from the meeting.
ANSONIA – No members of the public spoke at the final public hearing for an Ansonia proposed budget that carries a 0.25 mill rate increase.
At the virtual meeting on Wednesday (May 29), Alderman President Josh Shuart stalled for time by having a conversation with budget director Kurt Miller about the budget process. After about five minutes, Shuart asked again if there was anyone from the public that wished to speak.
No one spoke at the meeting, which was held within the Zoom video platform.
“All I can figure is we must have delivered a great budget if there’s not a single comment,” Alderman Dan King said during the hearing.
The Aldermen are scheduled to meet virtually at 6 p.m. on May 30 to vote on whether to adopt the budget.
The budget, if accepted as-is, would bump up the mill rate by 0.25 mills, the first mill rate increase in Ansonia since 2019.
A single-family house on Holbrook Street assessed at $180,000 would pay $45 more per year in taxes.
A house on Gardners Lane assessed at $248,000 would pay $62 more per year.
A house on High Acres Road assessed at $366,000 would pay $91.50 more per year.
Tax bills are calculated by multiplying the assessed value (not the appraised value) by the mill rate and then dividing by 1,000. Click here to look up your address and find the value.
The budget allocates an additional $1.8 million to Ansonia Public Schools. That’s a 5 percent year-to-year increase, bringing the proposed education budget to $37.6 million.
Other spending increases include a $650,000 increase for public works, almost all of which is due to increased waste collection costs, and a $700,000 (or 9 percent) increase for public safety.
Details of the Ansonia Board of Education’s $37.6 million budget have not been made public. Click here for a story about their budget formation process, which has changed in recent years to take place behind closed doors.
A Revised Schedule
The city’s original budget schedule, adopted in February, had scheduled two meetings for the Aldermen to discuss the budget after the final public hearing and before their formal vote.
Last week, however, several dates were moved, and those meetings were removed from the schedule altogether. That means the Aldermen are no longer scheduled to discuss the budget any further before they vote on whether to pass it as-is.
During the first public hearing for the proposed budget on May 6, only two residents – former Alderman William Phipps and former mayoral candidate Thomas Egan – spoke up. Both asked about $7.8 million that was then budgeted in anticipated “future revenue.”
That’s in addition to $5 million that was budgeted for “future revenue” last year, which Ansonia budget director Kurt Miller at the time said would come from the development of the former Ansonia Copper & Brass Complex downtown.
The city is currently still foreclosing on that complex, though corporation counsel John Marini announced to the Aldermen on May 28 that the city had recently acquired about half of the land there.
The Valley Indy was unable to confirm Marini’s statement with the court or with Marini as of 7 p.m. May 29.
City Democrats have questioned the “future revenue” line items. They allege that the city’s $41 million sale of its sewer system to Aquarion – authorized by an Aldermen vote on May 28 – was “rushed” in an effort to fill holes in the budget.
“Ghost money in budgets is why they rushed to sell our WPCA: to fill the holes,” the Democratic Town Committee wrote in a Facebook post on May 29.
City officials have said that budgeting for “future revenue” allows them to keep the mill rate low. In an interview, budget director Kurt Miller said the WPCA sale was one of several sources from which the city could draw that money.
Earlier this month, the amount budgeted for future revenue was tweaked down by $350,000, bringing the amount in the proposed budget down to $7.4 million.
The budget was also tweaked to reflect the fact that Ansonia is set to receive a one-time $750,000 ARPA payment from the state.
In total – counting the proposed budget – the city has budgeted about $12.4 million for use of future revenue since last year.
Ansonia is one of about 30 towns in the state that is currently late on its 2023 audit. That audit was due on Dec. 31.
Vote Scheduled For May 30
The final step in the budget process is for the Aldermen to vote on adoption. That meeting is scheduled to happen May 30 at 6 p.m. over Zoom.
A link to that meeting is available on the city website under the ‘Meetings’ tab.
If the budget is adopted, then it will take effect July 1.
