Mayor Marcia Leclerc’s recommended budget, released Friday, would require a three percent tax hike and a $1.5 million spending increase to maintain current services.
Leclerc’s “status quo” spending plan for fiscal year 2019-20 includes no added town personnel or major spending initiatives. The proposed budget totals $191,523,426, a .8 percent increase requiring a boost in the tax rate from 47.66 to 49.28 mills.
A mill represents $1 for every $1,000 of assessed value, so the owner of a home with the average assessment of $114,310 would pay $185 more in taxes.
About 48 percent of proposed spending, or $91.66 million, is for education, 32 percent is for general government, 15 percent for public safety, four percent for debt payments and 1 percent for capital improvements. On the revenue side, local taxes account for 71 percent, state aid is marked at 26 percent and fees and other revenue account for 3 percent.
The budget keeps expected state aid flat, but the big unknown is how much the town actually will receive when the General Assembly settles on a budget. Gov. Ned Lamont is to unveil his recommended spending plan on Wednesday. Town leaders, Leclerc said, are striving to keep local taxes in check, “but we’re at the mercy of the state.”
Also cutting into the town’s bottom line is the start of a five-year tax break for Pratt & Whitney’s new headquarters and engineering building. Although the abatement was made available through state statutes, the state is providing no reimbursement to the town, local officials said, so the loss of tax revenue is expected to be about $2.2 million each year.
Due to rising medical costs and contractual raises, the education budget required a total increase of about $3.4 million. That was mitigated in large part, however, by delaying a $1.7 million payment for retiree benefits and using $750,000 of a $2.2 million increase in the state Alliance Grant to cover school board initiatives. The net increase to the education budget under Leclerc’s plan is about $971,000.
Other spending increases include about $673,000 for town contractual raises for six unions and a small group of non-union employees, $283,000 more for information technology and licenses (including the town’s half of the shared town/school district chief information officer’s salary of $130,000) and $237,700 for the Metropolitan District’s clean water project. Spending decreases include $250,000 for town vehicle and general liability claims and $201,000 in capital lease spending, the mayor said, as no leases were issued this fiscal year and past years’ leases were paid.
Also cited in the savings column was a $100,000 reduction in the public golf course subsidy due to completion of a well project that reduced reliance on MDC water and the pay-off of a capital lease used to resurrect the once neglected course.
Capital equipment spending includes $1.5 million for six new dump trucks and a bucket loader, 12 police cars, a backhoe and two mowers and $250,000 to harden computer servers against intruders.
Jesse Leavenworth can be reached at jleavenworth@courant.com
