Hartford Advocate

Take a (Tax) Hike, Folks
Storm clouds are building on the West Hartford budget horizon
By Jennifer Abel

Oil's rising, the dollar's sinking, house prices are tanking and a recession is looming. In light of all that, this year's annual West Hartford budget battle promises to be even more contentious than last year's.

Last year, there was a small-scale taxpayer revolt, with petition drives leading to a townwide referendum and a compromise budget that left everyone dissatisfied.

And all that before the economic downturns of the past year. The opening shots in this year's budget battle were fired at the town council meeting on March 11, when Town Manager Jim Francis presented a preliminary budget proposal of $215.8 million, a 6.5 percent increase over last year. (By contrast, the Consumer Price Index listed inflation at 4.1 percent for the last year.)

Before Francis gave his talk, Mayor Scott Slifka said a few words: "We had an interesting year with the last budget," the mayor said with admirable understatement as he introduced Francis' presentation.

The total requested budget breaks down into $125.5 million for the Board of Education, $73.4 million for the town and $16.9 million in capital financing. If this budget passes, the mill rate (which determines property tax) will actually drop to 38.11 from its current 38.63. But this will still translate into higher taxes, in light of the 2006 property revaluation. For example: town resident George Kennedy's house was valued at $232,120 before the reval, and $659,100 afterwards. Taxes are levied on the first 70 percent of the house's value; Kennedy's old tax bill with a 38.63 mill rate was $6,276.75, while his bill with the new mill rate will be $17,582.81.

The education budget is its own separate issue, so Francis focused on the town side of things. First, he mentioned how much revenue the town anticipated receiving over the following fiscal year. As usual, the lion's share is to come from property taxes, but there were also a few "non-tax revenue" listings.

These include "parking violations," which netted the town $375,000 this year. Francis expects that to increase to $425,000 next fiscal year. (Moral: Watch where you park in a cash-hungry town.)

Still, $50,000 is practically nothing when you're counting dollars in the hundreds of millions. And the majority of that comes not from parking tickets, building permits, state and federal grants and the few other non-tax revenue sources Francis discussed, but from taxpayers — mostly homeowners, but plenty of businesses as well. Even with the revenue expected from the Blue Back Square development, Francis told townspeople to expect an average tax hike of 7 percent.

Longtime resident Bob Perry hopes to avoid this. He owns and runs Pop's Deli on Sedgwick Road, and lives just a couple blocks away, though maybe not for long. "I'm leaving town," he said. "My house is for sale ... I've been here 30 years and they priced me right out of town. When I moved here in 1977 my tax bill was $1,100. Now it's $7,800." And that was before this year's increase. "My tax bill is higher than the mortgage."

Chances are good that other discordant voices will join Perry's as budget season wears on. Public hearings on the budget will be held March 27 at 2 p.m. and April 3 at 6 p.m.

E-mail editor@hartfordadvocate.com or jabel@hartfordadvocate.com