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Hartford
Advocate
The Taxman Cometh
Ballot-box Showdown Looming Between Taxpayers And Collectors In West Hartford.
By Jennifer Abel
April 19 2007
Energy and other
costs are rising for Connecticut
consumers. To mitigate their impact on your budget the thing to do is talk to
your income source (most likely, your boss) and say, “I’m going to need a lot more money, and if you don’t give
it to me I’ll confiscate your house.”
Just kidding. That’ll get you fired and possibly arrested, unless you’re a
town government and your income stream flows with taxpayers. Residents of
West Hartford (and every other municipality in America) have little recourse if
their property tax bills rise faster than they can absorb the increase. And
some taxpayers say that’s exactly what’s happening.
“For the past five years, it’s been higher than inflation,” Theresa McGrath,
president of the West Hartford Taxpayers’ Association, says of the annual tax
increase. Chris Johnson, the town’s director of finance, didn’t know offhand
what the annual increases have been, but conceded McGrath’s complaint might
be valid.
“It could very well be true,” he said. “Energy increases have been higher
than inflation, we’ve had enrollment growth in the
schools. … We’ve had a few things driving costs.”
Annual budgets going back to 2004-2005 are readily available in Town Hall,
and show this year’s budget is 6.6 percent higher than last year’s. In the
three years before that the lowest annual increase was 5.7 percent.
Inflation, meanwhile, has been around 3 or 4 percent, according to the
Consumer Price Index.
The town budget is divided into three parts: town, capital financing, and
education. (Or, in everyday terms, daily expenses, long-term improvements,
and school.) These three added together make the General Fund, which for
2007-2008 is proposed to be over 19 percent higher than in 2004-2005. The
number of West Hartford residents whose
income next year is slated to be 19 percent higher than in 2004-2005 is not
known.
But Johnson’s point about rising energy costs cannot be dismissed, and indeed
was one of the first things town manager James Francis mentioned when asked
about the budget. “The cost of gas and utilities … even in our home budgets,
these things are going up,” Johnson said.
“We understand the increases in energy costs,” says Judy Aron of the
Taxpayers’ Association. “But at a time like this, why are they spending
$700,000 for a new trash hauler? [And] $300,000 for a mini-golf course?”
The Association can list numerous other examples of town expenditures they
consider frivolous, but here’s what their complaint boils down to: When ordinary
citizens find their energy costs going up, they make cutbacks elsewhere. Is
it too much to expect government to do the same, rather than compound the
problem of high energy costs by adding a high tax bill to the mix?
But maybe they won’t. The Taxpayers’ Association said in a press release that
it plans to initiate a referendum on the budget if this year’s increase
exceeds 2.5 percent. The Town Council won’t vote on the budget until April
24, but the chance of the current proposal being sliced back to a 2.5 percent
increase looks highly unlikely.
But wouldn’t a referendum force the town to spend even more money it can
scarce afford? Not necessarily. Town manager Francis, who presumably would
like to see the budget be accepted by the council rather than rejected in a
referendum, nonetheless had nothing bad to say about the latter. “[A
referendum] does cost something, but it’s not as much as you’d think … mostly
for printing ballots. It isn’t a great expense to hold a referendum.”●
E-mail editor@hartfordadvocate.com
or jabel@hartfordadvocate.com
Copyright © 2007, Hartford Advocate
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