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Third Hearing Set On Budget
Officials React To Religious Conflicts
By DANIEL P. JONES
Courant Staff Writer
April 3 2007
WEST HARTFORD -- The town will hold a third public hearing next week on the
proposed budget for 2007-08.
The second public hearing is set for 6 p.m. Thursday, which falls during
Passover and on Holy Thursday.
To ensure another chance for public input without religious conflicts, town
officials scheduled the third and final hearing for Tuesday, April 10, at
5:45 p.m. in Room 314 at town hall. The hearing will be held before the
regular town council meeting that begins at 7:30 p.m.
"That was simply the best available date after the completion of the
religious holidays," Mayor Scott Slifka said
Monday.
By charter, the town is required to hold at least two public hearings on the
budget. The first hearing was held last Thursday afternoon.
The town council is expected to vote on the budget on April 24.
"Under this schedule, we get three hearings in, and the third is
completed with two weeks to go in the budget process," Slifka said.
Last month, Town Manager Jim Francis proposed a budget that called for an 8.5
percent spending increase. The proposed $209.3 million town budget for fiscal
year 2007-08 would include $122.1 million for the school system, $70.7
million for municipal operations and $16.5 million for capital projects.
Both Slifka, a Democrat,
and Joe Verrengia, the council's Republican
minority leader, have agreed that the spending increase is too high and must
be reduced.
The property tax rate for the proposed budget would be 31.43 mills, down from
the current rate of 46.19 mills. That drop in the tax rate reflects the
town's first property revaluation since 1999. One mill is equal to $1 of
property tax for each $1,000 of assessed value.
Last Thursday, during the first public hearing on the budget, about a dozen
residents, many of them senior citizens, pleaded or demanded that the town
council significantly reduce the proposed budget.
The board of education will meet Wednesday at 7 p.m. and vote to adopt the
proposed school budget. The meeting will be in Room 314 at town hall.
Contact Daniel P. Jones at dpjones@courant.com.
Copyright 2007, Hartford
Courant
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