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Council Approves Budget That
Includes Tax Hike
By DANIEL P. JONES
Courant Staff Writer
April 25 2007
WEST HARTFORD -- The town council Tuesday night adopted a 2007-08 budget that
includes a tax increase of less than 2 percent but will raise virtually all
homeowners' property taxes 6.6 percent because of the recent revaluation.
However, car taxes will decrease because of the shift in real estate
assessments.
By a bipartisan 8-0 vote with one member abstaining, the council adopted a
budget that cuts school spending by $1.8 million more than the board of
education recommended and reduces municipal spending by about $2.3 million
from the proposed budget. It also anticipates about $3.5 million more in
state aid than the town received for the current budget.
The budget calls for a 3.48 percent increase.
Leaders of the West Hartford Taxpayers Association were not satisfied with
the budget adopted by the council and said they were immediately starting the
task of gathering signatures to force a referendum.
Council members decided unanimously to phase in the effect of revaluation
over five years, with a 25 percent increase in assessed values the first
year. It set the tax rate at 39.39 mills. A mill represents $1 of property
tax for every $1,000 of assessed value.
That rate, council members emphasized, will not apply to the full assessed
values set in last October's grand list, which reflected the first
revaluation implemented since 1999. The first year phase-in means that
virtually all homeowners in town will pay about 6.6 percent more in property
taxes in the fiscal year that begins July 1.
Without revaluation, the budget adopted by the council would increase
property taxes 1.94 percent, council member Shari Cantor said.
"Regrettably, revaluation changes this number," she said.
"I cannot express to you how hard it has been to listen to residents
that are truly at a crossroads as to whether they can afford to stay in town
due primarily to this revaluation. We have remained intent on controlling the
things we can to keep this year's budget increase to a minimum while still funding
our obligations, fulfilling contracts and remaining committed to our
priorities," said Cantor, chairwoman of the council's finance and budget
committee.
The revaluation caused a 10 percent shift in the tax burden from commercial
to residential properties, Cantor said. "There is no remedy for this and
is in essence an unfunded state mandate," she said.
Mayor Scott Slifka said the town will have to help
residents understand the phase-in. The tax rate is artificially high in the
first year because it applies to only 25 percent of the revaluation effect
and will drop over the five years, to approximately 29.17 mills, he said.
He said the drop in car taxes provides some good news. Slifka
said a household with two cars appraised at $15,000 each will see about a
$200 drop in the money paid this year in tax.
But the town might have to deal with a referendum before a new budget takes
effect.
The taxpayers' group has 25 days to get about 2,400 signatures and deliver
the referendum petition to the town. If the group meets that requirement,
voting would take place in June, according to town officials. The town
charter allows a maximum of two referendums per annual budget.
"We want to at least allow the taxpayers of West
Hartford to have an opportunity to vote on the budget,"
said Theresa McGrath, association president.
"It's still scrambled eggs to us," she said of the budget.
"But we do believe they made an effort to cut the budget due to the West
Hartford Taxpayers Association's efforts."
McGrath initially proposed a 2½ percent property tax cap, modeled on a Massachusetts ballot
measure enacted in 1980. But she later called for a 2½ percent spending cap
and said the group would seek a referendum if the council's budget exceeded
that.
Republicans Mark Sinatro and Joseph Verrengia, the Republican minority leader, joined the six
Democrats, Slifka, Cantor, Chuck Coursey, Maureen McClay, Art Spada and Carolyn Thornberry, in voting to adopt the
budget.
Verrengia said he was at a loss to understand why
the taxpayers' group was seeking a referendum, "given that they said
they would support a budget if we came in" with a tax increase under 2½
percent, "and we did that," at 1.94 percent. "It doesn't
matter what we're going to do," Verrengia
said.
Slifka agreed with those sentiments. "We
didn't pass this budget to appease the taxpayers' association and I'm not
sure there's any budget that would appease the taxpayers' association. They
keep changing the numbers," he said.
Council member Barbara Carpenter, who was re-elected in 2005 as an
independent but returned to the Republican fold, abstained on the
budget-adoption vote, though she voted for the phase in and other related
budget measures.
Carpenter said she could not support the budget because she did know what the
consequences of reducing the school spending plan would be. A kindergarten
teacher at Braeburn
Elementary School, Carpenter was
recently elected president of the West Hartford
teachers' union and will take the post in July.
The board of education will have to decide how to make the reductions called
for in the council's adopted budget.
Contact Daniel P. Jones at dpjones@courant.com.
Copyright 2007, Hartford Courant
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