By DANIEL P. JONES
Courant Staff Writer
May 6, 2008
The West Hartford Taxpayers Association is gathering the signatures and the
organization's president, Chris Torino, says it will have the required number
of signatures by the May 19 deadline.
"There's a ton of interest in this town. I collected about 146 myself in a
very short period of time, maybe six hours," he said Monday.
"I don't have a count but I know we're doing very well and should have no
problem getting the signatures we need to have a referendum,"
If the taxpayers group gets the nearly 2,300 signatures it needs — 6 percent of
the town's registered voters — a townwide vote on the
$215.9 million budget adopted by the town council last month would be held,
probably in mid June, according to Town Clerk Essie Labrot.
The referendum, according to town charter, must be held on a Tuesday and the
town's 2008-09 budget must be adopted before June 30, she said. Thus the most
likely dates for a referendum would be June 10 or June 17, Labrot
said.
The taxpayers group, which forced a referendum last year and helped defeat the
initial 2007-08 budget, this year is up against a
pro-budget grass-roots group called West Hartford First, which argues the level
of spending is needed to maintain the town's quality schools and services.
That group registered with the town clerk as an ongoing political action
committee in March and had to file a financial disclosure statement on April
10, which showed West Hartford First had a balance of $445.94, Labrot said.
The West Hartford Taxpayers Association registered on April 25 as a PAC for the
duration of a single referendum and will be required to file a financial
disclosure statement seven days before the expected referendum, according to
the town clerk's office.
The town council, by a party-line vote with six Democrats supporting the budget
and three Republicans opposing it, adopted a $215.9 million municipal budget
April 22. The budget calls for a 6.9 percent increase in spending and would
mean an extra $515.40 in property taxes a year for someone with a house with a
$354,000 market value after the 2006 revaluation, the average homeowner in
town.
The Democrats called the spending plan a purely "maintenance budget"
that includes $124.9 million in school funding. The council trimmed $475,854
from the board of education's recommended spending plan, savings that Mayor
Scott Slifka attributed to a consolidation of
services, such as ground maintenance, with the town.
Republican minority leader Leon Davidoff called for "sacrifices" in
town services to keep
The budget requires a property tax rate of 37.64 mills, a decrease of 0.99
mills from the current rate. A mill represents $1 of property tax for every
$1,000 of assessed value.
Slifka said Monday that, in light of the anticipated
referendum, the question will be what direction to take from the vote.
"The taxpayers group and the minority on the council have not offered one
single specific as to what should be reduced if the budget were defeated at a
referendum," he said.