WHAT'S NEW?
06/10/09
– !New! The Town Council
votes to suspend revaluation phase
in. Property assessments will remain as they were last year, and a new mill
rate of 37.54 will be applied
(instead of 34.81 with the phase in).
This is supposed to provide some tax relief to 75% of taxpayers. Taxes will now
increase roughly 1.5% over last year for everyone. Prior to the Town Council
vote, about 25% of property owners were looking at a reduction in taxes over
last year’s tax bill. The phase in had allowed for a shift of tax burden to
residential property and away from commercial property. That process has now
been halted due to a change in State Law.
04/27/09
- After
the Town Council adopted a new budget on 04/23/09, the West Hartford Taxpayers Association voted not to pursue a referendum.
In a close vote at the 04/24/09 WHTA meeting, members voted not to
pursue a budget referendum. The Town came in with less spending than last year;
$600,000 less than the current $213.1 million budget. The new tax rate will be 34.81 Mills. The current Mill rate for
West Hartford is 36.97. Members who voted against a referendum said
that the Town came in with less spending and lowered the Mill rate, they also
provided unprecedented transparency in the budget process this year and spent
time listening and sitting down with WHTA leadership. Since the Town is bound
by contracts, and unions were giving up wage increases this year in order to
save jobs, it seemed that having a referendum would not produce any significant
decreases, especially since the budget drivers are primarily salary and
benefits. The only thing left for the Town to cut would be services, like
closing libraries and pools. The WHTA leadership felt that the town has much
work to do going forward, and should begin thinking about some long range
planning especially as it pertains to negotiated contracts. They are also
advocating for a management audit by a citizens audit committee. It would appear that the real referendum this
year will be in November at election time.
03/10/09 – Town Manager gave his presentation for the proposed 2009-2101
budget.
The Superintendent
also proposed his budget earlier in the week:
4.
Other
Towns
02/05/09 – Mayor Slifka conducts Townwide Budget Forum. He
and his Town Manager seek a 0% increase in the Town budget, recognizing
difficult economic outlooks, less state funding, and having to deal with obligatory
expenses. There will have to be reductions made to the budget, and they were
seeking guidance as to what citizens would deem acceptable service reductions
if services have to be cut. Union representatives also attended and said that
they too had come to the table to be partners with the town in dealing with a
difficult budget environment. They claimed to be participating in discussions
with Town Management. Members of the Town listened to a presentation and then offered their
suggestions and comments.
01/07/09 – Projected 7% increase in town budget spurs
town leaders to organize a “community summit” for January 28th.
-
WHTA writes a letter to the
Mayor regarding proposed tax increases which appeared in the West Hartford
News
-
WHTA letter to the Mayor requesting
that the Town Council to take a stand on a zero tax increase which appeared in the West Hartford News
1216/09 - The Board of
Education discussed the new teacher’s contract, effective July 2009. The
parties did not have to go to arbitration, but instead agreed on their terms.
The new contract calls for a 1% increase in the first year of the contract and
a 1.25% increase in the second year. Teachers will kick in more towards their
health care premiums. Teachers will work one day less next year and work one
less day the year after that. Teachers will also receive step increases which
could be in the low 2% range. It is a two year contract.
12/10/08 - Teachers
10/08/08 –
Mill rate subsequently set at 36.97 after town
reductions post-referendum.
10/04/08 – Town Budget referendum will be held October
7, 2008. Polls are open 6 am to 8 pm. We
have added some pages of interest.
-
West Hartford Taxpayers Association press release 09/25/08 –
this appeared in the West Hartford News
-
Some Thoughts on the Impact
of The Interim Town Manager’s new salary.
-
Some Budget Facts vs. “what is
being said”
-
Budget Analysis of CT Towns – by
Bill Generous
With the exception of a $1M reduction in BOE
personnel costs, the changes made in the last budget reduction were mostly
one-time adjustments (cancel leaf pick-up, sell two parcels of land) which reduce
operating expenses or increase non-tax revenue but don't address the underlying
problem - fringe benefit costs that are rising at 2.5 times the rate of
inflation.
09/12/08 – Budget referendum is scheduled for October
7. Town manager Jim Francis has resigned
and moved to
07/31/08 – 2,507 signatures were verified by the Town
Clerk’s office (2,233 were required) which means that enough signatures were
collected to force a second budget referendum. According to the Town
Charter that budget referendum has to be held on the last Tuesday of September
(September 30). The Town will get a
chance to reject the budget that was passed on June 25 which raised our taxes
by 6%. Tax bills have already been sent
out and the deadline to pay these taxes is August 31. If the next referendum
results in a rejection of the budget again, and if the Town Council makes
further reductions (which they would be mandated to by the people’s vote), then
taxpayers would receive either a rebate from the Town, or a credit on their
next tax payment to the Town. If the budget is passed, then the current budget
stands. There will be is no other
opportunity to have another referendum, as per our Town Charter.
07/02/08 – Robert Sisk revised
his budget forecast analysis which includes information from recent budget
reductions and it is
available here.
06/25/08 – The Board of
Education makes reductions to its budget:
Board of Education Budget
Reductions
Board of Education Budget
Reductions by Object Code
The WHTA membership
voted to have a petition drive for a referendum on the substitute budget.
Signatures must be collected by July 31 and a referendum will be held on the
last Tuesday of September.
06/24/08 – Town Council adopts a
substitute budget representing a
5.5% increase in spending and a mill rate of 37.09. Reductions in budget were $1.41 million to
the Board of Education and a total of municipal reductions of $1.18
million. See the Mayor’s 06/24/08 Budget Reduction Presentation.
06/17/08 – Budget fails in referendum Yes votes
= 3,711 No votes = 7,037
05/27/08 – Referendum date was
set to June 17, 2008 by a vote of the Town Council.
05/19/08 – The budget
petition drive has been completed.
Well over 2900 signatures were
collected. As of Friday (05/16/08) - the Town Clerk verified 2400
signatures and only 6% of registered voters signatures were needed to
force a referendum (2264 signatures). As signatures were being gathered
the reaction of the public was that they were pretty fed up with this type of
budget increase. Revaluation aside, cumulatively we have already seen a
36% increase in taxes in
05/16/08 – WHTA has
submitted petitions with enough signatures to force a budget referendum which
will be scheduled for June 10 or June 17.
The Town Clerk was quoted as saying, "Assuming that at least 2,264
are verified," Town Clerk Essie Labrot said Thursday, "they've gone
over the required number." (The
WHTA has – as of 05/15/08 submitted 336 pages of signatures, with most pages
containing 10 signatures to a page) After checking with the Town Clerk’s office
– as of 4:30 on 05/15/08 1851 signatures had been verified of the 2666 that
they claimed to have received. On Friday
05/16/08 more signed petitions were still being submitted.
04/23/08 – The WHTA membership
voted to have a petition drive for a referendum on the budget. See here for WHTA PAC donation information.
04/22/08 – West Hartford Town Council votes to adopt a
new budget - The $215.9 million
municipal budget calls for a 7 percent increase in spending. The budget will
require a property tax rate of 37.64 mills. The town of
04/16/08 - A list of Town’s Mill
rates is available at the State
of CT website or you can download and view the XCel file from here and if you sort the file you will find
that West Hartford is currently ranked 13th highest mill rate - see
chart below.
|
|
63.3900 |
|
|
55.4938 |
|
|
48.9900 |
|
|
45.7600 |
|
|
45.3900 |
|
|
44.7100 |
|
|
44.0600 |
|
|
42.8800 |
|
|
42.2100 |
|
|
41.8600 |
|
|
41.3000 |
|
|
41.2800 |
|
|
38.6300 |
|
|
38.2000 |
|
|
38.2000 |
|
|
36.9000 |
|
|
36.1200 |
|
|
36.0500 |
|
|
35.9700 |
|
|
35.8000 |
04/11/08 - - Robert Sisk has
made some revisions to his initial budget forecast and fine tuned some
demographic information in his Town of West Hartford 2008-2013 Budget Forecast. He includes the concept of “Tiebout Sorting”
and shows how the ratio of tax-paying non-school households supporting each
public school household will slip away as those people move out of town due to
higher taxes. The result is that more
non-school households are replaced with public school households creating
increased demands on services but the associated tax base does not increase
resulting in purely demand driven increases in property taxes. It’s a very eye opening analysis of the
result of a shift in our demographic which will be caused by higher taxes that
non-public school households will simply just move out of town to avoid.
04/04/08 - - Robert Sisk’s
presentation of the Town
of West Hartford 2008-2013 Budget Forecast –Property tax increase of 44% by
2013 if we continue on this path of tax and spend. You must read this analysis.
04/02/08 – School Board passes their budget calling for $125.4 million in spending
-
Board Adopted Budget $
125,360,572 6.42% - 04/01/08 - Adopted school budget.
03/29/08 –
- West Hartford School rankings based on schooldigger.com and
test scores.
-
West Hartford Taxpayers Association sent a freedom of Information request to
the School Board requesting information about Open Choice students – here was the request and here was the response. Basically our school administration does not
know how much it costs to educate Open Choice students who may be using
remedial resources or special programming – they only know how much they
receive from the Open Choice program ($300,000) and furthermore they do not
seem to want to do any tracking to find out if this program is beneficial or
what the costs of educating these kids are to our own budget.
-
Tax Fat Facts – Some items of
interest pulled out of this
-
Board of Education Spending Trends – Graphic
example of spending, enrollment and salaries.
03/22/08
- -Do you have a
question regarding this year's budget? Town and Board of Education staff and
elected officials will answer residents' questions during a special budget
forum to be presented and televised by the League of Women Voters and
You can submit a
question for this budget forum by going to the West
Hartford Cable TV website and submitting your question:
03/14/08 – Our 2008 tax calculator is now available
exclusively from the West Hartford Taxpayers Association as a service to help
you see what your particular tax will be in 2008-09:
Calculate your property tax based on the
2008-09 proposed budget and mill rate
using
this calculator (Excel spreadsheet) and the assessment of your property
from the
town property records system. Just plug in the 2005 and
2006 assessments (pre and post revaluation) shown for your property on the town
property records system, and the calculator will show you what your tax will be
with this proposed budget which is expected to tax us at a 38.11 mill
rate.
03/13/08 - The Town Manager presented his 2008-09 Proposed Town Budget on 3/11/08 - The proposed town
budget is $216 million, representing a 7% spending increase. Town Manager Jim Francis presented an overall education, municipal and capital budget
that would increase spending by about $14 million. The Capital Improvement Proposed Plan is here representing CIP
expenditures for 2009-2020. The spending plan includes Superintendent David P.
Sklarz's proposed $125.5 million budget, a 6.5 percent increase from the
current school budget of $117.8 million and a $73.4 million municipal budget,
which also represents a 6.5 percent increase over the current $68.9 million
budget. New proposed new mill rate is 38.11 and the current mill rate is 38.53,
but we are in the 2nd year of a 5 year property revaluation phase-in so the
lower mill rate will be applied to a higher home value. Add that to increased spending in this
budget, and it nets a significant increase in property tax for most people.
03/04/08 - Board of Education presented their 2008-09 Proposed
Education Budget – The proposed budget represents a $7.7 million, or
6.53 percent, increase over the current budget of $117.8 million placing the
budget at $125.5 million.
- Executive Budget Summary
- Priorities and Timelines
- 2008-09 Budget
- ECS Shortfall Memo
- Other Town's Budget Increases
02/17/08 - Budget Schedule from meeting minutes of the Budget and Finance committee (01/16/08) - The proposed FY08
budget will be presented to the Council
on March 11th and the Council must adopt
a budget at their April 22nd meeting.
01/24/08
- Councilman
Visconti, requests some answers in an email to Town Manager Jim Francis regarding the use of
credit cards and other town expenses. Also here is December 19, 2008 Meeting Minutes of the Finance and Budget
Committee
01/15/08
– The Board of Education unanimously voted to approve
plans for
renovations at
================================================================================
Results of Tuesday, November 6, 2007
Municipal elections in
View Total Votes here, Machine votes here, and
Absentee ballot votes here.
Town
Council -
|
Republicans Leon Davidoff Joe Visconti Steven I. Adler |
Democrats Tim Brennan Carolyn Thornberry Joe Verrengia Scott Slifka Chuck Coursey |
Board
of Education – Joining Libby Spinella (R), Harry Captain (D) and
Jack Darcey (D) are:
4 Year Term
|
Republicans Diane L. Mudge |
Democrats Terry A. Schmitt Bruce S. Putterman |
2 Year Term
|
Republican |
Democrat Clare Kindall |
Town
Clerk – Essie S. Labrot (D)
Since We Are An Association Dedicated To The
Proposition That Town Government Can Be Operated Efficiently To Provide Needed
Services At A Fair Cost To The Citizens Of West Hartford, The West Hartford Taxpayers Association hopes that these elected
officials on the Town Council and Board of Education will:
- Work to Lower our taxes and create fiscally sound
budgets
- Work to Rein In and Control Spending
- Work towards giving
- Work to make programs like Leisure Services
self-sustaining
- Utilize and Manage our town resources wisely and
efficiently
- Work to attract new business to our town
- Give ALL areas of our town the attention they
need
- Maintain excellent quality of life in
- Work to Develop and Implement new revenue streams
and strategies for our town
- Make it their business to be fully informed on the
issues and perform due diligence
- Strengthen Town Government Code of Ethics and
Eliminate Conflict of Interest Issues
- Lobby the State for:
Binding
Arbitration reform
No More Unfunded
Mandates For Municipalities
Proper Funding For
Our Town
Property and Income
Tax Reform and Reduction
Please take the time to see the referendum and
budget analysis on our Budget Information page.
============================================================================
WHTA is
providing the public an Microsoft excel
worksheet to calculate their 2007 tax bill for their home. Just plug in the
values for the old property assessment and then the new property assessment and
the worksheet calculate out the rest.
The new mill rate for 2007 taxes is 38.63 and the phase in for
revaluation is still over a 5 year period.
For the first year 25% of the old assessment is added on to the old
assessment (2005 assessment times 1.25, only if your new assessment has gone up
25% or higher) and the balance between that and the new assessment is divided
up into 4 equal amounts and spread out over the remaining 4 years. Those new
assessment amounts will be applied to whatever mill rates are decided in
subsequent years which will also depend on spending levels.
School
Superintendent Sklarz gets a 3.5% increase in salary… The board of education voted 4-2 Friday to approve a
3.5 percent raise for Superintendent David P. Sklarz, and extended the school
chief's contract through 2010. With the increase, the school system's top
administrator will earn more than $188,000 for the 2007-08 school year. His
salary for the just-completed 2006-07 school year was about $182,000. It was
about $176,000 two years ago.
Taxes in
Here is the Mayor’s
Budget presentation.
Here is the Adopted
Budget for 2007-08.
- Spending and Tax Increase Scenarios
– Look and see what levels of spending and taxation would be required for
specific tax increase levels.
**************
previous comments and information is being left here for awhile
**********************
Details of what is
“on the table” have finally been released to the public – Now it is up to the
taxpayers to suggest other places in the budget to make more appropriate
reductions (please take the time to review the list of possible reductions
below). They even include the
fact that they over estimated what West Hartford will receive in state funding
by $274,332, so now they must find money in the budget to compensate for that
figure as well.
Town Budget Reduction
Options
– Click
Here - It looks like the
Town Council has resorted to taxpayer retaliation by even suggesting closing
town pools, and the senior center, and the
Education Budget
Reduction Options
– Post Referendum – Revised June 25th – Click Here
Spending and Tax
Increase Scenarios
– Click
Here
Our Mayor has stated:
"Everything
is on the table," Slifka said, "but we're guided by the goal of
staying as far away from the classrooms as possible. Information from the town was provided to the public late in the day on
Monday for Tuesday’s public hearing.
7,893 votes were cast
against the budget
2,939 in favor of the
budget
The adopted spending
plan went down in all 20 voting districts.
A total of 10,832 of
36,846 eligible voters cast ballots, a turnout of 29.4 percent.
Mayor Scott Slifka
said, "We have to respect the result and obviously we have to go back to
the drawing board," (
With this obvious
mandate from the people via referendum, we hope that this mayor and his
administration work with residents and taxpayers to adopt a new budget that
addresses the will of the people to lower taxes significantly. Some very good ideas have been offered by our
community in the course of budget hearings.
We have many intelligent citizens that can offer solutions to financial
issues that we are facing. WHTA does not
want to see municipal or education programs dismantled entirely. We believe that money can be spent more
wisely on both the municipal and education side of the budget. We want to see
less spending. We want to stop the subsidization by taxpayers, of programs that
should be self-sustaining. We want to
see more money come back to us from the state that is rightfully our money. We
want to see this administration fight for binding arbitration reform and
against more state unfunded mandates. We want to make sure that this
revaluation was fair and equitable.
- WHTA Press Release - WHTA's RESPONSE
REGARDING THE BUDGET, THE REFERENDUM, AND MISINFORMATION ALLEGATIONS –
06/15/07
- Press release from
Governor Rell - Governor
Rell Cites Numerous Municipal Budget Rejections as Evidence of Need for
Property Tax Cap - Governor M. Jodi Rell today said Tuesday’s
rejection of the West Hartford town budget – the latest in a long string of
failed municipal budget proposals – makes it clear that her call for a limit on
annual property tax increases is desperately needed.
“From one
end of
The Citizens want
responsible spending.
Older citizens, and
young families, of all party affiliations rejected:
A
Mill rate of 39.39 mills
Increase
in Overall Budget of $6.84 million dollars over
last year,
A
3.48% increase in
And
a 6.6% increase on their existing tax bill!
WHTA is making this Microsoft Excel worksheet
available for you to be able to calculate
your tax bill with a 5 year phase in and mill rate of 39.39. Click here for the Microsoft Excel worksheet. (You must have Microsoft
Excel to use this).
Interesting to Note: The
The
5 year
phase
in of the new assessments based on last Revaluation for everyone
(The calculation to
figure out your assessment is forthcoming)
Mill rate of 39.39 mills
Increase in Overall
Budget of $6.84 million dollars over last year,
which is a 3.48% increase in spending (That is clearly NOT a
2.5% increase folks!)
Virtually all
homeowners in town will pay 6.6% more on their
existing tax bill!
How did they “reduce”
the budget from their original proposal?
They cut school
spending by $1.8 million more than the BOE adopted
They “reduced”
additional municipal spending by $2.3 million
And they just added
$3.5 million to the amount they think we’ll get back from the state!
This adopted budget
reflects a manipulation of expected non-tax revenues
from the state and also town revenues
and it also
represents minor decreases in initial proposed spending!
Adopted Budget
Summary – Click Here
Original proposed budget available online – click here
--------------
Current
Education budget 2006-07 = $113.5 million
The
Board of Education approved their 2007-08 budget of $120.1 million,
representing a 5.86% increase over the current budget.
The Town Council has voted to require $1.8 million in additional cuts to be determined by Superintendent Sklarz and the Board of Education on that budget.
With
that cut, education spending would be $118.3
($4.8 million more than current budget) or a 4.2% increase in spending.
--------------
Some Points to Consider:
Phase in will insure an increase in your
tax this year and over the next 4 years after that
even if there is no increase in
spending!
If the new assessment is inaccurate to
begin with, which some people have affirmed,
then you may be paying more money based
on a flawed assessment.
125% of your old assessment will be
subject to a high mill rate of 39.39 in your 2007 tax bill.
The Town administration claims that the
mill rate will “drop” to 29.17 mills over the 5 year phase in –
but there is no guarantee that it
will because
we will also be subject to more
increased spending and MDC costs in subsequent years!
To achieve a 29.17 mill rate they would
have to have no increases in spending at all!
That is not only unrealistic but it is
misleading to the taxpayer.
This budget is based on assumptions of
money we will receive from the state which may or may not be accurate.
They should only assume we will get what
we got last year from the state, or less.
Clearly the budget numbers are being
made to look better based on “iffy” projections of non-tax revenue.
The Town has not addressed money being
lost on Leisure Services, Adult Education programs or Summer School. Programs that were promised to be
self-sufficient (like Cornerstone Pool and the Veterans Memorial Skating Rink)
are not
self-sufficient, and are currently being heavily subsidized by the taxpayer.
The Town has not addressed what they
plan to do to fight for binding arbitration reform.