Hamden Chronicle

Mill rate jumps 4 percent

By Joseph Cole

The votes are in and the 2007 to 2008 budget passed the Legislative Council. The budget represents a 5.9 percent increase over the current operating budget with a 4 percent increase in the mill rate.

The new mill rate will be 29.10 and the new budget will be $172,352,458. This new mill rate will be applied to the July 1 tax bills and will replace the current fiscal year mill rate of 27.95.

The change in the mill rate means a home with a tax assessment value of $70,000 would pay $2,037 in taxes. That represents a home that would have been appraised at $100,000 by Vision Appraisal in the last property revaluation, as tax assessments are at 70 percent of the appraised value. Under the old mill rate, that same household would have paid $1,957.

The final vote came after some zero hour deliberations on the Board of Education budget. A cut of $1.9 million was proposed but whittled down to a $500,000 cut to the Board of Education budget.

Board of Education Chairman Michael D’Agostino said the last minute alterations and finagling of the Board of Education budget was a travesty.

“I think what we saw tonight was as cowardly and hypocritical a vote as I have seen from this council,” said D’Agostino.

The nature of the board of education fiasco came from a transfer of almost $2 million in revenue from the Board of Education budget to the town side, a move reportedly suggested by the auditors. The revenue in question were funds from the state.

In response, the mayor upped the recommended board of education budget by $2 million. Members of the Legislative Council decided that bump was unacceptable and voted to cut the education budget.

According to Councilman Curt Leng, the education cut went through three votes before an agreement was made. The first was to shave off $1.9 million and the second reduced the cut to only $1 million. Both votes failed, the second by one vote, at 7 for and 8 against. When the vote for a smaller $500,000 cut came up, the table turned.

“It was still 7 against 8,” said Leng, “but this time it was the other way around.”

A $500,000 cut as opposed to a $1.9 million cut came as little comfort to D’Agostino though. He said the deliberations were done last week and this maneuver was cowardly and dishonest.

The funds which were transferred to the town however, are still going to end up in the hands of the Board of Education according to Councilman John Flanagan.

“They added money to the Fire Department and added money to the library,” said D’Agostino. “They cut $2,000 from the Police Department. They didn’t have the guts to make cuts from the town side that they are asking us to make.”

On the town budget, the situation was only slightly less tense with council member after council member voicing disapproval for the budget as a whole.

Overall the budget process was described by multiple members of the Legislative Council as a “win some, lose some process.” Six of the members felt enough was lost that they could not vote for the budget. Democrats voting against the budget were Flanagan, Leng, Carol Noble and Michael Colaiacovo. Both Republicans on the Legislative Council, Ron Gambardella and Betty Wetmore, voted against the budget.

“For the first time in my entire career I am most unhappy with the budget before us,” said Noble. “A town is a service industry and there are times you just have to tighten the belt.”

Harsher words for the budget came from Gambardella and Flanagan.

“How can I be the only person on the council, besides my partner Betty Wetmore, that thinks the taxpayer is important,” Gambardella yelled emphatically at his colleagues before the vote. “This is an absurd budget.”

Gambardella would later take some heat from colleagues for switching his stance on pension obligation bonds for political reasons.

“This budget is an anathema,” said Flanagan, echoing the comments of a speaker during the public portion preceding the vote. “With what we have just done, it is an abomination.”

Flanagan took particular umbrage with the Board of Education budget and the inability to get it cut back to the level it was at before the mayor added $2 million to the requested amount to cover the $2 million in revenue shifted to the town side of the budget.

“We will be giving extra money to a department that shows they can’t manage it,” said Flanagan. “We do have a duty to the taxpayers and we just didn’t do it.”

Councilman James Pascarella defended the budget before the council as the product of four weeks of work. He also lambasted the state for using out of date census records to calculate the education reimbursement for Hamden as a factor in the education budget difficulties.

“If they used the 2000 census, Hamden would get $7 million more in reimbursement,” said Pascarella who claimed the state is using the 1990 census for Hamden. He voiced concerns that school reimbursement funding had to change or the town’s education system would suffer. He said the town had to beware of becoming like West Haven which he characterized as a “despicable education system by any standard.”

Councilman Mike Germano voiced his support of the budget and verbally attacked those that were taking stands against it for political reasons, saying it was “easy to stand on the soapbox during the election season.” He accused Gambardella of flip-flopping on the pension obligation bonds for such reasons.

“Yes it is going to be difficult on the taxpayers,â€? said Germano. “But it is better going to sleep at night knowing I made the right decision.”

Germano stated that this term may be the first and last time he sits on the Legislative Council.

Tax bills reflecting the new mill rate will be split with the first portion due on July 1 and the second on January 1, 2008. A new resolution was passed allowing people with $250 or less in taxes to pay it all in one payment due on July 1.

Copyright © 2007 Hamden Chronicle, reprinted with permission. Originally published on 16 May 2007.

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