Residents express budget frustrations

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NAUGATUCK — Residents voiced their concerns about the borough’s increasing budget Monday night at a public hearing on the proposed $116 million 2015-16 spending plan.

Resident John Kelley, 72, said borough residents are retired and on a fixed income. He said retirement is impossible with taxes continuing to increase.

“Retirees get no raises but everything keeps on increasing, except our income,” Kelley said.

The proposed $116 million budget, which is the school and municipal budget combined, is an increase of $3 million or 2.7 percent over the current budget. The budget proposal would increase the mill rate by 2.05 mills to 46.32.

The mill rate is the amount of taxes payable on the assessed value of a property. One mill equals $1 for every $1,000 of assessed value. Under the proposed mill rate a home assessed at $150,000 would pay $6,948 in taxes, an increase of $307.50.

Resident Philip Ucci said something needs to be done to get the budget under control. Ucci said he moved to Naugatuck about eight years ago partly because the taxes were relatively low. But, over the years, it’s gotten tougher to make ends meet, he said.

“It’s very hard to make ends meet here in Naugatuck,” Ucci said.

The Joint Boards of Finance and Mayor and Burgesses hosted the hearing, which drew about 40 people, at City Hill Middle School. Officials walked the audience through the budget, pausing to take comments on different segments of the spending plan.

The school budget makes up more than half of the overall proposed budget. The Board of Education is seeking $62.1 million from the borough, which is an increase of $1.2 million or 2 percent over the current education budget.

Resident Matt Katra said the increases in the school budget continue to trend up since the 2010-11 school budget increased 0.53 percent. The budget increased 2.41 percent in the current fiscal year.

“We do need to curtail that upward trend and make some significant decreases here to get that trend going in the right direction,” Katra said.

The school budget increase was initially 2.62 percent when the school board first proposed it in February. After some adjustments last month, the increase was reduced to 2 percent.

The proposed municipal budget is $53.86 million, which is an increase of $1.8 million or 3.49 percent over the current budget.

The joint boards will meet Thursday at City Hill Middle School at 6:30 p.m. to make any final adjustments to the spending plan and adopt the budget. It’s likely that the voters will have the final say on the budget, though.

Katra started collecting signatures on petitions Monday night to force a referendum on the municipal and school budgets. The budgets failed at two referendums last year after Katra organized efforts to force the votes.

Residents have two weeks from when the budget is adopted to submit petitions with 8 percent, or roughly 1,350 confirmed signatures of registered voters, to force referendums on the proposed municipal and school budgets.

Prior to the public hearing, Finance Board Chairwoman Diane Scinto described the budget increase as too high and said officials are going to have to make cuts at the final adoption.

On Monday night, Scinto said any cuts are going to have to come from services. She said major expenses, like pensions, debt service and health insurance, are fixed and can’t be cut. The cost of health insurance alone went up roughly 13 percent from last year, she said.

Scinto added officials have taken measures to keep the increase down. She said the borough isn’t filling two police officer positions, two firefighter positions and four positions in public works.

“Do I want to do that? Absolutely not, but that’s what we’re forced to do because we’re going to be forced to a referendum,” Scinto said.

In addition to the overall budget increase, Veolia North America, the company that operates the wastewater treatment plant, lost substantial revenue this year and is giving the borough $1 million less than it did last year. Under the contract with the borough, Veolia can reduce the revenue paid to Naugatuck by up to $1 million.

2 COMMENTS

  1. Mousy–You have to be a fool not to understand the frustrations of the people in this town, uh borough, sorry. This is NOT Westport. But the idiots, yes idiots, who sit up there on their high horses during a town, uh borough meeting, thiink it is. And what about the person who is supposed to be getting business into town, uh borough; again, sorry? Last meeting I was at, someone on the ‘idiot’ panel said that person was getting a 6 month trial probation. I bet you the town, uh borough, budget that that person is still in position. Nothing, nothing ever gets done in this town, uh borough. Hopefully, hopefully things will change once we get a real leader in the office. Again, it’s a nice place to live but it’s not Westport. Clean it up, get business in and let’s get the reputation of ‘armpit of the valley’ off of the name of Naugatuck.

  2. Where’s the balanced reporting in this piece? No mention of how Mr. Matthew Katra stormed out of the auditorium before announcing that he would have petitions for people to sign? Or Mr. Alex Wargo’s multiple, disrespectful turns at the microphone where he used profanity (with children in the audience), called our elected officials “fools” and “idiots,” and was reprimanded multiple times for his tone and language?