BY ANDREAS YILMA
REPUBLICAN-AMERICAN
NAUGATUCK — Borough officials approved a 2023-24 budget proposal that increases spending by nearly 4%, but will decrease the mill rate.
Mayor N. Warren “Pete” Hess, left, speaks at the final town budget workshop meeting alongside Fnance Board Vice Chairman James Higgins and Chairman Ken Hanks at Town Hall on April 24.
The Joint Boards of Mayor and Burgesses and the Board of Finance on Monday adopted a $137.3 million budget proposal April 24 for an upcoming hearing. The proposal increases overall spending by about $5.1 million or 3.9% compared to the current fiscal year.
The hearing will take place on Monday at 6:30 p.m. at the Board of Education building at 497 Rubber Ave.
Mayor N. Warren “Pete” Hess said there will be an implementation of 40% of revaluations that will impact the budget with two more revaluations in the following years.
“Forty percent of the new values from the new reval will be used to calculate our taxes, to calculate our revenue and we will work from there,” Hess said at the third overall review meeting of the budget. “Next year, we will have an additional 35% from reval and the year after we add the final 25%.”
The state Office of Policy and Management won’t allow less than 25% in any given year when the borough asked to do 40, 20, 20 and 20 in each year, Hess said.
“If we adopted every penny of what we’re talking about tonight, there would be a 3 mill reduction in the mill rate in the first year of the reval,” Hess said.
The borough’s mill rate is currently 47.75 mills. One mill equals $1 of tax for every $1,000 of assessed property value.
Controller Allyson Bruce said officials have reduced the budget by about $2.6 million from the original department presentations to the meeting.
Some of the changes to the budget include an addition of $80,000 to transition a contracted grant writer, who has been successful to getting two grants, to a borough employee as other towns have solicited her, a $7,000 increase in postage to send out several reminders to help keep the borough’s collection rate high, a reduction of $75,317 for elections as the borough won’t be subject to a new election law this year and a $300,000 reduction to the Board of Education budget, Hess said.
The borough can’t decrease school spending because Naugatuck is an underperforming Alliance District, so any increase sets a new bar.
Deputy Mayor Robert A. Neth said he felt that the board of education side, he thinks they are extremely top heavy administratively in their budget.
Burgesses Jan Mizeski and Meghan Smith both agreed with Neth.
Hess said the revenue budget doesn’t include any money from the fund balance which puts the borough on a path to go for a Triple A credit rating.
“It’s the first time in a few years,” Board of Finance Chairman Ken Hanks said.
Neth said this the first time in a long time that there haven’t been any major cuts to the budget.
“I think it would be in our best interest to go to each one of those departments and ask them if there’s any place in your budget that could possibly cut and see where it puts us at that point,” Neth said. “I think that maybe some of these items can be pushed out for next year but this is my opinion.”
Hess said officials initially started with the departments and in the preliminary rounds there were cuts and the numbers were discussed before the third final review meeting.
“We’re at a point now where we’re not seeing departments coming in and asking for extra hoping that it gets cut so they get they want,” Hanks said. “They’re coming in and asking for what they need and that’s been a change we’ve had here in the past few years”
