Markeshia Ricks Photo
Morrison: “Totally against” tax hike.
Leading alders said they’re looking to the mayor to guide them on how to avoid raising taxes amid a last-minute $8 million shock to the proposed new city budget.
The alders’ Finance Committee Monday night held off on discussing the budget to “see what’s going on with the state, so people can regroup and re-evaluate,” said board President Tyisha Walker.
The alders have already finished holding public hearings on the mayor’s $525 million proposed budget for the fiscal year that begins July 1. They were supposed to proceed to final committee stages of approval it.
But last week the city learned that a deal reached in Hartford — negotiated by leading New Haven legislators — would close a $930 million state budget deficit in part by cutting the promised amount of new aid to the city by $8.1 million.
Which means the city has to scramble to find that money elsewhere or raise taxes. State legislators plan to meet in special session Thursday to approve that deal.
“I’m trying my hardest not to raise taxes,” Harp said on her weekly “Mayor Monday” appearance on WNHH radio’s “Dateline New Haven” program. Her current budget proposal, drawn up before the state budget deal, calls for no mill rate increase. She said her administration is looking at raising illegal-dumping fees, billing Medicaid for more reimbursements, billing failing restaurants for follow-up health inspections, among other ideas.
Walker, who represents the West River neighborhood, said by holding off on making any decision for a week or so will give the alders time to see what the mayor has proposed.
“We will keep our ears open and make the most responsible decision for our constituents,” she said.
Annex Alder Alphonse Paolillo Jr. said right now raising taxes is off the table. But he also said, “We’re awaiting the mayor’s package and we’re going to keep an open mind. We want to work collaboratively with the mayor.”
Dixwell Alder Jeanette Morrison said that she is “totally against raising taxes.”
“The whole bottom line is about need, just like with your household budget,” she said. “We’re talking $8 million. That’s a lot of money.”
Morrison said she’d like to protect the new money proposed for school nurses and libraries, which she called crucial.
“But I’m not supportive of raising taxes,” she said. “I can’t get involved with that.”
Mayor Harp, a former state senator, said she still hopes to convince lawmakers to return some of the $8.1 million cut, an uphill prospect, according to observers in Hartford. She argues that the city was penalized and hit harder than other Connecticut cities because it has been fiscally responsible. (Hartford and Bridgeport are wrestling with $30 million deficits; New Haven has been balancing its books in recent years.) The Harp administration prepared a proposed city budget for this coming fiscal year based on a state promise to up municipal aid by $15 million this year; the number that dropped by $8.1 million in the new budget deal, which still preserves about $8 million in more aid to New Haven than the city received last year. (This previous story covers different arguments on the fairness of the deal.)
Meanwhile, Harp convened her staff on Friday, and met with Board of Alders leaders, to start looking at how to rework the proposed city budget, which is in its final stages of legislative review.
About half of the $8 million hits the “city side” — or non-Board of Education — budget, according to Harp. She said her staff is looking at upping fees to permissible state limits for illegal dumping and for repeat restaurant inspections; and reexamining how much the city bills Medicaid for services performed by the health department. Officials are also looking at not filling some unfilled positions and some requested new positions, such as crossing guards.
“We think it is possible” to find $4 million on the city side without tax hikes, Harp said. She said she plans to continue pushing for hiring seven new school nurses (paid for through the health department budget); she called having a full-time nurse at every K‑8 school a “public safety issue.” And she said she plans to continue with plans to hire new cops because failure to do so would end up costing the city more in overtime. She said she plans to proceed with filling the vacant position of development and policy chief because that position, which focuses on grant writing, brings in more money than it costs. “We haven’t have money. We need a way to raise it,” she said.
She said it’s too early to tell how the Board of Education will find the roughly $4 million it must now apparently make up, assuming the state budget deal is approved Thursday. The state removed money for school transportation as well as cut into the Educational Cost Sharing program.
Click on or download the above sound file to hear the full episode of “Mayor Monday,” which also dealt with Harp’s appearance last week in Manhattan at a Regional Plan Association confab, where she pushed for a new tri-state transit authority; and with grassroots effort to tackle health disparities in city neighborhoods.
Monday’s episode of “Dateline New Haven” was made possible in partnership with Gateway Community College.
I very much appreciate that ms. Harp is trying...and I like some of her ideas. She may shocked at how the state let her down when we are the "compassionate" city that pulls a lot of the state weight when when it comes to ex-prisoners and homeless humans