Budgeters Barely Beat The Clock

It was 60 seconds until midnight. A half-mill tax cut hung in the balance.

That was the challenge facing Hamden’s Legislative Council late Tuesday night at its final chance to amend and approve a new fiscal year town operating budget.

If the council didn’t vote to pass its amended budget before the clock struck 12 a.m., gone would be their carefully crafted financial edits, the results of least 50 hours spent scrimping and saving. The town would by default adopt Mayor Lauren Garrett’s original budget for 2023 — a controversial outline of anticipated expenditures and revenue featuring a tax hike of 3.68 mills.

With just seconds to spare, the council did finalize and pass the amended budget, capping a six-hour meeting that involved heated shouting, Covid-19-induced coughing, a last-minute live ordinance drafting, a verbal 11th-hour aside from the town attorney that the council members were not ​“going to make it in time,” and the resignation of a representative.

The result of the multi-month process: Hamden’s new mill rate for fiscal year 2023 would be fixed at 55.48 mills, 0.64 mills less than Garrett’s suggested rate. Garrett has until June 1 to decide whether to sign the budget or veto it.

The council achieved that reduction by increasing Garrett’s revenue projections by $1,437,287 and decreasing expenses across departments by around $2,671,625, while also supplementing other areas of Garrett’s budget by roughly $612,263.

Here are some of the cost cutting measures the council took to arrive at that figure:

• Flat funding the Board of Education, taking back $605,075.

• Lowering community contributions to youth sports by $7,000.

• Shrinking library expenditures by $4,100.

• Extracting $40,000 from the Economic Development Department’s consulting budget.

• Cutting the Police Department’s budget by $508,906.

• Cutting the budget for anticipated community projects and events by $30,000 (no fireworks this year, the administration reported.)

• Lowering the Finance Department’s budget by $215,000, which includes lowering the amount of cash dedicated to equipment maintenance and ​“unforeseen emergency expenditures,” among other things.

• Removing a job post from the mayor’s office preserve $100,000.

• Reducing technology costs by another $11,117.

• Lowering anticipated medical expenses by $827,427.

• Extracting $35,000 set aside for the Legislative Council.

And here are some of the added expenditures:

• Spending an additional $50,000 on mental health resources.

• Adding $138,000 for anticipated town costs for gasoline and fuel.

• Boosting community and youth services by $63,652.85

• Creating new jobs within the assessor’s office, in total adding $37,109.94 to the budget (factoring other cuts within the same office to offset that new salary). 

The most heavily debated decisions made this budget season included a vote to flat-fund the Board of Education (read more about the implications of that vote in the New Haven Register here); and to cut the police department’s budget by over $500,000, a move which included stripping the department of three jobs: A deputy chief spot as well as a vacant sergeant and a vacant detective position. The council also voted to transition responsibility for traffic oversight from the police department to the engineering department.

The council’s three Republicans all voted against adoption of the new budget (though Lesley DeNardis’ voice went uncounted, as she was not present on Zoom at the time of the final vote). Councilwoman Betty Wetmore denounced her colleagues and the administration for failing to provide taxpayers with financial relief.

“I was really disappointed in this budget,” she said right after the council ferried the document over the 11:59 p.m. finish line. 

“I can’t believe what they did with the police department,” Wetmore added, then saying: ​“I thought this new administration was gonna try to save taxpayers money. Instead they added several new positions, some of them with benefits.”

“I don’t understand. That’s all I have to say.”

​“This is my last council meeting. I will be resigning,” Marjorie Bonadies told her colleagues. Bonadies earlier this week told the Independent that she will retire to move to the conservative-led town of North Branford where taxes are lower/

Democrat Sarah Gallagher also voted against the budget, saying she wanted to see more funding for education and youth. The remaining present Democrats voted to move the edited budget forward.

Council member Abdul Osmanu, who is currently serving his first term, noted the years of fiscal mismanagement that he said forced Hamden to up its mill rate this year.

“We’re facing generational debt that is the responsibility and fault of mistakes that were made long before I was even born. We bear the responsibility to make the best fiscal decisions, some of them difficult that I would ridicule myself as a citizen of this town. But that’s truly the reality of where we’ve been,” said Osmanu, who is 20 years old.

“I think we can all agree that we are unhappy with parts of this budget, and we are definitely not thrilled about how rushed the past few hours were,” Councilman Cory O’Brien said. ​“But it’s a better budget for all of your hard work, and this is the first honest budget in the town’s past 30 years. At least it’s honest and not bullshitting the residents. I’m happy and proud to vote for that even though I’m not proud where we’re at in terms of the mill rate.”

“This is probably the least painful budget I’ve ever done,” Councilperson Justin Farmer said with a laugh. ​“Budgets are moral documents, and we have an imperative over the next year to start on the budget earlier.”

Councilwoman Katie Kiely, a teacher in Hamden Public Schools, agreed with O’Brien: ​“The thing I’m most proud of is the truth in this budget and the reasonableness.”

But, she added before Council President Dominique Baez finally turned off the Zoom call: ​“Everybody knows my feelings on the Board of Ed budget. I think we have many alternatives … but mental health services went largely unchecked.”

Kiely put out a call for future funds from the American Rescue Plan Act to go towards supporting family support services in southern Hamden.

In the coming months, Kiely said, she hopes to see public hearings regarding how the town can use their available ARPA funds. 

She concluded with a public plea to residents: ​“The students, the teachers, the families — we need to show up for them. Please show up to say where the money should go!”