Hamden's biggest expenses: Board of Education, fringe benefits, and public safety. Garrett proposed increasing the police budget by 3 percent.
A first draft of Hamden’s next annual operating budget includes a tax hike — as well as a strategy to reduce the town’s long-term liabilities and bolster efficiency within municipal government.
Mayor Lauren Garrett presented the outline of that $278 million budget plan at a Wednesday meeting of the Legislative Council.
In the coming weeks, the council will comb through the budget line by line in order to craft a final, revised document.
Garrett suggested increasing the budget by a total of $15.8 million from last year — and growing the mill rate to 56.12, a hike of 3.68 mills from the current fiscal year.
The three largest motivators for the budget jump include increased medical expenses, expanded debt service payments, and a spike in fringe-benefit costs.
Medical expenses, which account for 19 percent of the operating budget and cover both town and Board of Education employees and retirees, are projected to rise $6.6 million compared to last year if the town doesn’t generate savings by going out to bid. The town is currently planning to review their contract, but Garrett’s budget includes the $6 million growth estimate from the town’s current agent of record.
Garrett also proposed increasing the town’s debt service payment by $2.1 million, which she said would result in a projected fund balance restoration of $8.7 million. Read more about the town’s ongoing efforts to grow their fund balance, which serves as one of the town’s key financial indicators, here. The fiscal year 2021 audit of the town’s finances reported that the town actually grew its fund balance from a deficit of $2.3 million at the end of 2020 to a positive $7.3 million by June 2021, an increase of $9.5 million.
The amount spent on fringe benefits, Garrett said, should also grow by about $1.3 million. She chalked that jump up to a “scoop and toss” refinance loan that produced $750,000 in town-wide savings by the previous administration, which Garrett said artificially reduced the true costs of expenses and pushed payments into the future. (Read more about how Hamden’s previous administration sold municipal bonds for upfront cash in exchange for deepening debt here.)
The recent audit showed that Hamden has a net liability of around $634 million in other post-employment benefits. In addition to fully funding the pension, Garrett’s financial plan will ostensibly increase the town’s short-term contributions to fringe costs with the long-term intention of going out to bid in order to negotiate down medical liabilities.
Garrett proposed creating six new government jobs, which she selected out of 16 positions requested by department heads. Those include a deputy tax assessor, an arts, culture, recreation and wellness director, an assistant in the arts, a town beautification coordinator, a junior accountant in finance, and a teen library specialist.
Garrett said she hopes those added positions will boost the positive impact of local government on the community and better the town’s fiscal strategy.
The tax increase, she suggested, addresses issues from administrations past that were highlighted in the 2021 audit. This year’s operating budget will address chronic pension underfunding — and the junior accountant position, she noted, will also focus on pension reconciliation — and commit to regularly funding and improving the capital budget process by redistributing current staff’s responsibilities to create a director of capital and grants.
The budget also addresses underfunded extant programming, allocating $257,000 to the town’s ice rink, $1,000,000 to other-post employment benefits, and $250,000 towards storm damage expenses.
While town expenses are surging, Garrett asserted that revenue is also positioned to grow by around $5.3 million, or 8 percent in the coming year, primarily thanks to an increase in cash from the state.
In addition, Garrett said that the town will aim to avoid past mistakes like overly generous estimates of expected revenue which were responsible for budget deficits and led to more “scoop and tosses,” by assuming a tax collection of 97.8 percent (past budgets expected to take in 98.8 percent of taxes owed, Garrett said, which never actually occurred). She said taxation of future cannabis sales — as well as imposing a tax on alcohol nips — should also help the town out.
The presentation did not include live commentary from the council, whose members had just received the budget proposal that night along with the public.
The Hamden Republican Town Committee offered a statement to the New Haven Independent following the meeting.
“Mayor Garrett’s proposed budget includes an increase of 3.68 mills to Hamden’s mill rate, which is currently the 3rd-highest in the state. It is disappointing that the Mayor is willing to brazenly increase taxes on people in Hamden who are already suffering from inflation, soaring prices of gas and utilities, and egregiously-high tax rates,” the message reads.
“Unfortunately, we expect that the Democrat supermajority legislative council will approve this proposed budget. This cycle of out-of-touch leadership is evidence of one party rule run awry in Hamden. Unchecked Democrat power has gifted taxpayers in Hamden another increase in their cost of living that they cannot afford and should not stand for.”
Watch Garrett’s full presentation below.
She and Morton kicked off filming this weekend, visiting Garrett in her home. There, Walker-Canton interviewed the mayor and her three children.
For Garrett, it was amusing to see how her kids behaved on camera — especially her youngest, Bobby, who was “exceedingly proper for 9 years old,” Garrett said.
“Bobby was asked what kind of issues came up (while door-knocking) and he said, ‘Taxes. We have to lower the taxes.’ And he said it very seriously,” she said. “We were all laughing.”
https://www.nhregister.com/metro/article/Upcoming-documentary-to-examine-Hamden-politics-16992577.php