$40M In Car Values Disappears
| Mar 13, 2024 4:00 pm |Record-high used car prices are down. Which means New Haveners’ real estate taxes could go up this year.
Record-high used car prices are down. Which means New Haveners’ real estate taxes could go up this year.
Taxes would rise — and city government would reshuffle its approach to inspecting housing and caring for parks — in a new city budget Mayor Justin Elicker proposed Friday.
Continue reading ‘Mayor's $680M Budget Rethinks Parks, Housing’
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| Sep 29, 2023 12:15 pm |The Elicker administration won a key initial vote of support for its plan to increase pay for department heads, coordinators, and other non-unionized managers, as an aldermanic committee endorsed salary range bumps and cost of living adjustments in an effort to ward off even more City Hall vacancies.
Higher than expected property tax collections, building inspection revenue, interest rates, and city employee vacancies helped New Haven’s budget end last fiscal year more than $22 million in the black.
After the city sends roughly $15 million of that surplus towards a record police-misconduct settlement, that means the city can bank another $7 million-plus for a rainy day.
Continue reading ‘Surplus Reaches $22M — Minus $15M Settlement’
A network of green spaces linking every public park in New Haven. A larger role for people of color and women in building the city’s physical landscape. A pedestrian walkway connecting Union Station to Downtown. A ban on new parking lots and garages in favor of playgrounds.
Continue reading ‘Debate Pitch: Here's How I'd Fix The Parks’
Tax bills are heading up next fiscal year — even as the tax rate drops — thanks to the Board of Alders’ unanimous approval of a final budget that preserves the mayor’s top-line expenditure, revenue, and mill rate numbers.
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| May 10, 2023 3:04 pm |City government picked up extra cash for cleaner streets and other state-allowed public service programs as local sales rack up for legal pot and mini-liquor-bottle “nips.”
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| Apr 24, 2023 2:44 pm |A city plumbing inspector is rising the ranks to become New Haven’s next top building official — as the department he’ll run continues to struggle to hire enough inspectors to meet the demands of the city’s construction boom for sub-suburban pay.
Continue reading ‘New Building Official Tapped As Boom Stretches Budget’
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| Apr 21, 2023 5:24 pm |Jobs. Education. Climate change mitigation. Libraries. Housing. Traffic safety.
The Board of Alders Finance Committee heard over 50 last-minute pitches for more funding for these critical needs as they wrap up their review of next year’s city budget.
A resounding call for more affordable housing and better housing code enforcement filled the Board of Alders’ chambers, as roughly 100 community members gathered for a final round of public testimony on next fiscal year’s proposed city budget.
Don’t rely just on bashing Yale and begging the state when it comes to raising enough money to fill city budget gaps.
Liam Brennan offered those words of caution as he pitched his mayoral campaign’s vision for how best to craft a “fair share,” pro-housing budget that rethinks the bounds of permissible local government action.
Continue reading ‘Brennan Looks Beyond Yale, State For Budget Boosts’
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, and | Apr 18, 2023 2:18 pm |If Mayor Elicker wants to improve public health and safety in New Haven, he must invest in stronger housing code enforcement in this year’s budget and increase tenant oversight of the Livable City Initiative (LCI).
Pay the city’s top librarian a higher salary. Pay every library worker a higher salary.
Interim City Librarian Maureen Sullivan made that funding pitch as she detailed the budget asks for one of New Haven’s most cherished and nationally celebrated public services — which, she argued, could do with a little more city fiscal love.
Top school-district officials pitched alders on sending the Board of Education $207 million next fiscal year — as they made their case for why rising teacher salaries and special education costs warrant $4 million more than what the mayor has proposed.
Continue reading ‘Schools Seek $4M Above Mayor's Budget Rec’
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| Mar 23, 2023 10:16 am |The Board of Education voted unanimously to approve a proposed $207 million schools budget request for next fiscal year, teeing up that financial plan — which is more than $3 million above what the mayor has proposed sending the district’s way — for review by the Board of Alders.
More than 55 percent of New Haven’s $17.9 billion in real estate value is currently off the tax rolls, according to the city’s top property-monitor.
Continue reading ‘55.53% Of City Real Estate Now Tax-Exempt’
Many New Haveners would see taxes increase again — and the city’s budget grow by less than the rate of inflation — according to a $662.7 million general fund budget newly proposed by Mayor Justin Elicker.
Continue reading ‘$662.7M City Budget, 37.2 Mill Rate Proposed’
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| Feb 9, 2023 8:53 am |City government still has 112 full-time non-cop vacancies — while the city’s revived fiscal watchdog commission still has three empty seats — as the Elicker Administration continues to struggle to fill job posts so that overtime doesn’t spike and current workers aren’t overly stretched.
Continue reading ‘City Vacancies Dissected As FRAC Comes Back’
The following opinion essay was submitted by Dennis Serfilippi, a certified public accountant who works as a chief financial officer consulting for early- and late-stage technology companies.
New Haven is flush with $188 million in funding — $115 million from the feds, $50 million from the state, $10 million from Yale, and a $13 million tax increase.
The Elicker Administration’s bid to spend $3 million in federal aid on a new math and literacy tutoring plan moved ahead — against a backdrop of questions and concerns around how exactly the city will find the hundreds of volunteers needed to make this program work.
New Haven cut a $166 million break for out-of-town investors in the 10 biggest real estate deals of 2022 — leaving local taxpayers with the bill in a year that was supposed to start seeing the real estate boom pay local benefits.
The break came in the form of real estate tax appraisals that ended up far lower than the prices that buyers actually paid when they determined what the true values of high-end properties should be.
Continue reading ‘Whose Boom Is It? City Cut Top Investors $166M Break In 2022’
The city has received a one-time windfall of $2.7 million in deferred building permit fees from the now-former owner of 360 State St., thereby closing out two parallel developer deals that date back more than a decade.
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| Oct 6, 2022 10:12 am |Increased state and Yale aid — along with vacancy-induced salary savings — helped propel city government to a $16.9 million budget surplus as well as a slightly higher credit rating.
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| Sep 13, 2022 3:38 pm |Board of Education member Darnell Goldson took on the role of whistleblower as he criticized the New Haven Public Schools (NHPS) contracting process as unduly shielded from public oversight, and as overly favorable to the current school bus provider.
City libraries remain closed on Sundays 11 weeks into a fiscal year in which they are supposed to be open, with the Elicker Administration citing staff shortages as the biggest roadblock so far to realizing a heralded budget promise.
Continue reading ‘Despite Budget Vow, Libraries Closed On Sundays’