No Speakers at West Hartford Town Council Budget Hearings
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West Hartford Town Hall. Photo credit: Ronni Newton
The West Hartford Town Council has held two public hearings on the proposed FY2022 budget.
By Ronni Newton
The second of two public hearings on the budget Town Manager Matt Hart proposed for FY2022 was held at 6 p.m. Thursday, and was adjourned after just a few minutes after no one called or joined the Webex video to provide testimony.
Hart presented his $308.6 million budget proposal to the Council on March 11, and at the time released the schedule of two public hearings – one in the middle of the day, and one in the evening, as is customary. Both were scheduled as virtual events, with the first hearing taking place on Tuesday, March 30, at 2 p.m.
No one testified at the first public hearing either, with the exception of resident Judy Allen, who addressed the Council to state that she had already submitted her testimony via email.
Allen’s emailed testimony noted that while she never wants to see her taxes increase, she understands the work that goes into preparing the budget and the complexity of balancing expected services with keeping tax rates down, and she indicated support for the proposed FY2022 budget.
“Some of the things that are most important to me are library services, putting the town in a position to be prepared for climate change, lowering our use of fossil fuels, and creating true low income housing including housing for older residents looking to down size. Even though all of these may not have a specific line item in the budget, I believe that future goals for the town should be reflected in any budget,” Allen wrote in her email.
She also urged the town to continue pressuring the Metropolitan District Commission (MDC) to switch from an ad valorem tax to a user fee for wastewater which would take the cost out of the town’s budget so that it’s treated like other utilities.
In past years, an increase in the ad valorem tax has been a major cost driver in West Hartford’s budget, but for FY2022, that tax will actually decrease by $388,700, Hart said.
“Despite their calculations, for me as a home owner, the benefits of a lower impact on the budget and therefor property taxes, out weighs any increase in my MDC water bill. I am willing to do anything that might support the town in this effort,” Allen wrote in her submitted testimony.
In comparison to the adopted budget for for FY2021, the proposed $308,620,511 FY2022 budget includes an increase in spending of 2.79% ($8,373,753).
The resulting property tax increase Hart has proposed is 3.25%. The proposed mill rate is 43.16 mills, an increase of 1.36 mills from FY2021.
According to Hart’s analysis, the average homeowner with two vehicles will see taxes increase by $339, or 3.25%, (from $10,415 to $10,754) for FY2022. In West Hartford, the “average” homeowner based on the 2020 Grand List has a home assessed at $227,525, and two vehicles assessed at $10,819 each.
The town continues to await guidance on how the American Rescue Plan Act funds may be able to be applied to certain items that have been included in the proposed budget.
The Council has held multiple “committee as a whole” sessions to review each section of the proposed budget, and also hosted a joint meeting with the Board of Education last week.
The Board of Education made some modifications to the initial proposal submitted by Superintendent Tom Moore, and on Tuesday approved a $175,556,055 budget.
The Town Council is scheduled to approve the overall budget during a “hybrid” meeting on April 22. That meeting will be the first in more than year held at Town Hall, which is set to reopen on April 19, and is set for 7 p.m. in legislative chambers, Room 314, with the ability for Council members as well as the public to also participate virtually.
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