Budget Time

Hi All:

I just got an email from a neighbor asking about what the Aldermen are doing to aliviate the tax burden on the average taxpayer.

It is a great question and below please find my reply.

Also the budget season is coming up and truth be told it is not looking good, in my estimation there will probably be no mill rate drop and your revaluation will kick in the next 20%.

Thank you for writing to me with regard to the tax burden on the average tax payer. I understand the real pain of seeing your taxes jump substantially and not having a good reason why.
I dealt with this topic over the last year on my blog http://www.motisandman.blogspot.com/. I will give you an outline here of what is happening and for more details please check out the blog.

(You all reading this can type finance or taxes in the "search blog" box and read what I posted there, now back to the email.)

Back to your simple question of what – we the Board of Aldermen is doing about this – we are taking a multi pronged approach:

1) As you noted we are working with our state delegation up in Hartford to put in a “Property Tax Circuit Breaker” that would cap the amount a family paid in city property tax to 6% of their gross adjusted income. Please note that although the Mayor gets the press the Aldermen are working on this as well.

2) Looking at ways to reduce the city’s long term obligations i.e. Pension, Health Care. We the Aldermen have held a number of hearings on what city owned properties we can sell to raise additional funds and close the gap in what the state is giving us to what we need.

3) Working with our state delegation to find ways on raising revenue other then property taxes. As of now we can only generate funds by taxing folks on their houses and cars. We would like to be able to tax hotel beds and food & beverages as they do in other cities.

I hope that if you have any further questions or comments that you do not hesitate to contact me.

Yours truly,