NL City Council repeals budget, plans new vote

Citizens’ petition called for a referendum or reduction to $49.86M spending plan

New London — The City Council has repealed its general government budget and plans another vote next Monday to approve a scaled-back spending plan.

The move was a response to a citizens’ petition calling for either a citywide referendum or a reduction to the $49.86 million budget. Some who signed the petition were unhappy with inclusion of elements of the payas-you-throw trash removal program in the budget.

The city administration, facing public pressure, has since delayed a final decision on the trash program.

The city has a long history of petitioning budgets. Last year’s petition, combined with a long-overdue state budget, led to hand-wringing and pushed passage of the city budget to the end of October.

Councilors this year don’t expect as much drama.

The revised $4.44 million general government budget, however, did hit a delay in passage on Aug. 6 when Councilor John Satti voted against it. Two councilors were absent, and the final vote tally was 4-1 in favor.

By charter, at least five councilors need to vote to approve the appropriation ordinance to allow the council to waive the second and third readings of the budget, said Council President Pro Tempore Don Venditto.

The council will vote again at its Aug. 20 meeting.

Finance Director Don Gray said repeal of the budget means the city, by charter, is restricted to spending 25 percent of the prior year’s budget. And while the city came close to that threshold last year, he said he doesn’t expect any issue this year.

If the budget does not pass next week, however, Gray said he expects a bit of a scramble to determine why and if more adjustments need to be made.

Satti said Monday that the reason he voted against the budget was, in part, because it contains a tax increase in a city where taxes are already too high.

Though there were layoffs of several city employees associated with the mayor’s proposed budget, Satti said there were also raises for administrators and cuts to some youth programs and seniors that were hard to swallow.

The revised budget contains more than $500,000 in cuts from the previous budget that are coupled with a decrease in $272,250 in state education aid to the general fund. The tax rate is expected to rise 1.3 percent with the new budget, from 43.17 to 43.74 mills.