New Haven Register (New Haven, CT)
Alders approve budget
New Haven board OKs $567.9 million spending plan with 0.9 mill tax increase, and expectation of more funds from Yale
NEW HAVEN — The New Haven Board of Alders adopted a budget Tuesday for fiscal 2021 that depends on getting $2.5 million more in contributions from Yale University, with no guarantee yet it will materialize.
Public hearings leading up to the budget vote emphasized the need for Yale and Yale New Haven Hospital to increase their voluntary contributions to the city, given the fact that 60 percent of the city’s grand list is tax-exempt, with Yale University property responsible for 47 percent of that.
Earlier in the day, a new coalition of labor and school interests held a news conference stressing the same theme, which was repeated by the alders Tuesday, where only one alder, Abby Roth, 7th Ward, voted against the budget.
That coalition would like to see the university pay the estimated $146 million in revenue it would be obligated pay if its many property holdings were not declared tax exempt by state statute and the state’s Constitution.
Roth cast her vote against the budget because of the uncertainty of the revenue item tied to Yale University, as well as the uncertainty of state and federal government revenues given increased spending tied to the coronavirus pandemic. She agreed with her colleagues however, that Yale could afford such a contribution and needs to do more for New Haven.
Yale currently contributes $13 million to the city, while the hospital’s voluntary payment is $2.8 million
The budget for the next fiscal year, beginning on July 1, carries with it a tax rate of 43.88 mills, an increase of 0.9 mills from the current level of 42.98. It is a decrease of 0.63 mills from Mayor Justin Elicker’s proposed budget.
The budget adopted by the alders is $567,990,073.
Two weeks ago, the Finance Committee of the alders voted to cut Elicker’s proposed budget by another $2.5 million for the school system and $3,854,304 more for the remaining noneducation items, of which the largest personnel costs are in the police and fire departments.
Elicker has said he cannot cut public safety personnel as that would increase overtime expenditures. The fixed costs that cannot be cut are the largest expenditures — including debt service, health care and pension contributions.
The full board amended the recommendations made by the Finance Committee by reducing the non-education cuts to $2,004,300, or 1.42 percent. The line items for the cuts are unspecified.
Elicker, who was elected to his first term as mayor in November, issued a statement after the vote was taken that the cuts will have an impact on city services and personnel and will be “very challenging.”
“The city faced significant financial challenges when our team introduced the budget to the Board of Alders on March 1st. Now that we confront COVID-19, those challenges have been exacerbated. The Board of Alders and I very much want to maintain service levels and keep taxes to a minimum. I believe the budget our team presented to the Board struck the right balance. It included significant cuts to personnel, eliminating or defunding 80 positions, departmental restructuring, significant cuts to important city initiatives and a modest tax increase,” Elicker wrote.
“The additional cuts by the Board of Alders tonight will be very challenging for us to implement and will undoubtedly impact city and New Haven Public School functions. Having been on the Board of Alders and now being mayor, I’ve seen both sides of the budget conversation. While there are always more efficiencies to be gained, ultimately, the results of these cuts will mean our team will need to make very difficult and real choices that impact services our residents very much care about. I will be working with our team over the coming days to address these cuts to minimize their impact,” Elicker wrote.
Other changes to the budget by the alders from the Finance Committee recommendation included:
Adding a new line — Climate Energy Taskforce — for $50,000, which would be funded by additional permit fees of $50,000.
They eliminated the proposed new parade fund of $100,000 and proposed new tree fund $150,000 and 4 fire captain slots and 1 lieutenant each funded for $1 ($4 altogether) for a combined reduction of
$250,004.
In addition, they reduced the reserve fund by $800,000 and the tax reduction by $800,000, for a combined reduction of $1,600,000.
This leaves $4 million to reduce the mill rate and another $4 million in a reserve fund. The current reserve fund of an estimated $15 million will be essentially eliminated this year to cover a projected $15 million deficit.
The alders added projected income from building permit fees by $50,000.
“These changes result in a budget that lessens the impact on resident services while still advancing the goals mentioned earlier — mitigating the proposed tax increase and producing a reserve fund to address future budget impacts.
Even with these changes, the budget remains painful, with sacrifices to be made by all stakeholders,” the alders wrote.
They also voted for an $100 million in tax anticipation notes, if needed, given Gov. Ned Lamont’s executive order that extends the time taxpayers have to pay their taxes in the upcoming fiscal year because of the financial hardship imposed by the coronavirus where millions across the country are out of work.