Town Budget 2017-2018

UPDATE: How and Why Education Spending Is Up by 2.16% — Explanations From Town Officials

Taxes To Go Up by 2.47% with Passage of Tax Rate, Town Budget by Representative Town Meeting

Finance Board Chairman Zagrodzky on the Town Budget’s Pressures, Risks, Strengths

Stevenson to RTM: Here’s What Led to Town Budget’s (Slight) Spending Increase

Board of Finance Approves Budget That Would Raise Taxes 2.46%

Darien Library: We Need to Pay Our Librarians Better

Stevenson to Lawmakers: ‘Don’t Balance the State Budget on the Backs of Local Property Taxpayers’

Selectmen Pass $46.8M Town Budget Proposal, Cut $450K from Town Administrator Spending Plan

Town Administrator’s $47.4 Million Budget Proposal Calls for 1.26% Spending Increase

Education

By David Gurliacci | May 11, 2017

Government & Politics

By David Gurliacci | May 10, 2017

Education

By David Gurliacci | May 9, 2017

Government & Politics

By David Gurliacci | May 9, 2017

Government & Politics

By David Gurliacci | April 12, 2017

Darien Library

By David Gurliacci | April 5, 2017

Government & Politics

By David Gurliacci | February 25, 2017

Government & Politics

By David Gurliacci | February 13, 2017

Government & Politics

By Chandra Johnson-Greene | January 25, 2017

Editor’s note: Here are three more statements from Monday’s votes approving the town education budget. All are marked “Update” below. They give a better picture on what town officials think of school spending. Several town officials spoke with prepared comments to the Representative Town Meeting about the education budget, with all of them defending it as, overall a good budget. The 2016-2017 education budget, which was approved by the RTM without changes, is up 2.16 percent from the Fiscal Year ’16-’17 budget passed last year, although it will be $2.2 million in the hole if the state eliminates all of its Education Cost Sharing grant to the town.

The town mill rate will rise to $16.16 from $15.77, a 2.47 percent increase, the Darien Representative Town Meeting decided Tuesday night after it passed a $145,304,061 budget for the 2017-2018 fiscal year, starting July 1. Spending increases in the upcoming budget are relatively small, despite some new hiring in both the town and school district parts of the budget. “The overall mill rate increase, at just 2.47 percent, is the second lowest increase I’ve seen in my nearly nine years on the Board of Finance,” Finance Board Chairman Jon Zadgrodzky told the RTM. Several capital projects were also supported by the RTM, including the most controversial budget item — a $1.7 million expansion of the Darien High School Cafeteria, expected to take place in the summer of 2018. A proposal to lower the amount spent on the cafeteria expansion, cutting $1.4 million from the total cost of $1.7 million, was rejected by the RTM in a 68-to-9 vote to cut off debate on the matter (with one abstention), then in an 18-to-57 vote (with one abstention) to reject it.

If Hartford cuts Darien’s last remaining big grant or imposes mandates on the town that are unknown so far, Darien has fiscal resources to either avoid tax increases or minimize them, Board of Finance Chairman Jon Zagrodzky told the Representative Meeting on Monday. Zagrodzky spoke Monday before the RTM took various votes on different parts of the town budget and on town taxes. In the end, after various discussions and debates, the RTM passed the same budget that the Board of Finance had approved back in April. Here’s Zagrodzky’s full statement to the RTM, as prepared:

Good evening. I appreciate the opportunity to address you tonight about the budget.

First Selectman Jayme Stevenson delivered these brief comments Monday night to the Representative Town Meeting before the RTM voted on the 2017-1018 town budget. Here is her statement in full, as she released it on Tuesday:

Good evening Mr. Moderator, RTM members, fellow elected officials and taxpayers watching Channel 79. I would like to respectfully ask that you approve the Board of Selectmen’s operating and capital requests as recommended by the Board of Finance. The diligence with which this budget has been crafted has resulted in a budget that restrains spending to accommodate expected services and needed infrastructure investment. There are four primary drivers of the Board of Selectmen’s budget:

The Board of Finance approved a $145.3 million town operating budget and $6.7 million capital budget for the fiscal year starting July 1, which town officials calculate would lead to a new tax rate of $16.16 per $1,000 of assessed value — an increase of 2.46 percent. Board of Finance Proposed Budget at a Glance

Capital, non-recurring budget: $6,710,656
Town operating budget: $49,429,285
Education operating budget: $95,874,776
Town & education budgets (total): $145,394,061
Grand List (tax base) as of Oct. 1, 2016: $8,512,539,479
Mill rate (tax rate): $16.16 (per $1,000 of assessed value), 0.39 above this year’s $15.77 (a 2.46 percent increase)

The budget was approved in a 5-to-1 vote, with board member David Lopiano saying he couldn’t support the budget after not having had adequate explanations for some of the spending from the school district Director of Facilities Michael Lynch and Jeffrey Adams, the town director of information technology. Board member James Palen was absent from the meeting. Board Chairman Jon Zagrodzky said both the town and the school district put together very careful, thoughtful budgets that resulted in “percentage increases [in taxes] that are pretty small — and the smallest, except for one year, over the past seven years.” But it will be more difficult to keep spending increases down as the state imposes costs on towns and cuts aid in order to get the state government’s own fiscal house in order, Zagrodzky said.

Darien Library wants to increase the salaries of its librarians by 5 percent across the board this year and keep on increasing them at a rate higher than inflation next year, the organization’s director told the Board of Finance on Tuesday. The reason: Darien Library isn’t paying salaries that nearby libraries are offering, and it’s making it difficult to recruit and retain librarians.

“We’re having difficulty in attracting people” to take librarian jobs at Darien Library, Director Alan Gray told the board. Darien pays librarians a typical starting wage of $52,650 for someone who just graduated with a degree in master of library science. That compares to $60,369 for Greenwich Library and $63,861 in Westport, according to a library budget document. New Canaan Library’s starting wage is the same as Darien, and in Norwalk, it’s $69,997.

First Selectman Jayme Stevenson recently submitted this testimony to the state Legislature on Gov. Dannel Malloy’s proposed state budget and its impact on municipal governments in Connecticut:

The Governor’s proposed budget makes several changes that would impact Connecticut municipalities. In particular, it would require towns and cities to pay one-third of the employer’s share of teacher retirement benefits. As well, the proposal makes changes to the distribution of education funding. First, it would restructure ECS distribution, and second it would transfer those funds to a new grant for special education. As the first selectman, we have not been immune from having to make difficult financial decisions in light of Darien’s conservative fiscal policies.

The Board of Selectmen unanimously voted Monday night on a budget for non-school district spending only slightly higher (by $137,438) than the budget passed last year. Total town spending (aside from the education budget, which is more than twice as big) would be $46,835,834. That increase in spending, if approved by the Board of Finance and Representative Town Meeting, would amount to a slight tax increase of perhaps 0.01 or 0.02 mills (town officials did not have exact figures Monday night). The school superintendent’s proposed budget, with a 2 percent increase, would cause a larger bump up in taxes. Countering the increased spending, growth in the grand list since the previous year, almost 1 percent, would reduce the size of the tax increase.

« August 2022 »

The town budget (not including education spending) would increase 1.26 percent under the proposal presented by Town Administrator Kathleen Buch on Tuesday night to the Board of Selectmen. In total, the proposed budget would increase by $588,452, to $47,424,286. To support the proposed budget, Buch estimates that the mill rate for the town would have to be 16.40, or an increase of 0.6 mills, with 67 percent of the proposed tax rate resulting from education expenses. Buch stressed that the calculation for the mill rate is based on the Grand List for 2015, since the Grand List for 2016 has yet to be finalized. First Selectman Jayme Stevenson also reminded attendees that the estimated mill rate should be viewed as a “gross generalization.”

The budget includes two new full-time positions, four new part-time positions, and reductions in pension and retiree medical costs.