7% Tax Increase Forecast For West Hartford

Yowzers!
The Courant is reporting a possible 7% increase in West Hartford property taxes.

If no programs or personnel are cut and state aid doesn't increase, residents will likely be facing a tax hike of about 7 percent in fiscal year 2009-10.

So the Town Council is calling for a townwide pow-wow.

The town council and school board will host a community summit Jan. 28 to begin identifying which services to preserve and which to cut, and to spell out what local officials can and cannot do with respect to union contracts, property revaluation and other issues.

"We think that 7 percent is unacceptable, but it's going to take significant program cuts to lower it," Mayor Scott Slifka said Tuesday. "The changes could be dramatic, and the community needs to be part of that discussion."

In addition to soliciting ideas, the summit at town hall is an opportunity "to try to gain a community consensus on the facts — what we're facing, what we can afford, what's in our local control and what isn't," Slifka said.

Hoping for a large turnout, officials are seeking participation from business owners, parents, union members, the Exchange and Rotary clubs and other fraternal groups, the West Hartford Taxpayers Association, which has opposed the last several budgets, and West Hartford FIRST, which has supported those budgets, particularly in the area of education funding.

Meanwhile back in the school superintendent's office:

The school board directed Superintendent David P. Sklarz Tuesday night to prepare a budget that caps the spending increase next fiscal year at 3.5 percent.

That means the 2009-10 education budget would top out at $127.6 million...

The current schools budget is $123.3 million, a 4.5 percent boost from the previous fiscal year, and that's after the town council ordered the school board to cut $1.4 million when voters rejected West Hartford's total budget in a June referendum.

The school board last imposed a spending cap on Sklarz in 2005. That year, at a time when board members thought they were cracking the financial whip, they asked the longtime superintendent to limit his requested budget increase to 6 percent.

Hey, Board of Education, how about a zero increase? Take that teachers raise that you just approved and deduct the amount from somewhere else in your budget or don't give it out in the first place. We are in a financial crisis in this country, or haven't you noticed? Is there something about the term economic crisis that you do not understand? Do you know that other places are even rescinding teacher raises?

Hey, Mr. Mayor, how about a zero increase? Other CT towns like Newtown are doing it!

A consensus among members of the Newtown Boards of Finance and Selectmen point to a 2009 municipal budget strategy that will deliver a zero sum tax increase. But several town leaders, including First Selectman Joe Borst, agree that such a goal can only be achieved by reducing the town's workforce.

Whether the staff reductions will come by attrition or layoffs has not been made clear...

Now, Mr Kortze said, as the town is teetering on the potentially darkest and most unpredictable period of financial uncertainty in anyone's memory, it is appropriate and important to present taxpayers with a zero-increase budget.

There is a mindset on behalf of our elected officials that has to be changed, the reality of dismal economic times is somewhat forcing that mindset to change. We can no longer spend for the things we want, because now we have entered into a survival mode. Just like the average family budget decisions, sometimes you have to forgo the new roof for another year or wear the same pair of boots for another winter season. You might like that HD TV that's on sale, but the money just isn't there, and the credit card is tapped out. Sometimes junior has to go to community college because or a state school, because a private university is just not affordable.

We can't be giving out raises now, as much as we'd really like to, unless the shortfall is made up elsewhere. Something else has to go, but we all know that we simply cannot spend more. It will not destroy our school systems if we choose to spend less. No one is asking to cut below what we already spend. Can we not make do with what we already spend?

Also WHFIRST put out a paper outlining some suggestions regarding budget process and transparency. It is the same ideas that have been put forth by another group of taxpayers in town. However, this issue is not just about "transparency"; this is an issue of changing the tax and spend mentality that we have dealt with for years. The budgets and contracts we have established are simply unsustainable as we go forward.

We no longer have the resources to pay a new superintendent over $200K and give the outgoing superintendent full medical benefits - give step raises to our teachers along with 1-1.5% increases, except that we are doing it anyway. We no longer have the resources to maintain the level of wages and benefits and numbers in our staffing, except we are doing it anyway and we even dare to increase it! It seems we are loathe to change that and will hide behind lots of excuses to make those changes.

We should be saying that for any increase somewhere a decrease somewhere else has to be made. That isn't happening.

The bulk of the expenses are in staffing, and we cannot penny pinch our way out of this budget problem by closing a firehouse or eliminating leaf collection.

The West Hartford Taxpayers Association continually harped about the unsustainability of the budget going forward, which was evidenced a report graciously done by a town resident, Robert Sisk (which was later said to be an accurate forecast by the Town Manager). If anybody thinks that past budget referendums were merely about raising or lowering taxes a few extra bucks per household, then you completely missed what the discussion was all about.

The budget and our spending trend as it is, is unsustainable and even more so with less state funding on the horizon.