Meetings Planned to Discuss City Budget

With the City Budget presented by Republican Mayor Erin Stewart in front of the City Council, an education forum is the first of several meetings being held to discuss it.

An education forum will be held at New Britain High School on tonight, May 10, 2019 at 7:00pm. A special meeting of the Council was called for the forum by the City Council’s President, Ald. Eva Magnuszewski (D-AL).

The forum, to be held in the NBHS cafeteria is to discuss funding for New Britain’s schools.

Stewart has come under criticism for repeatedly flat-funding city schools. Her budget plan for the upcoming year would reportedly transfer a state education grant of perhaps $3.1 million to the school system. While that amount would appear to represent her largest single year increase for city schools, her previous years of flat-funding would appear to leave Stewart’s support for local schools with less than a one percent per year increase over the six years of her administration.

Next week, the Council will have two committee meetings to discuss different aspects of the city budget.

The Council’s Committee on Administration, Finance and Law will hold a meeting on May 14th at 6:30pm.

That meeting will be followed by a meeting, scheduled at 6:45pm, of the Council’s Consolidated Committee.

The Council’s Committee in Planning, Zoning and Housing will meet at 7:00pm on May 14th.

The committees are to discuss Stewart’s General Fund budget, her budget for special funds and her plan for spending the state Local Capital Improvements Grant received by the city.

The Council has a June 9th deadline to consider action on the city budget presented by Stewart. While the Council is technically able to approve a budget different than the mayor’s plan, the mayor can veto it. Unless that Council can overturn the mayor’s veto by the deadline in the City Charter, the mayor’s budget takes effect without the Council’s approval.

Since “overriding” a veto takes the support of ten of the fifteen Council members, and there are nine Democrats and six Republicans, Stewart and the Council Republicans can block the Democrats from approving their own budget plan if Stewart disagrees with it. That is effectively what happened last year, when city funding New Britain schools was frozen.

Under the City Charter, the Council President, along with the Mayor have the authority to call special meetings of the City Council.