Budget Meeting Called for May 29th

Republican Mayor Erin Stewart has called the City Council into a May 29th special meeting to consider her plan for the city budget year that begins July 1, 2019.

The special meeting is set for May 29, 2019 at 7:00pm in City Hall.

Stewart’s budget plan appears to rely heavily on one-time revenue. Her budget would transfer $2 million from the city’s fund balance and another $2.9 from other funds, use $3.5 million from ban/bond premiums and count on $2.5 million in sale of property.

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

Stewart has come under heavy criticism for repeatedly freezing the amount of money that the city allocates locally to its schools, despite millions of dollars in increases in funding for City Hall departments.

New Britain has low test scores academic test scores and low local funding for its schools. Statewide data apparently shows a general correlation between how much a city or town provides in local funding for their schools and the test scores of the students in their schools.

Stewart’s budget would keep the city property tax mill rate at 50.50 for the upcoming budget year, which would apparently leave current year property taxes $26 million higher under the six years of Stewart’s administration.

The taxing and spending plan would take effect for the budget year that begins July 1, 2019 and continues to June 30, 2020 and would set the mill rate that would set property tax levels for tax bills due in July of this year and January of 2020.