By Aram Ayalon
Recently, the New Britain Progressive reported that the city of New Britain is yet again, late in submitting its audit report, this time 6 months late instead of a year late for the 2022 budget – a slight improvement but still adds to the financial woes the city has experienced in the last few years. As council member from 2017-2023 I continuously warned that the city lacks fiscal responsibility, and the burden is falling on New Britain residents. Here are some of the highlights:
1. Excessive Barrowing: The city of New Britain has been barrowing excessively by purchasing municipal bonds every year or two increasing the city debt to the point that debt payment is almost 10% of the yearly budget.
2. Lack of independent financial advisor: The city of New Britain does not have an independent financial advisor; the current financial advisor is actually the investor for the city who benefits from each bonding transaction. Furthermore, this investor is also a former chief of staff of the mayor.
3. Excessive spending on bureaucracy: Going along with excessive barrowing, the city is spending more on bureaucracy in city hall including adding a highly paid city manager item with $150,000 (and more in benefits), increasing the office of the mayor’s budget to a record $637,000 and adding a new director of constituent service.
4. Large tax breaks for developers – Out of town developers love New Britain since they get huge tax breaks and residents have to put the bill to cover the expenses associated with these developments. A case of point is Jasco Development LLC which got a 26-year tax abatement sweet deal capping revaluation increase at 2% while other New Britain homeowners have had 50-100% increases in their 2023 revaluation.
The result of the lack of fiscal responsibility is that taxes are rising, and the mayor is at it again increasing the mill rate for this year from 38.28 to 39.59. This has a negative impact on low-income families, senior residents, people on social security and disability – all living on fixed income. While knocking on doors as a candidate for state representative I often get this concern.
What could be done? As a state representative, I will push the state to establish a better method for keeping the city accountable to its audit reports – heavy fines for every day late in submitting the audit reports will ensure the city of New Britain will put its house in order sooner than later. Second, I will advocate for the state of Connecticut to require every local municipality to have an independent financial advisor. Third, I will initiate legislation to cap the 5-year revaluation at 5-10% as some other states do so retired homeowners will not experience sudden unexpected large increases in their real estate taxes. If millionaire developers who stand to make large profits get their revaluation capped at 2% why not all residents?
Editor’s note: The cover photo is by local photographer Frank Gerrratana.
