Talk of West Hartford

Arizona Tax Revolt commentary:

The folks in CONNECTICUT have their thinking caps on. What a concept, having local officials limit their taxing ability to less than the maximum allowed under state law. Let’s keep this concept in mind next time our local officials are up for reelection.

Marc Goldstone, Chair.
Arizona Tax Revolt

Published: February 7, 2008
WHTALK.BLOGSPOT.COM

Proposition 2.5 is back

As part of her budget initiative, Governor Rell has proposed legislation regarding a 4% property tax cap (last year it was 3%) but Ana Lachlier, Theresa McGrath, and other members of the West Hartford Taxpayer's Association are advocating for a 2.5% property tax cap in West Hartford. Corporation Council Joe O'Brien even mentioned at the last Town Council meeting that it would be entirely possible for our Town Council to keep to a 2.5% ceiling if they so desired. They have complete control over the amount of taxes they wish to levy. So what's the problem? Is it fear that our streets will get overgrown with weeds? and trash will accumulate at our doors? and school scores will crash to substandard numbers? Or is it plain lack of will?

This article, by Jennifer Abel, entitled, To the Barricades!, appeared in the Hartford Advocate:

Tax fighter Theresa McGrath will call for a cap on town property tax again this year

This country was founded on the principles of tax revolt, but such principles don't carry over too well into the modern era: If you oppose the high tax rate on tea you can easily dump it in a nearby harbor, but you really can't do that with your house.

Instead, you have to do what town resident Theresa McGrath did and sign up to discuss property taxes with the town council, like say at the meeting it held last Jan. 22. If this year is like the last, McGrath's visit may prove to be the opening salvo in a battle between a town council seeking another tax increase and a band of residents who oppose it.

Government budgets aren't like ordinary ones. If you're a regular person, your budget works like this: see how much money you have, look at what you want, and then cut expenses or do without.

West Hartford, like all municipalities, does it the opposite way: First, you figure out how much money you want or need, and then demand this sum from the taxpayers.

Snarkiness aside, towns get their funding primarily through property taxes, which are calculated via "mill rates." One mill equals a dollar of tax for every $1,000 of value in a house (in Connecticut, only 70 percent of the value is taxable). In West Hartford the current mill rate is 38.63, which means you pay $38.63 for every $1,000 in your house, minus the first 30 percent of value; a house worth $300,000 pay $8,112.30 in tax this year.

McGrath has no beef with any of this; her complaint is that West Hartford taxes have, for several years, increased too quickly. "Inflation's been running at 2 or 3 percent per year, but tax increases have been 6 or 8 percent," she said. "This town has no plan for [fiscal] responsibility ... they take the budget from last year and slap [a] 6 or 8 percent [increase] on the top, instead of trying to tighten their belts and work within a budget."

So last year she went before the town council to propose something called Proposition 2 ½, which if implemented would have capped annual tax increases at — not necessarily at 2.5 percent, but some to-be-determined rate. Only that rate wasn't determined, because the plan last year was shot down.

"[The council] said they didn't think it was legal to implement it on a town level [without state permission]," McGrath said.

Shortly after this dismissal, she called state representative Arthur O'Neill of Southbury, who posed her question to the state's Office of Legislative Research. And the short version of their answer, stripped of all legalese and government-speak, is: Yeah, it's legal for West Hartford to adopt a law limiting the size of the tax increases it imposes on residents.

Of course, that doesn't mean West Hartford will. But McGrath's proposition will be harder to dismiss now that the council can no longer use the excuse "Aw, gee, we'd love to keep taxes low but that would be "illegal".

As far as we could tell, the Council will blame binding arbitration, already negotiated contracts, unfunded state mandates, cost of living increases, higher energy costs and inflation, for the ever escalating costs of running a town. Most of that is valid, but if you do not want to hurt the ability for people to continue to live in this fair city, that just means that some serious budget considerations are going to have to be made, which may include some very difficult choices (sorry kids, no air conditioning in the school this year) in order to keep a reasonable and affordable tax rate for our residents. A recession is on the horizon, and even upper middle class families are struggling. There is the real possibility that even if you want to sell your house and get out of Dodge, that you may not be able to.

Perhaps it would help if a true and accurate revaluation is done so that the Blue Back Square properties that have been completed since the last revaluation (based on October 2006 Grand List) would be fully valued and included in the Grand List. Perhaps it would help if the Council dictated and demanded of the Town Manager and the School Superintendent to tell their reports to keep their expenses to zero growth. Perhaps it would help if they adopted a policy of no new programs and no new hires in any department.

You see, there are many things that this elected body can do to hold the line on taxation - and we wonder why they are too timid to take the steps to really make some meaningful restraints on taxation.