Radiofree West Hartford -- The Crow's Nest by Tom Evers

THE CROW'S NEST

Town Council holds votes to hold off re-evaluation

West Hartford Tax Referendum Filed

(Including what the Hartford Courant failed to inform its readers)

By Tom Evers

May 25, 2004

Thursday, May 20th, the West Hartford Town Council voted unanimously to officially postpone re-evaluation giving West Hartford taxpayers a temporary reprieve until 2006. Property assessments will continue on the basis of the Grand List of 2002.

While the adoption of the legislation by the Council is makes sense, it still leaves taxpayers with the uncertainty of exactly what's to be done about the town budget and the prospects of a very large tax increase.

West Hartford Town Manager, Barry Feldman, was asked exactly what the tax increase is going to be. His reply was, "We are still working on it." This is somewhat alarming considering that the Town of West Hartford officially adopted the budget on April 27th.

Surprisingly, Hartford Courant reporter Stephanie Reitz failed to press the Town Manager on this issue. One would expect that with the budget release due next Tuesday (May 25th) that the Town Manager would be able to provide more information. So much for the Courant's appetite for hard hitting, investigative reporting.

And there's more.

What is clear is that budget spending is slated to increase approximately 8.5%. This would mean that as it stands today the tax burden on property owners would be around 8% -- and not the 7% previously reported by Radio Free West Hartford, and others The mil rate would be about 43 mils (figured 4.3% of assessed property value). This is still remarkably high for the region.

The Town Charter calls for a balanced budget. Costs to balance the budget and determine the mil rate is based on revenue raised through real estate taxes and not through projected charges, fees, fines or other means of "extra" income.

Another interesting tidbit is that the City of West Hartford is to receive approximately $1.8 million dollars from the State of Connecticut; $1.6 million comes from the ECS (Education Costing Sharing Grant). One would think this money could be used to provide some tax relief for West Hartford residents, but as it stands today - it can't.

According to the governing rules of the Town Charter, because the town budget was already adopted on April 27th, no changes can be included to incorporate these funds (or any funds) to offset the tax burden caused by increased spending. The only way that these funds could be included would have to come as a result of passage of the West Hartford Tax Referendum proposed by the West Hartford Taxpayers Association led by Philip Meister. To be clear, the Referendum's passage, doesn't specifically guarantee that the grant funds would be used, -- but it opens the door for the budget to be reopened, and provides the possibility for changes to the budget to take place.

It's interesting that the Hartford Courant's article fails to mention anything about the Referendum, which gives the impression (whether intentionally or not) that the Courant is providing cover for the Democrats with regard to the Referendum.

Despite the good opportunity for the Town Council to re-evaluate its standing on the tax increase and budget, rumors are that Democrat Scott Silva has said that he will not support its passage. Furthermore, the rhetoric coming from City Hall is that most Democrats on the Council have made an inflexible, hard and fast decision to increase town spending and taxes without regard for the consequences and pain for the average West Hartford resident. The thought is that Democrats will actively try and fight the Referendum.

The good news is that as of yesterday (April 20th), the West Hartford Taxpayers Association officially filed 3500 signatures with West Hartford City Hall in order move the referendum forward (1200 signatures more than is necessary to call a referendum), which underlines the fact that taxpayers are not willing to let this issue die on the vine.

There is an interesting irony about the whole concept surrounding the West Hartford residents' toleration level for a tax increase.

According to the West Hartford Town Survey published in October of 2002 and conducted by the Center for Survey, Research and Analysis at the University of Connecticut , (which is available on the City of West Hartford Home Page at this link http://www.westhartford.org/townservices/WestHartford2002report_final.pdf) 56% of West Hartford residents would support a tax increase between 6% and 10%. The survey purports that 41 percent of residents claim they would vote for a tax increase of 10% to maintain services, 5% would support an increase of 8%, and ten percent would support at tax increase of 6%.

The Referendum will allow the Town to test the accuracy of the survey, and at the same time test the resolve of West Hartford residents.

Interestingly enough, Democrats have used the predicted cost of the Referendum process - reportedly about $20,000 -- as an argument against its implementation. Strangely enough, they have remained silent about the burden of a $25,000 price tag to conduct the survey above. It's apparent that the Democrats chose to raise the fiscal flag of concern - but only when -- their agenda is threatened.

It's not uncommon for Democrats to choose a closed process such as surveys and polls from which to draw support for their causes. The use of polls as a tool to advance political agendas is well documented on the web and elsewhere (and to be fair, polls are used by both parties across the Nation). The concept of an open referendum is frightening to Democrats because it takes authoritative governing out of their hands and puts decision-making into the hands of the people. If Democrats really believed that they had majority support for an 8% tax increase, then they would be out in front campaigning to make it happen - not out obstructing and pooh-poohing the idea.

Instead of practicing fiscal restraint, Democrats are holding on to the outlandish notion that property tax reform will be resolved in the Connecticut Legislature. But based on twenty years of endless congressional debate and confusing and open-ended judicial cases, it's hardly likely that something will be done soon..

Without going into lots of history on these issues, I recommend that to the interested reader go online to check out Sheff v. O'Neill http://www.state.ct.us/sde/sheff.htm%20%20">http://www.state.ct.us/sde/sheff.htm and (Barnaby) Horton v. (Governor Thomas) Meskill here http://www.cga.state.ct.us/2001/rpt/olr/htm/2001-r-0059.htm.

That's it until next time!

Tom Evers