Norwalk School Budgets & Your Taxes
The BOE continues to slog through budget season, and soon it will shift over to the Common Council. Despite the drama of where to cut the budget, and it appears that at least this year there are cuts, of some magnitude, but not cuts to the overall budget. The real issue at hand is how much can the City of Norwalk reduced the budget cap. If premliminary signs are indicators, but with this council who really knows, the idea of offsetting expenses with user based fees is a non starter. Which leaves taxes.
For some Norwalk residents, particularly Harbor View and South Norwalk mixed gentrified neighbourhoods, the answer of raising taxes is outrageous. Council people had better play close attention to where the tax burden has become unbearable. For instance, Harborview, had great interest in the topic of how the city was going to handle its solid waste disposal, trashgate to the rest of the us. They opposed the contract that would have Meadow Street become a City of Norwalk exclusive transfer station. The City of Norwalk, had that contract been approved, would have saved $1 million dollars, a figure that while disputed here, is a solid number based on what the City of Norwalk will have to pay as a result of special allocations coming up this year. Ironically Harborview does not get the city service of garbage pick up, they contract it privately, with City Carting.
In the meanwhile, the City had also been banking on real estate conveyance taxes and building permit fees. Both of which have declined enough to cause revenue shortfalls of a significant nature. Add to the mix less interest earned off money invested, and you have a this year very real revenue shortfall that is causing city departments to make cuts. The weather certainly hasn’t helped either. The snow storms that fall on the weekends are driving up snow removal expenses.
Norwalk hasn’t suffered real estate declines that much of the overbuilt parts of the nation have seen. But the average selling price of homes in Norwalk has gone down some. There is also a larger stock of homes for sale, a sign of the times as well. Since December 15th, according to the Hour, 450 hearings have been held between homeowners and the revaluation firm of Ryan & Associates.
On Tuesday the Common Council will hold a discussion on the proposed $20 beach sticker fee. Last year, the discussion centered on opposition to raising fees on overtaxed residents. Now there’s some hard numbers out there. Corda is submitting a budget that requests $5 million more than last year’s budget, with items like portable classrooms being added, instead of redistricting, and additional professional development funding.
The school board is making progress in cutting back parts of its budget, but cutting also means no increase, and Corda must be told that that there will be no increase to his budget of last year. Further the Common Council must figure out a way to continue city services, Norwalk has notoriously and historically failed to deliver services and maintain the ones that they have. That means looking at ways other than property taxes, and it means an honest discussion of how to accomplish that, instead of just voting no on user fees. It would be nice of we could get some creative thinking on the Common Council, instead of reactionary thinking that overlooks long term impacts.
