A retired kindergarten teacher and a retired grocer watched the mayor sign into law a tax freeze aimed at keeping seniors like themselves in their homes.
The upbeat ceremony took place Wednesday afternoon in the mayor’s conference room in City Hall.
The new freeze affects homeowners who’re at least 70 years old, have lived in New Haven at least 10 years, and earn under $50,000 a year. Their taxes will be frozen at current levels. According to City Hall, 2,715 households will be eligible to save an average of $450 each this year.
People like 81-year-old Margaret Whatley (pictured). She has lived in her Read Street home in the Dixwell neighborhood since 1959. (“I got married in that house.”) She taught kindergarten for 38 years, 32 of them at Wexler School (including when it was Winchester, before it became Wexler-Grant). Whatley pays about $3,300 a year in taxes. She would have had to pay close to $4,000 under the tax increase envisioned as part of the mayor’s proposed new $445 million budget. Thanks to the budget freeze, her bill will remain $3,300.
She appreciates the help. She spoke at the bill-signing of how, when you work, you anticipate a raise each year. “Once you’re retired,” she said, “it stops.” Now her tax rate stops, too.
“This is real tax relief for people who have played by the rules all their lives [and] taken care of people all their lives,” Mayor John DeStefano said.
Emidio Cavaliere, who for years ran a popular family grocery on Wooster Street, earns too much to qualify for the new freeze. He came the bill-signing to celebrate it, anyway. Cavaliere, president of the East Shore’s senior center, collected the names of 350 elderly New Haveners on a petition to support the freeze.
“I can afford to pay. I don’t mind,” he said. But many others on fixed income need the help.
Cavaliere is pictured in front of Westville Alderwoman Ina Silverman. Silverman originally proposed the tax freeze along with East Shore Alderwoman Arlene DePino.
“This is my proudest day” in six years as an alderwoman, DePino (pictured) said. “It’s a sad day when the government taxes people out of their homes.” New Haven, at least, aims to do just the opposite.