Thomas Breen photo
Alders prez Walker-Myers breaks news to neighbors Tuesday night.
New Haveners will receive a slightly higher mid-year car tax bill in January 2018 as the city looks to stay within budget without cutting social services, in the face of reduced state aid.
Board of Alders President and West River Alder Tyisha Walker-Myers revealed that news to neighbors at Tuesday night’s Dwight Community Management Team meeting, which was held at its regular monthly location in the gymnasium of Amistad Academy on Edgewood Avenue.
Walker-Myers told the two dozen attendees that the city will send out semi-annual car tax bills in January 2018 that will reflect a mid-year increase in the local motor vehicle mill rate from 32 to 37 mills. That means that residents will pay $37, rather than $32, for every $1,000 worth of assessed value for their cars.
That’s a mid-year adjustment for the fiscal year that began July 1. Taxpayers have already paid a car tax bill for the first half of the fiscal year based on the 32 mill rate.
“Depending on what kind of car you have, what year and all of that stuff, some people might see a $12 difference or an $18 difference,” Walker-Myers said. “But if you have a Benz or a BMW, I don’t know how much you’re going to pay, but it’s going to be more.”
Mayoral spokesperson Laurence Grotheer Wednesday confirmed the plan, which hadn’t yet been publicly announced. He said that the motor vehicle mill rate will be adjusted to 37 mills effective Jan. 1, 2018, and will apply only to the second half of the fiscal year.
Grotheer said that the city expects to raise an additional $978,000 in revenue this fiscal year through this tax increase.
The city currently allows residents to pay their annual car tax bill in two installments: half in July and half in January. Grotheer said that this upcoming motor vehicle mill rate increase will apply only to the January payment, which covers the latter half of the fiscal year.
He said that the increase from 32 to 37 mills means that motor vehicle owners will pay $5 more per $1,000-worth of assessed value.
For example, if a person has a car that is assessed at $10,000, then the supplemental bill at the new 37 mill rate in January, covering the car tax for just the latter half of the fiscal year, would be $25. That would be on top of the $160 January tax bill that the city had already sent out based on the 32 mill rate.
“Everyone knows that this has been a challenging year at the state for resources,” Walker-Myers said at Tuesday night’s meeting, alluding to the 17-week-late Connecticut budget that state legislators passed at the end of October after months of fractious debate.
Much of the debate came down to how much of the brunt cities and towns should shoulder of the state’s looming multi-billion dollar projected deficit.
When the state Senate and General Assembly finally passed a two-year budget for Fiscal Years 2018 and 2019, Mayor Toni Harp and her budget team estimated that the city could face as much as a $10 million gap in expected municipal aid.
Without sharing many details on the current state of the city budget in relation to the state budget, Walker-Myers did say on Tuesday night that the motor vehicle mill rate increase would help shore up some of the reductions in state aid. She also argued that the increase was not as bad as it could have been.
In fact, she said, the Board of Alders voted to set the motor vehicle mill rate at 37 mills when they approved the city’s budget back in June 2017.
But that desired rate was thrown off kilter by a provision in a previous state budget that set a car tax cap of 32 mills for all cities and towns in Connecticut starting in July 2017.
Instead of pursuing an underfunded state reimbursement program that would have allowed the city to set its car mill rate higher than 32 mills and then seek state aid for the difference between the cap and the actual local rate, the city decided to send out its car tax bills this summer at the optimistic maximum of 32 mills.
But then the new budget dropped, and with it came a higher cap at which municipalities could set their car mill rates.
According to the new budget, cities and towns can now charge up to 39 mills on motor vehicles, a full seven mills higher than the state had allowed (and the city had sent out in tax bills) earlier this fiscal year.
“In my opinion, from the beginning, the 37 would have been the best thing, because we kind of knew it was going to end up there,” Walker-Myers said, implying that the city acted a bit rashly when it sent out car tax bills earlier this year at the 32-mill rate.
“That said, we actually can go up to 39 mills with this new budget. But then that would be a big jump, from 32 to 39. So we made a conscious decision to go with what we voted on in the original city budget [i.e. 37], because that was in the public, and everything was already out there.”
Neither Walker-Myers nor Grother said how big the current projected deficit could be even after the raised tax.
They did both say that the mayor has spoken with each city department head about freezing hires for all but absolutely necessary positions.
Walker-Myers also said that the city recently refinanced some of its bonds and is focusing on reducing its health care-related debt, as health care is one of the city’s most rapidly rising costs.
Leaders of the Dwight Community Management Team, including chair Florita Gillespie (far left), listen as Walker-Myers explains new car tax,
Dwight management team Chair Florita Gillespie asked Alder Walker-Myers if the new state budget would result in any cuts to education or to the police.
“In a way, I guess you could say that the school budget did get cut because a line item got cut,” Walker-Myers replied.
She said that the state ultimately agreed to keep funding the rent rebate program for seniors, by which the elderly and the disabled receive financial support from the state if they spend over a certain amount of their income on rent. But she said the state then cut out a line item worth the exact same amount as the rebate program from the education budget, effectively foisting the same reduction on the city in a slightly different location.
“They just move the line items, like you can do with budgets,” she said. “Budgets are tricky things. It’s all illusions, actually. The state made a decision that they weren’t going to cut this program for the elderly, but then they took from education.”
But, Walker-Myers said, the city is committed to maintaining its current level of social services. No matter the cuts at the state level, the city will continue to provide its residents with the services on which they rely, she promised.
“We’ll definitely be cutting back,” she said. “But we won’t cut back on the services coming to the residents. We need our cops. We need our firefighters. Your trees will continue to get trimmed. You’ll still have your garbage pick up and all of those things.”
“But I would like for everybody to really come out when the budget hammers start happening,” she continued. “Come out and voice your opinion. Because we are dealing with difficult times at the state, and we need to hear from you.”