Bracing For Trump Cuts, Elicker Proposes ​“Primarily Status Quo” $703.7M Budget

With ​“tremendous uncertainty,” funding-freeze threats, and anticipated ​“draconian” cuts coming out of Washington, D.C., Mayor Justin Elicker proposed on Friday a ​“primarily status quo” city budget — which would see the general fund grow by 3.63 percent and the local tax rate rise by 2.3 percent.

Elicker introduced that proposed Fiscal Year 2025 – 26 (FY26) budget during a press conference on the second floor of City Hall. The budget concerns the fiscal year that runs from July 1, 2025 to June 30, 2026.

Click here to read the proposed budget in full.

Standing alongside City Budget Director Shannon McCue and Finance Department Project Coordinator Ron Gizzi, Elicker described a proposed general fund budget of $703,765,049. That’s $24.6 million more than the current fiscal year’s general fund budget of $679,104,165.

Elicker’s proposal includes a 0.9 increase to the mill rate, bringing that local tax rate from 38.50 to 39.40.

One mill translates to $1 in local taxes owed for every $1,000 in assessed property value. That means, under this proposed new mill rate, a home assessed by the city as worth $210,000 would owe $8,274 in taxes instead of $8,085.

It also includes 13 proposed new positions, $93 million in pension fund contributions, and a 2.2 percent increase in total property tax revenue collected. (See more below for other key numbers from the budget.)

In line with the city’s two-year borrowing cycle, this year’s budget includes a $60 million capital budget. It also includes a $62 million ​“special funds” budget, made up primarily of federal grants.

Elicker hosted the press conference a day before the locally mandated March 1 deadline by which the mayor must introduce a new budget each year. 

He did so amid a whiplash-inducing flurry of federal budget cuts, layoffs, and funding-freeze executive orders already here or soon to come from President Donald Trump’s administration and a Republican-controlled Congress. New Haven is already suing the Trump administration in federal court over concerns that the city might lose Department of Justice (DOJ) grant money if it continues to be a ​“welcoming city” for undocumented immigrants.

“I think anyone watching the news is like, ​‘Your guess is as good as mine as to what’s going on at the Capitol.’ It’s a ridiculous city,” he said about Washington at the start of Trump’s second presidential administration. 

New Haven does not know exactly what federal funding cuts are going to happen, what the timeline for those cuts might be, and whether state government will step in to fill those gaps. ​“These are all significant unknowns.” So, he continued, ​“we felt we should present a budget that does not have a lot of new programs, but that is primarily status quo.”

He said that his proposed budget ​“generally maintains current levels of service, but does not make significant new financial commitments or initiate new programs.”

If ​“massive cuts” to New Haven’s federal funding do happen, he continued, ​“there’s a possibility that, mid-year, we could change the budget” with the input and approval of the alders. ​“But at this point, there are so many unknowns.”

The fiscal document now heads to the Board of Alders for several months of Finance Committee workshops, public hearings, review, and recommended amendments before being taken up by the full city legislature for an anticipated final vote in late May or early June.

So. Federal funding fretting aside, what’s in the mayor’s proposed budget?

• 13 new full-time positions, including two assistant building officials, three parking enforcement officers, a parking enforcement field supervisor, a chief data officer, a deputy controller, a tree trimmer, the director of community resilience, a resource analyst, a civil works inspector, and an accountant. (The director of community resilience position was previously funded by federal American Rescue Plan Act grant money; Elicker’s budget proposes shifting that position to the general fund.)

• $347,369,566 in property tax revenue, which is up by nearly $12.9 million — or 2.2 percent — from $339,625,626 this fiscal year. 

• $93 million in contributions to the city’s public employee pension funds. That’s up by nearly $3.7 million from the current fiscal year’s $89.3 million, bringing pensions to 13.2 percent of the total general fund budget.

• $67.7 million debt service payments, which is down from $71.9 million this fiscal year, but still makes up 9.6 percent of the budget.

• A net taxable grand list of $9,079,906,103, which is down by 0.68 percent from the current year’s net taxable grand list of $9,079,906,103. Elicker explained that, to his surprise, the net taxable grand list dropped year over year in large part thanks to changes to how the state values motor vehicles for tax purposes, as well as the resolutions of a number of property tax assessment appeals stemming from the 2023 citywide revaluation.

• A $5 million increase to the Board of Education budget, bringing the city budget contribution to the school district up from $208.2 million to $213.2 million.

• A nearly $8.9 million increase to the police department’s budget, marking a 17.45 percent bump, to reflect increased salaries and retroactive payments from the recently signed new police union contract.

• $2.6 million in vacancy savings. City spokesperson Lenny Speiller told the Independent on Friday that there are currently 245 vacancies among city government positions.

• $22,671,384 in voluntary payments from Yale, up from $20.6 million this fiscal year, as well as $4.1 million in Yale payment for fire services, which is flat from this year.

• $26 million in anticipated building inspection and permit revenue, which is up by $11 million from this fiscal year’s $15 million. Elicker said that that expected building permit revenue bump is based on expected construction by Yale.

• $101 million in state Payment in Lieu of Taxes (PILOT), which is up by nearly $4.5 million from this fiscal year’s $96.5 million.