Markeshia Ricks Photo
Mayor Toni Harp.
Mayor Toni Harp has instructed city department heads to come up with plans to slash spending in order to avoid tax hikes in the event the state can’t pass a new budget by September.
Harp has given the department heads until the end of the month to prepare the plans, she said on the latest edition of WNHH radio’s “Mayor Monday” program.
She said that the city expects to receive at least the $30 million in state aid that it received last year. But the state legislature failed to meet a deadline to pass a budget by the beginning of July as required by law. Now the governor has warned that the state might not have one by August’s end, either.
That would leave the city in a short-term cash crisis, she said. Hence the directive to department heads.
Also, Harp said, the administration is still hoping for an additional promised $18 million in state aid on top of the $30 million. But it is planning for the possibility that it might not come given the state’s projected $5 billion-plus two-year deficit. This fiscal year’s $538.9 million city operational budget counts on that $18 million increase.
The only option off the table is a tax increase, Harp said.
“We’re asking our department heads, our coordinators, to take a look at how they can tighten the belt,” she said.
City and town leaders statewide are in similar straits because of the state budget impasse. It has already cost cities and towns an estimated $100 million in lost revenue.
On the WNHH radio program, Harp said she supports the idea of the legislature bailing out the city of Hartford to help it avoid bankruptcy, even if that means rewarding a city for failing to make some of the hard decisions that have allowed New Haven to balance its budgets in recent years. The governor has proposed $40 million in additional aid for the capital city.
“We can’t afford to have any city in our state go bankrupt. It impacts the state’s creditworthiness. The state has an obligation to address it in some way,” Harp said. “The governor is saying, and I think the legislature would do this as well, ‘If we have to prop you up in some way we’re going to have more to say’” about how Hartford spend state dollars.
Click on or download the above audio file to hear the full episode of “Mayor Monday” on WNHH radio.
This episode of “Mayor Monday” was made possible with the support of Gateway Community College and Berchem, Moses & Devlin, P.C.