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03/31/2020 12:00 AMClinton will not hold a budget referendum this year. Instead, the public will be able to provide input on the proposed budget electronically on Wednesday, May 6, and then the Town Council will vote to adopt the budget.
As part of Governor Ned Lamont’s March 21 Executive Order 7I, the legislative bodies of each municipality in the state have been given the authority to set their own budgets. In Clinton, the Town Council is the legislative body. As part of the order, the public must be given a chance to weigh in on the budget. The town is looking for ways to accomplish this.
Town Manager Karl Kilduff explained what the town is working on.
“At this point, a public input opportunity will still be planned for May 6. The governor’s order calls for the budget to be available. In our case, the budget would still run in the paper as has been the historical practice. It would also be on the town website.”
Per the order, electronic methods must be used to provide the public with a way to comment on the proposed budget. Kilduff said the town is working on getting the technology in place now.
“Per a prior order, electronic meetings need to give the public the means to see the discussion and be given log-in instructions. Once we have settled on an electronic platform, the public will know,” said Kilduff.
Town Council Chairman Chris Aniskovich said that the town is seeking guidance from its legal counsel on how to carry out the order and asked that the public be patient.
“It’s crazy, it’s going to be difficult,” Aniskovich said. “Executive orders are executive orders—we have to follow them,” Aniskovich continued.
Kilduff and Aniskovich both said they want to keep the process as familiar as possible while respecting the new orders.
“So, in some ways the process will be similar to what the public has experienced [printed budget ad in the paper and on the website]. Like most other towns, we are working on the means to keep public involvement in the budget given current limitations on groups and the new Stay Home order from the governor,” said Kilduff.
“We’re doing what we can to do business as usual even though the outside world isn’t usual right now,” said Aniskovich. “I want public input like anyone else, but we have to do the best we can.”
“We need to work through striking the right balance and provide for the tradition of public involvement—which is the same challenge most municipalities are working on, too. Everyone is in this boat; it is not unique to Clinton,” said Kilduff.
Changing Orders
Official wording of Lamont’s order was handed down about 72 hours after the Town Council voted to postpone the budget public hearing from early April until May 6 with its eyes on a referendum date in June. The council had been planning on perhaps doing absentee ballots or drive-through voting at the referendum.
The new orders changed that plan in a hurry. Aniskovich said he found out about the wording of the executive order over the weekend, and wrote a message outlining the new process on the town’s Facebook page to quell some of the rumors swirling about the order.
Aniskovich said he’d become aware of rumors that the town was going to use lack of a public vote to sneak in spending requests, which he reiterated is not the case.
“We’re being fully transparent. I’m happy the budget was already approved by the council going into this,” Aniskovich said.
The Town Council voted March 3 to approve proposed town and education budgets and send them to a public hearing.
“Hopefully the public trusts that they elected smart people,” Aniskovich said.
According to Aniskovich, the public will weigh in on the proposed budget and just like in years past the Town Council will meet following that input session to weigh any changes to the proposed budgets.
Aniskovich said there is not a clear-cut date yet for when the council will actually vote to set the budget. The town’s Facebook page and website will still be updated with more information on the budget going forward.
The Budget
At a special meeting on March 3, the Town Council voted unanimously to approve a proposed town budget of $19,996,702, a $1,390,392 or 7.47 percent increase over current spending, and a proposed education budget of $37,103,275, a $593,319 or 1.63 percent increase, sending the combined budget of $57,099,976—a $1,983,710 or 3.59 percent increase—to a public hearing followed by referendum.
If adopted, the proposed total budgets would increase the tax rate 0.69 percent (about a $45 increase on the average Clinton citizen’s tax bill); the discrepancy between the spending increase and tax increase is due to $825,000 of the budget being paid from the fund balance—sometimes called the rainy day fund—rather than from current tax collections.
The town operating budget is proposed at $16,507,785 (up $689,925 or 4.34 percent) while town debt and capital budget is proposed at $2,142,442 (up $190,529 or 9.8 percent) and $1,346,475 (up $611,695 or 80.99 percent) respectively.
On the education side, the operating budget is proposed at $33,572,391, with debt payments of $3,097,758 (down $51,742 or 1.6 percent) and a capital budget of $433,126 (up 34,155 or 8.56 percent).
“On the revenue side, the mill rate for those expenditures is 31.47 mills, an increase of 0.22 mills over the current rate of 31.25—or a tax rate increase of 0.69 percent,” Kilduff said earlier in the month.
Due to the impending revaluation that may cause property values to rise, Town Council members were wary of raising taxes further in the same year.
The governor’s executive order came out after press time for the March 26 issue of the Harbor News. The Harbor News will continue to monitor information related to the budget.