Part of my goal as President of the CPOA is to break down complicated issues so that everyone can understand them. It took me a good bit of time to become familiar with things like municipal bonding, budget processes, and so on. These are not always “easy” things to learn.

The mill rate, for example, tends to be very confusing to people. Most people don’t really understand what it is or how it works.

I have written other posts on the mill rate, but I decided to try something different. I have distilled the mill rate down into a simple 4 minute video that I think everyone should watch. (You can view the video here.)

This is the first of what I hope to make a series of videos about. So please, let me know if you like it and what other topics you’d like to learn more about. If you think the video is worth watching please share it with all your friends.

I recently wrote an extremely detailed article reviewing some of the most troubling parts of the Mayor’s proposed budget for the New Britain City Journal. In the article I identify several areas of concern within the budget. First and foremost are revenue projections that could be called, at best, overly optimistic or, at worst, completely fictional. The reason this is troubling is because the revenue projections completely distort the entire budget. If the Mayor spends what he is planning on spending and in his budget and the revenues fall short, the taxpayers will be left on the hook for a nasty mid-year surprise. Here is a breakdown of some of the areas of concern. » Read more..

Early in September the CPOA submitted an FOI Request to the city of New Britain regarding certain revenue lines. After failing to respond within the required four day window, a point admitted later by Communication Director Phil Sherwood, I went before the Common Council and raised my concerns. The city finally released the information I requested, a full month after my original request.

What was in my request

My original request questioned the reliability of several projected revenue streams, such as the Anti-Blight Poor Condition Revenue line and the Transitional Revenue line. My guess was that these lofty figures were not realistically obtainable, and now that we are a quarter into the fiscal year I wanted to receive an update as to how much revenue has been generated.

What I found out

As I assumed, the actual returns on these lines is far below expectation. Out of a projected $425,000 in anti-blight fees less than $8,500 (or under 2%) has been collected, and these funds didn’t even appear in the account until after I made my initial request. The police and fire “hot spot” fees, which are expected to net close to $1.1 million have not yet generated a single dime. And while Phil Sherwood was quick to point out that these ordinances have just been enacted it doesn’t change the fact that they are now expecting to collect close to $135,000 every month from these fees alone.

Another contested issue, the Non-Owner Occupied Garbage Collection, which was originally supposed to raise close to $3.5 million, was abandoned. The Common Council instead passed a wide range of fee increases that will supposedly total $3.5 million. The problem with this plan is that the Common Council wasn’t told which fees would be raised by how much. This could result in drastic increases for building permits and other fees that would stifle growth and industry.

Trouble ahead

One area that we will continue to monitor is revenue projections versus actuals as the city moves forward. Currently several revenue lines in the budget have not reached 25% and we are over a quarter of the way through the year. This is to be expected, however, because certain lines generate more revenue in the summer while others generate more revenue in the fall, winter, and spring. It is somewhat troublesome that some of the licenses and fees the city recently moved to raise have not yet reached the 25% threshold so it makes me wonder whether or not the expectation that raising them will raise the revenues expected

To view the full documents released by the city click here and here.