The good news keeps coming from Hartford City Hall. Mayor Pedro Segarra announced yesterday that he has cut Hartford's mill rate 1/2 a mill. That combined with the herculean work of the Council, amounts to a full mill reduction for the upcoming year. Since the mill rate has increased over 30 mills in the last ten years, any decrease is good.
Luckily for Hartford's business community, at the rate of 1 mill a year reduction, in 30 years we can once again compete with most other Connecticut municipalities. The next highest mill rate compared to Hartford's 73 mills is New Haven at 43 mills.
To the business community, please hang in there, 29 years to go at this rate.
A "mill" equates to $1.00 taxed per thousnad dollars of assessed value, or at 74 mills, $74.00 per every thousand
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7 comments:
Umm..there is no legal way for the Mayor (or council) to cut the Mil rate after it has been set prior to 7/1. But, I'm pretty sure no one in city hall cares during an election year. When the city runs out of money after January 1, we will all be pleasantly surprised!
This should be a positive but you treat it as a negative.
should be a positive
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Well, it is better than a stick in the eye.
But, obviously what counts is not mil rate but actual taxes paid. Mil rate reduction on this scale will help minimally with personal property where no re-val is ongoing; e.g., the tax on my 1987 truck will be reduced from $85 to $83.
I do believe the time is coming when it will be apparent that holding the line on spending is not sufficient. Even the School District's budget will have to be cut. The State can say what it will, State Aid to Municipalities will have to be reduced in the not to distant future. It would be nice if, when that time comes, the State were to simultaneously provide relief on mandates; especially those pertaining to labor agreements in the (State)School District and the Muni Govt. It would also be nice, even before the crunch comes, if more people in charge at 550 Main were to inquire if a town of our population really needs a $550million budget, or if any town of any size needs half of the departments and bureaus that exist at City Hall and its satellites.
There is too much waste everywhere, fed, state, city. We need to reduce the size of the government. There are way too many employees at city hall. The pensions are too generous.
Yes, fire them. Then there will be fewer people to buy at your store, eat at your restaurant, and buy the products your company makes. That will hurt you in the pocketbook and eventually lead to you being laid off, too.
fewer people to buy at your store, eat at your restaurant, and buy the products your company makes
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Problem is that our stores and restaurants can't afford the taxes paid for public "services" currently provided (e.g., crappy schools, human services, housing...) in the manner currently provided (i.e., with union workers,no-show hack jobs, living wages...). That is, even if your pseudo-Keynesian theory were true, that more public employees are per se good for the economy, the fact is we don't, and certainly won't, have the money to pay support them in the manner to which they've become accustomed. But, actually, there's a lot of stuff they're doing that's useless, and the useful stuff could be done, we imagine, with less expense.
Peter, I would take what Anonymous @ 6:38am said with a grain of salt. I'm willing to bet a mortgage payment that at 6am this morning while at work they logged onto their city owned PC and one of the first things on the agenda while on the clock was to make sure they read through the 'We The People Blog' and posted a comment in an attempt to defend what no one can rationally.
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