Op-Ed: Property Taxes And The Budget Process

As part of our goal to keep the town informed and provide meaningful updates from time to time, this is a follow up to my summary last month regarding property revaluations. The purpose of this letter is to continue to communicate our process and to set a range of expectations given the large swings in valuations that we have seen. We don’t have all the budget facts at this point and assumptions continue to move around since my note last month. We are just starting the budget process, and just completing the revaluation assessments. As a reminder, new assessments were mailed out to property owners in December.

Conservation Commission Chair Proposes Solution To Build Up ‘Land Acquisition Fund’

The chair of the Conservation Commission this week proposed a new way for the town to help build up its reserve fund for acquiring land to preserve as open space. The Town Council created the Land Acquisition Fund in 2017, prompted by Aquarion’s effort to subdivide and sell a 19-acre parcel at the end of Indian Waters Drive. 

Since then, the Fund has accumulated just $150,000, Conservation Commission Chair Chris Schipper told the Board of Finance during its regular meeting Tuesday night. “We looked at 11 years of conveyance fees,” Schipper said during the meeting, held at Town Hall and via videoconference. He added: “The town can charge a 25 basis point real estate sales conveyance fee through a Connecticut statute that allows it. And the intention, the legislative intention of that statute was the town would use those monies to preserve open space for future generations.

 ’It’s Really Not OK’: Finance Board Chair Comes Down on Spending ‘Contingency’ on Police Station Renovation

The chair of the Board of Finance this week called for the team overseeing the extensive renovation of the New Canaan Police Department to tighten its belt with respect to spending a total of $2.6 million budgeted for contingencies on the project. 

That figure—$700,000 in contingency for Shelton-based Turner Construction, which is providing construction services, plus $1.9 million for the town—only applies to the recently set $20 million guaranteed maximum price for the South Avenue project, not for the full $29 million price tag that also includes soft costs such as insurance and creating a temporary police headquarters, according to finance board Chair Todd Lavieri. “I really can’t impress upon you enough how important that is not to be spent,” Lavieri told members of the Police Department Building Committee during the Board’s special meeting, held Tuesday night at Town Hall and via videoconference

“We have to be careful that that’s not really kind of code for ‘it’s budgeted for’ ” he continued. “It’s not budgeted for .. and we can have this meeting again in October, and I can bring you the deck that we went through, and it was a $17 million renovation, and it’s now $29 million. I’ve just got to send the message: It’s not there to be spent.