[Todd Lavieri is chair of the New Canaan Board of Finance.]
The Town of New Canaan finished the fiscal year 2025-2026 with a larger budget surplus than expected. This was the result of stronger revenue primarily from interest income and conveyance fees on property sales, coupled with expenses coming in below budget. This allowed us to deliver $5.8 million back to the taxpayers, which is $800,000 more than expected. We applied the $5.8 million to lower the amount needed through taxation.
As you may have seen, earlier this month the Board of Finance approved a mill rate of 16.967 for fiscal year 2027, an increase of 0.276 compared to the fiscal year 2026 mill rate of 16.69. The amount to be raised from taxation for fiscal year 2027 will be $168.1 million, a 2.48% increase from the fiscal year 2026 amount of $164.0 million. That increase is below the levels that other comparable towns are experiencing. The increase in taxation ranges from 4%-6% in those towns. Other revenue streams make up the difference between the tax revenue and the budgeted expenses.
Our 2027 full expense budget is $184.5 million, an increase of 1.91% over the current fiscal year’s budget of $181.0 million. That small increase is an incredible achievement in this environment, and also compares very favorably to other towns that saw budget increases of 4%-5.4%. Our non-Board of Education expenses are up 1.9% compared with 3%-8% increases in other towns. Our Board of Education budget expense is up just 1.9% compared with 3%-7% increases elsewhere. Our Board of Education budget benefited from favorable health and self-insurance costs.
With this budget, we also accomplished all the priorities for our town. First and foremost, we continue to maintain and fully support our top school district as we have each year for the past two decades. We also funded our town-wide community services, our safety and emergency services, and public works, while maintaining healthy cash reserves and funded pensions. During this year’s budget process, we were able to reduce operating expense requests by more than $2 million and capital requests by more than $6 million, while meeting the needs of our town.
The average increase in the amount raised by taxation over the past 8 years, including the ’26-‘27 budget, is 2.3%, a very strong accomplishment by our Town and boards over this period, especially with inflation running between 3-4%. Our average increase also compares favorably with surrounding towns.
Our goals will continue to be to maintain a top school district, a vibrant downtown, town safety, active community services, and a strong financial position. I would like to thank our Board of Finance, Town Council, New Canaan school administration, Board of Education, Department leaders, Town employees, our Board of Selectmen, and our Town’s CFO and Finance team for their hard work and guidance. Once again, great teamwork gets results. Happy 250th everyone.