New Canaan’s legislative body last week approved a budget of $166.6 million for fiscal year 2024, a 3.12% increase over current spending.
The Town Council at its April 5 meeting voted 12-0 in favor of the budget, which takes effect July 1.
Chair Steve Karl said in a town-issued press release that it’s been “a challenging year given the current backdrop of rising costs and inflationary pressure on most major budget categories.”
“The town faces many of the same challenges the private sector is experiencing, including the rising interest rates, cost of energy, healthcare, labor, and materials,” Karl said. “We managed to keep the increase raised by taxation flat over the past four years, but this year may bring a modest increase to our tax bills. On a positive note, our town departments and Board of Education have done a great job holding the line and controlling costs as much as possible without sacrificing the finished product our residents have come to expect.”
In addition to Karl, those voting in favor of the budget were Town Council Vice Chairs Mark Grzymski and Penny Young and members Robin Bates-Mason, Rita Bettino, Tom Butterworth, Luke Kaufman, Mike Mauro, Maria Naughton, Kimberly Norton, Hilary Ormond and Cristina A. Ross.
The annual budget process is a months-long undertaking that starts in the fall and comes before the public at Board of Selectmen hearings in January before moving to the Board of Finance and, finally, the Town Council.
The full finance board-approved budget can be found here on the town website. The Town Council’s final approved budget has not yet been posted, though once uploaded it will appear here on the Finance Department’s page under the “Budget Documents” subsection.
The spending plan for FY24 includes total Board of Ed operating expenses of $103.3 million, up 4.02% from this year’s budget.
“In addition to these Board of Education expenses, the budget includes $9.14 million of other Board of Education expenses paid by the Town,” the press release said.
A breakdown of the Board of Ed’s budget can be found here.
Superintendent of Schools Dr. Bryan Luizzi said in a Jan. 25 memo to all three town funding bodies that “[s]everal key factors were considered when establishing this budget.”
He continued: “These include (1) responding to changing needs of our students, academically, socially, emotionally, and physically; (2) ongoing investments in our newly implemented healthier school start times; (3) funding the health insurance internal services fund guided by actuarially developed projections; (4) managing risk by fully funding the insurance reserve corridor and maintaining stopJoss levels; (5) meeting our contractual obligations to the district’s 750+ staff members; (6) implementing high-leverage, cost-conscious initiatives to continue improving the student experience; (7) capitalizing upon cost savings opportunities such as solar, natural gas, propane, insourcing, and lighting upgrades, to manage operational costs; and, (8) continuing the replacement program for the district’s 300+ interactive Smart Boards, which have aged out and become unreliable.”
Town department operational expenses were $32.42 million, up 4.96% from FY23, according to the town-issued press release.
“Other budget items include a combined Town and Board of Education debt service of $18.39 million (up 0.31%) and tax-funded capital projects of $0.55 million (up 140.95%),” it said. “To fund this budget, the amount to be raised from taxation is $152.18 (up 5.51%).”
According to the press release, the Town Council’s budget takes into account the Assessor’s reported 2022 Grand List increase of 1.02% to $8.01 billion from the 2021 Grand List of $7.93 billion.
“This Grand List combined with a $4 million fund balance drawdown will result in a projected increase of the mill rate from the current 18.372 to an estimated 19.194 (up 4.47%),” it said.
The final mill rate will be set by the finance board on May 9, it said.