From:
Susan Kniep, President
The Federation of Connecticut Taxpayer Organizations, Inc.
Website: ctact.org
860-528-0323
May 26, 2004
WELCOME TO THE 30th EDITION OF
TAX
TALK
Your update on what others are thinking, doing, and planning
Send your comments or questions to me, and
I will include in next week's publication.
Please note that TAX TALK is now on our Website
Susan Kniep, fctopresident@ctact.org
FCTO President
Subject:
FCTO In the News
Communities Feel Effects
of Taxpayer Groups
Budgets Rejected in
Referendums
May 24, 2004 Waterbury Republican
News Article by Chuck Petruccione
After he
forced Thomaston's municipal budget to a referendum, Tony Durso
did not celebrate. It's not a victory, he said, it's the beginning of a
war. "This can't be a one-shot deal
where we just look at one budget," Durso said.
So he has begun collecting names in the hopes of creating a permanent taxpayer
watchdog organization in town. His idea
may be new to Thomaston, but it is part of a growing trend across the region
and around the state. In Torrington, Naugatuck and New Hartford, taxpayer
watchdog groups have formed within the last year. The groups join others
including Watertown, Winsted and New Britain, which is Connecticut's oldest at 75
years. The
Federation of Connecticut Taxpayer
Organizations, formed in the mid-1980s to
promote fiscal accountability by the state and in cities and towns, lists 28
different town organizations on its Web site.
Susan Kniep, president of the coalition, said
taxpayer worries have been bubbling just below the surface for years, and tough
economic times are bringing to the fore.
In Torrington, an
organization was launched over the superintendent of schools' hefty pay
contract. The Naugatuck group came
about because some residents felt school spending was driving the town's tax
rate out of control. Kniep
said other groups have formed because of corruption scandals in cities like Waterbury and Bridgeport. At the state
level, investigators are examining records to determine whether Gov. John G.
Rowland's gifts from friends were in exchange for lucrative contracts. Kniep said taxpayer
distrust of politicians is leading them to question budget appropriations. That
prompted Thomaston's Durso to demand a referendum and
set the stage for the formation of his town's watchdog group. Durso said if
Thomaston's proposed 2004-05 budget passes, the average homeowner will see
taxes bounce from $3,469 this year to $4,097 next year, an 18 percent
jump. Rob Kane, chairman of the Town
Council in Watertown, where the Watertown-Oakville Taxpayer's Association has
been active for nearly 15 years, said it makes sense that residents in many
towns are coming together fight tax increases.
"The price of everything is going up including milk and gas,"
Kane said. "Everything affects your pocket book, so nobody wants to pay
more in taxes. The only place that taxpayers truly have any kind of say in
their government is at the local level."
Kniep said taxpayer group membership is growing and they're
flexing their muscles by exercising their constitutional rights to
petition. "That is the only
protection we have, to be able to defeat a budget and send it back to the
officials," Kniep said. "We have to tell
them what we are willing to pay in taxes, not what they will impose on us. You
are seeing budget referendums being defeated all over the state." Since the
beginning of the month, voters have rejected the following budgets:
· Seymour's combined
town and school budget
· The Region 6
school budget, which includes Warren, Morris and Goshen
· The Region 7
school budget, which includes New Hartford, Colebrook, Norfolk and Barkhamsted
· The Region 14
school budget, which includes Woodbury and Bethlehem
· The Region 15
school budget, which includes Middlebury and Southbury
· The Region 16
school budget, which includes Prospect and Beacon Falls
· Litchfield's
combined school and town budget
· Watertown's combined
school and town budget
In Region
7, New Hartford's Citizens for
Responsible Government sent a flier to residents outlining concerns about the
proposed 5.86 percent budget increase. Voters then rejected the budget 648-267,
although it passed in each of the district's three other towns. Mark Hawley,
president of the group, said it's not a coincidence. There is a watchdog group
in his town but not in the district's other towns, Barkhamsted,
Colebrook and Hartland. "We can
make a difference, there's no doubt about it," Hawley said. Using a flier is similar to efforts that have
proven effective time and again in Watertown. Jack Walton, spokesman for Watertown's group,
said it also is not uncommon for his group to put up lawn signs or take out
advertisements in newspapers when they don't support a proposed budget. He said
the group's expenses are covered by the annual $10 dues paid by each of the
group's 500 members. While taxpayer
groups rally to defeat budgets they say are irresponsible, those in charge of
crafting budgets say residents simply don't understand that increases often are
necessary. In Plymouth, a recent town
meeting had to beat back motions aimed at cutting between $800,000 and $1.6
million from the budget. David Merchant, chairman of the town's board of
finance, said it is disturbing to see the work of his committee nearly
decimated by a motion that doesn't include suggestions for where to cut. Clifford Brammer,
first selectman in Thomaston, said he doesn't think a referendum on the budget
is a good idea for exactly that reason. He said only allowing residents to say
yes or no to the bottom line is a bad idea.
"There is not a line item to cut from on the town side. We will be
cutting services or employees," Brammer said.
"If people are willing to cut services, come forward and tell us where to
cut." Steven Angelo has been the
town manager in Winsted since December. He said he has seen taxpayer
organizations in other places he has worked, including Massachusetts, where people
just call for cuts all the time without being reasonable. He said that doesn't
benefit anyone. Skip Page, president of
the Torrington Citizen Action Coalition, which was just formed this year, said
his group intends to watch what the Board of Finance, Board of Education and
mayor do, but they are not in place only to oppose those entities. "We will take on any issues that we feel
are important, even if that means supporting the town," Page said. As an example, Page said the coalition and
the city are in agreement that binding arbitration for salary disputes is a
disservice to towns and taxpayers.
"I think it's always helpful to have additional citizens look at
what we do," Angelo said. Kane
agrees. He said he may not always be on the same page as the taxpayer's
association, but he values their input.
"I'm glad they get involved," Kane said. "It's easy for
people to sit on the sidelines, but at least they come to the budget meetings.
Whether they agree with me or not, this is still a democratic process, and I
welcome participation from everyone."
*****
Richard Pozzo,
President, Winchester Taxpayers
Association
Subject:
Winsted Residents Deny Tax Increase
I am pleased that Richard and his wife will be
joining FCTO for our breakfast meeting on June 26. Read of Richard’s success below in another
budget defeat as written by the Waterbury Republican Newspaper, May 26, 2004.o
WINSTED — Voters on Tuesday, by 150 votes, turned down a
$26.7 million town budget proposal for the 2004-05 fiscal year. A combination of projected education and
municipal expenses, the proposal was nixed, 1,054 to 904, as just under 30 percent of the town's 6,555 registered voters went
to the polls. "This is a clear
indicator that the taxpayers have had it," said David LaPointe,
a member of the Winchester Board of
Education and former president of a local taxpayers group. "Enough is
enough." "I voted no,"
said Ruth Wheeler of Torringford Street as she left
the polls at Pearson Middle School Tuesday
evening. "Property taxes are too high, and the town keeps taking the brunt
of it because of the education budget and employees' salaries, which we can't
do anything about." However some,
like Christine Royer of Chapel Road, turned out to
back the budget. "We have a
responsibility to take care of the kids," she said. "We can't make
the children the human shields to the administrative salaries." Under the failed proposal, which is about
$600,000 less than the current budget, the tax rate would have risen by 1.77
mills, from 30.12 to 31.89 mills. A mill is $1 for every $1,000 of assessed
valuation. Taxes are going up despite what would have been a small increase
because of $1.6 million in state and federal funding cuts. The current municipal proposal is about
$8,770,000; the education proposal is about $17,444,000. Bond payments of
roughly $489,000 are included in the total but are separate from both
budgets. Selectmen will begin reviewing
the budget at a special meeting Thursday at 7
p.m., Mayor Maryann Welcome said. "We're going to sit down, discuss the
budget and look at what cuts will have to be made," she said, adding it's
too early to say where any cuts would come from. Dick Pozzo,
president of the Winchester Taxpayers Association, had a suggestion for the
board. "My position is still the
same," said Pozzo, who waved a "Vote
No" sign at voters as they drove by on Wetmore
Avenue earlier in the day. "When the budget
comes back to the Board of Selectmen, I think that they have to lobby really
hard to get the Board of Education to cut at the administrative level, not at
the teaching level." School board
member Todd Hayward said that's not possible.
"I'm not sure how they think we can run a school without
administrators," Hayward said. He stood
50 feet away from Pozzo holding signs in favor of the
budget. "I see no way to replace these positions. Whether we like it or
not, you can not hire talented people and not pay them commensurate
wages." Town Manager Steven Angelo
hopes selectmen send the budget back to another referendum before the end of
June to avoid paying 23 pink-slipped teachers as much as $60,000 in
unemployment benefits from the town. By
charter, selectmen must call for a town budget meeting no fewer than 14 days, and no more than 28 days, after a referendum, Town
Clerk Sheila Sedlack said. The next referendum must then be held no
fewer than 21 days and no more than 28 days after the town meeting, she said.
*****
Tom Durso, TDurso8217@aol.com
Watertown Taxpayers
Association
Subject:
Revaluation and Government Theft
May 24, 2005
Taxpayers can be held -up by the taxman in two
ways, directly as in payroll or sales taxes or indirectly as in property
taxes. The most dangerous is the real
estate property levy because it is easily manipulated to extract more
money from us. For example the new grand list
shows a huge increase in the average value of residential property in Watertown. Some homes
have jumped 60% in assessed value. What this means is that we local property taxpayers incur the honor of
giving up more of our family budget money due to unrealized appreciation
in our largest asset - our homes. We emphasize the word unrealized because with
the stroke of a pen or the tap of a computer keyboard the taxman or
taxwoman decrees that we are rich enough to hand over our medicine , food,
clothing or tuition money to town government even though our incomes are
stagnant and totally unrelated to our home values. Revaluation in four year
intervals is a legislative scheme inspired by the groups who directly benefit
from higher property taxes, the public sector labor unions. They couldn't
wait for ten year revaluations since their labor contracts are in 3 year
cycles so they need more frequent access to our money which
caused the new four year revaluation law. The term
"property tax reform" is another
back door entrance to our pocketbooks devised by union-owned
legislators and spending lobbies like the Connecticut Conference of
Municipalities (CCM). Their vision of "reform" is nothing but raising
our income, sales and other state taxes while
keeping our property taxes on the upswing and pretending that the
"state" is coming to our rescue, with our own money of course. Local
taxpayers would lose the power of budget referendums since we'd be dealing with
the state taxman without the referendum power to control him or
her. Property tax "reformers" never mention
repealing property taxes because their intention is to increase our total
tax burden to reward and fatten their educrat-union
pals who in turn donate re-election cash to these friendly
legislators. No, the reformers' main goal is to eliminate our resistance
to tax hikes as we demonstrate by our budget referendums each
year. The problem is overspending
in the government education monopoly not undertaxation of
the state's producers.
Don't be fooled by the
"reformers".
******
Len Chaponis, lchaponis@earthlink.net
New Britain Taxpayers
Association
Subject: Alderman Lopes cited by New
Britain's Ethics Commission.
NEW BRITAIN -- The city’s
ethics commission has ruled Alderman Richard Lopes has created the appearance
of impropriety having three cars registered outside city of New Britain. A complaint
was filed earlier this year by former Republican Alderman Louis Salvio, claiming Democratic Alderman Richard P. Lopes
cheated the city of New Britain and violated
the city’s ethics code - stating elected officials should avoid the appearance
of impropriety. The ethics commission ruled late last week that the Common
Council censures Alderman Lopes for his actions.
Mr. Lopes, who runs a cleaning business in West Hartford, told The New Britain
Herald Monday he had three cars registered in that town from 1998 to 2004.
Lopes has been a resident of Broad Street in New Britain since 1998 and
presently works for the Senate Democratic Caucus at The State Capital as the
legislative aide to Senate Donald DeFronzo, New
Britain 6th District. While the
commission was investigating the complaint for the past few months, city
assessor Charles Agli said he notified Mr. Lopes that
the cars needed to be registered in the where he lives. The amount in
question was $3,692. "We billed him, and he paid, and the issue was
resolved for us," city assessor Agli told The New Britain Herald
Monday. But Louis Salvio, who lost to Richard
Lopes in November’s municipal election, said the alderman’s actions
intentionally misled the city. "He has lived here long enough to realize
where he should pay his taxes," he said. "He hoodwinked the
public." Mr. Lopes, who said his transferring of registration and paying
of taxes owed rectified the situation, called the complaint a partisan personal
attack. "Ever since I beat Mr. Salvio in the
election, he has continually made personal attacks and official complaints
against me," he said. "It is getting to the point where I feel he
spends most of his free time trying to discredit his political opponents. No
one should be this mad for losing an election."City
assessor Agli said this sort of mistake is common.
"It’s not an infrequent occurrence that issues come up like this," he
said. This is the third complaint
against an elected official that has been put before the ethics commission
since the commission was appointed by Republican Mayor Timothy Stewart. The
ethics commission recommended Alderman Fran Ziccardi,
president of Union AFSCME Local 1186, be censured
after voting in favor of another union contract that came before the Council in
December. The ethics commission is scheduled to hear
testimony on a complaint filed against Mayor Stewart alleging his former
position as a city fire inspector presents a conflict of interest while
negotiating the fire union’s contract and making
budget decisions for the department.
The Chairman of the New Britain Democratic
town committee filed the ethics complaint against Mayor Stewart. The complaint
questions whether the mayor, who is in his first term of office and on leave
from his post as fire inspector, should excuse himself from negotiation with a
union contract he stands to benefit from should he return to the fire
department. Mayor Stewart has noted he has a designee handling contract
talks. But the complaint suggests he should get an advisory opinion from the
ethics commission on how to proceed.
.