Norwich – City Manager John Salomone presented a $126.8 million combined city government and school budget proposal for 2018-19 to the City Council Monday.

The plan includes $77.7 million for education, 7 percent less than the 9 percent increase proposed by the school board in March. School officials defended their budget last month and threatened to take the city to court if the City Council fails to make "the necessary appropriation" for city schools.

The combined budget is a 2.4 percent increase over the current $123,799,419 budget for city government, education and capital improvements.

Salomone’s proposed budget overall includes $46.69 million for city government spending, a 3.4 percent increase from this year’s $45.1 million total, and $77.7 million for education, a 2 percent increase from the current $76.18 million. The Board of Education on March 13 approved an $83 million budget with a $6.88 million increase over the current budget. 

Capital improvements would total $2.47 million, a less than 1 percent increase from the current $2.45 million total, and the grand list increased by $23 million, representing approximately $900,000 in added tax revenue.

Solomone said that his budget was designed with several priorities in mind including maintaining the city’s infrastructure, collaborating and sharing resources among departments and minimizing the impact on taxpayers while still mostly maintaining or minimizing a reduction of services, funding long-term liabilities providing some increase in education funding. 

However, the increase in education funding is not on par with what the school board requested.  

“I look at where our funding level is, what we’re getting in revenue, and what I think the city can afford,” said Solomone explaining his rational for proposing a 2 percent increase for the education budget. “It’s not based on any one item, it’s more an affordability question than anything else." 

Solomone went on to add that it’s ultimately up to the City Council to decide whether to increase or cut his proposal.   

But, Superintendent Abby Dolliver said that the school district has lived off grants and cuts for a number of years and now “absolutely needs a 9 percent increase to continue.”

She added that although enrollment has been stable, the district has seen a serious surge in the number of special education students, as well as English as a Second Language students. In fact, Dolliver said that there are now nearly 600 ESL students in the district, and there have been 100 new special education students since 2016.

In terms of the budget proposal’s expenditures, Solomone said that pension contributions was one of the largest drivers as they increased by 14 percent or $660,000 over 2017-18. However, health insurance premiums will decrease by 8.4 percent or $330,000, said Solomone who credited a bit of luck with employees being healthier this year and the implementation of a high-deductible plan for many bargaining units as helping to lower costs. 

Overall, Salomone’s proposal would require a citywide tax rate of 42.06 mills, an increase of 1.54 mills from this year’s citywide tax rate of 40.52 mills.

In Norwich, fire services are divided between the five volunteer fire department districts and the central city paid fire department. Property owners in the paid fire district are taxed for the department’s personnel costs on top of the citywide tax rate. Salomone proposed a paid fire district budget with a fire tax rate of 10.02 mills, a 1.8 percent increase from this year’s 8.22-mill fire tax. Residents in the volunteer districts pay only for volunteer firefighter pensions to qualifying members. The volunteer tax rate this year is 0.15 mills.

Solomone’s proposal also calls for minimal changes to staffing, with the only layoff coming to one of the administrative positions in Planning and Neighborhood Services. At this point, the exact administrative position has yet to be determined.

One major change in Solomone’s proposal is placing $100,000 into the Sachem Fund, which the city has not contributed to since 2013. The Sachem fund was created by the city and the Mohegan Tribe years prior with both groups contributing $100,000. The fund was then used to contribute to grants and other projects that were beneficial to the city including organizations such as the historical society, said Solomone.

 The hope is that the Mohegan Tribe will match the contribution to help resuscitate the fund in the long term, Solomone added. However, at this point the city has not even informed the tribe that it planned to place money back into the fund.

The City Council will meet with heads of city departments, fire departments and the Board of Education in department hearings this week to review their budgets and will hold the first public hearing on the budget at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, April 12.