Norwich — Three residents pleaded with the City Council on Thursday to cut the tax rate as taxpayers continue to try to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic during the city's first public hearing of the year.

City Manager John Salomone has proposed a $138.6 million combined city and school budget, which calls for a 1.57% citywide tax increase, using federal grants to offset part of the 4.39% spending increase.

Salomone’s budget includes an $86.3 million bottom line school budget, a $2.1 million, or 2.5%, increase over this year; a $48.7 million general government budget, with a $2.7 million increase over this year; and $3.6 million for capital improvements.

The school budget proposal is $1.2 million short of the $87.5 million budget approved by the Board of Education in March.

But residents Marvin Serruto, Rodney Bowie and Larry Rice all complained that the school budget is unreasonable. Bowie said the problem has been going on for decades, and he told a City Council 35 years ago that the school budget was “a locomotive driving this city.”

“It seems as though there’s got to be a better way than raising our mill rate every year,” Serruto said. “There’s got to be a better way. There’s got to be something more efficient. I wish I could come in here with a plan that really works, but I don’t have one.”

Rice urged the council to consider the many residents who have been lining up for free food distributions each week and have struggled paying their utility bills. “There are taxpayers in Norwich that can’t afford to buy food for their families, that can’t afford to pay their utility bills,” he said. “They’re probably going to have a difficult time paying their taxes in July. This is a very difficult time for the citizens of Norwich.”

He called the 4.39% budget increase “inappropriate, disrespectful and unnecessary for the taxpayers of this city.”

Rice also objected that the city has not pursued reimbursements for the many nonresident parents who have “illegally” sent their children to city schools. An attendance/residency officer appointed in November 2019 has reported to the school board that, over the past 18 months, the district has avoided paying $3.7 million for students who are not city residents.

Salomone budgeted $140,000 for a fire services director, a new position recommended in an independent study of the city’s paid and volunteer fire services done by McGrath Consulting Group.

Rice called the proposed $140,000 for the fire services director unnecessary for a “babysitter” for the fire departments.

c.bessette@theday.com