West Hartford Taxes
This past Thursday evening I attended the Town Council budget hearing at town hall. The hot topic was the recent property revaluation and new mill rate. It was well attended, I would say over 60 people showed up, even though it was Holy Thursday and Passover.
By my observation, the majority of people were long time West Hartford residents, living in the town anywhere from 25-50 years. Several of the residents that spoke were from multi-generational families of WH. You could sense their great pride for the town, however there was an overwhelming sense of disgust due to the potentially huge increases most are facing with their new tax bills. Many of the attendees were either retired or nearing retirement. It’s not clear to them how they will be able to continue living in WH on fixed incomes. Younger attendees expressed frustration that they were getting priced out of the town because housing prices and tax rates continue to rise. Their jobs simply aren’t paying enough for them to afford living in WH.
Most of the suggestions for reducing the budget revolved around minimizing pay and fringe benefit increases for town employees. Additionally, there were requests to lower the school budget, but no real concrete solutions on how to actually reduce the education budget. Clearly, one of the main draws to WH is it’s school system. It’s a double edge sword to make significant cuts to the school budget, but then continue to expect curriculum, after school activities, and special programs to remain robust.
My belief of what will happen in the next 1-2 years is that WH will see a migration of its Seniors to neighboring communities such as Bloomfield, Farmington, Avon, and Simsbury. These towns have lower taxes, but many of the same services, so Seniors will flock there. House prices in WH will most likely fall because there will be more houses on the market than there will be buyers. Younger buyers that typically would have bought the houses in WH will no longer be able to afford them because of the high tax burden. WH will need to make a decision on if they change the way they tax commercial properties in town. Will Blue Back Square be able to shoulder more of the burden? Will there be enough residents to economically support Blue Back?
The next few years will be an interesting economic experiment for WH. What are your thoughts?
[...] Town faces tax crunch, blogger says Jump to Comments Here’s an interesting take on Thursday’s West Hartford budget hearing at town hall, by a reasonably neutral observer who’s not afraid to say what she thinks – In the Neighborhood blog. [...]
Dear Amy,
In reading your blog with regard to the budget crisis in West Hartford from a professional real estate perspective, I would like to thank you for covering this very important topic. You are clearly on the ball with regard to the very potential plight which has already started to happen in our town due to drastically climbing spending by both the Town and Education Administration.
Something has certainly got to give when the budget increases on average 6%+ every year, while the private sector tax payer is lucky if they receive a cost of living increase in their annual paycheck. This means that the town’s budget is literally taking away pay increases and then dipping into their paychecks.
As the President of the WHTA, I’ve had an opportunity to hear from many categories of people in town. You described many people who showed up at the public hearing so eloquently. However, believe it or not, there are two other categories of people who are not being heard or seen by the public who won’t express their feelings publicly for many reasons. These categories are stereotypical pro-public school Yuppie parents of children in the school system (myself included) and Generation X and Y college graduate students.
I have had many conversations with these pro-public school parents who are very upset about this year’s budget crisis. And they do see it as a budget crisis. However, they are truly fearful of retribution on their children either in school or in after school programs or simply among their own pro-public school parent peers. I believe you will see this category of people simply move out of town without saying a word. We are already seeing a drop in school population. This is definitely a situation to watch in the real estate market.
We are not seeing the Generation X and Y’ers due to the fact that they either don’t live in town due to unaffordable housing and/or they simply don’t care to fight…due to the fact that they know that whatever they say will fall on deaf ears. It is a known fact at the state level that this particular category of population are moving out of state where there are good paying jobs and affordable housing.
We cannot deny bringing attention to these categories of people. If we continue to do so, we will certainly feel the effects after the damage is done.
Thank you, again, for taking the time to call attention to our West Hartford Budget crisis.
Sincerely,
Theresa McGrath
President
West Hartford Taxpayers Association
(860) 570-1203
President@WHTA.org
http://www.WHTA.org
I am a Gen X er. In the next 2 years I am hoping to get my wife on board to move out of West hartford. It’s a nice place to visit, but I wouldn’t want to pay taxes here. We will leave with not even a sound. This education spending is out of control.
Yes, if you don’t utilize the school system in WH, the majority of your tax dollars are going to support other people’s needs. I believe the town will see a mass exodus of seniors and Gen X-Y’ers in the next few years. Who will replace them? I’m not quite sure.
Theresa McGrath points out … “we are already seeing a drop in school population.” I’d love to see those stats. Last I heard, this year’s Kindergarten class was the largest in 30 years! (My daughter among them.) I grew up here, my dad grew up here, and I intend to bring my kids up here. And we scrape, scrimp and work our tails off to keep our house – because we think what we get here in WH is worth it: education, senior services, leisure services, fire and police, curbside garbage and leaf collection – all of it.