001evening. If you will please join us for the pledge of allegiance. I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America to the stands one nation indivisibley for all. Okay. So, uh, tonight we have a presentation by the town man, uh, town manager for his proposed 2025 2026 town budget. And, uh, we will turn it over to you, Joan. You want to read that? Yes. Legal notice. Town of Rocky Hill notice of budget public hearing. The Rocky Hill Town Council will hold a public hearing on the town manager's proposed budget for fiscal year 2025 to 2026 on April 22nd, 2025 at 7 p.m. in the town council chambers of the town hall, 761 Old Main Street, Rocky Hill, Connecticut. Interested parties may be heard at this time. Copies of the budget are available
002in the town manager's office and are also located at the town clerk's office on March 28th, 2025. This portion of the meeting specifically is set aside for comments from the public who are asked to limit their comments to two minutes. Any person interested in providing public comment but cannot attend the meeting should email their comments to public meetings atroyhillct.gov of dated at Rocky Hill, Connecticut. This 27th day of March, 2025. Sandra Wibba, town clerk. Thank you. First of all, I'd like to apologize. I'm losing my voice. It's always allergy season for you. Allergies, colds, whatever. It's both, probably. Okay. Good evening. Pursuant to section 8004 of the town charter, I am pleased to present the town manager's proposed budget for fiscal year 202526. As in the past two budgets, we we prepared this year's budget
003utilizing the web-based budget software provided by Cleargov for ease of use, clarity, and transparency to the budget process. However, beginning this fiscal year, we've added a clear gov software personnel tracking component for enhanced transparency which identifies the number of employees, excuse me, and their salaries for each department. During the preparation of this budget, priority was focused on our strategic initiatives and on keeping true to our core values, ensuring continuity with integrity, collaboration, innovation, respect, and accountability. Local municipal operations were analyzed for effectiveness and efficiencies, keeping mindful of contractual obligations and the town council's desire to keep tax increases minimal while maintaining current levels of services, accomplishing long range goals in maintaining infrastructure. All this against the backdrop of the lasting financial impact on our residents resulting from last year's reval, the reduction of the 24
004grand list, the uncertainty of state funding, continuing underfunding of the state pilot money, continuous unfunded state grants and state mandates, budgetary and legislative decisions at the state and federal levels, and the financial uncertainty of geopolitics. So with that said, let's move to the numbers. However, before I do that, I would be remiss in my duties if I did not recognize director of finance and operations Mon Kim, which without her knowledge, expertise, and unyielding dedication, this budget would not be possible. I would also like to recognize Kristen Ozaki Owens, administrator of finance and operations, and John Dunn, our town treasurer, for the contributions for the production of this budget document. And finally, I'd like to thank my department heads and my chiefs for their professionalism, complete and unquestionable commitment to their jobs, and to the citizens
005of Rocky Hill. So, with that, I move on. So we're going to go a quick overview here. We'll go through a high level uh town expenditure categories, fund balance, debt service, capital improvements, revenues, and most importantly the mill rate taxpayer impact. And a quick wrap-up high level summary. I think this table just about says it all. I'm proposing a three and a half% overall increase to the board of education budget. Um for which include which incorporates a 4.2% 2% increase in their operating budget and a 58% decrease in their capital. On the town side, I'm proposing a 3.7% increase comprised of a 5.6% increase for general operating, a 9% decrease in capital, and we're looking at a 2 and a half 2.6% decrease in debt. The total overall budget stands at a 3.5% 3.59% increase.
006Looking at some major um expenditure categories, I think four, obviously four jump out at us. The uh $2.2 million increase in education, $1.1 million increase in insurance, $680,000 increase in salaries, and we have a $511,000 decrease in our capital expenditures. Digging a little deeper, we're looking at salary and benefits. We have contractual increases of $627,000, a $40,000 increase to move our part-time economic development manager back to full-time, a 90,000 decrease for the transfer station and bulky rates, bulky waste operations. We're looking at $78,200 in part-time increases. 47,000 for firefighting due to an increase in volunteers and $31,200 for increased hours for admin and program support for the senior center. Overtime for the police patrol has increased $59,532 and a big ticket item and we're looking at a $1.1 million increase for health, pension, and liability
007insurance. looking at contractual services which are primarily composed of MDC the ambulance utilities and software and financial systems we're looking at $260,000 increase there that's reflecting uh subscription increases in software upgrades continuing on we have an $18,000 increase in the fire department turnout gear legal costs we're looking to decrease 40,000 Public works grinding is increased 15,000 and debt and principal interest is up 200 I'm sorry is down $24,500 and education is up 2.2 million or $4.2% 2% after my reduction of $350,000 on to uh oh technical difficulty. Here we go. On the capital improvement plan 2006. Looking at the capital improvement general fund summary for 2026. I am looking to retain the capital reserves for infrastructure at $450,000 parks and facilities at $ 250 and education at $250,000 temporarily. And let me um special have
008comment on a special note with that. Um, I'm proposing a temporary reduction to 250,000 in the reserve level for the board of ed and Ian uh in anticipation of the BOE turning over the $1.6 million um closing balance as a result of the close out of their Sigma Health Insurance Plan. It's anticipated that these funds will be transferred to the capital non-reoccurring fund and reserved for the board of ed for uh school improvements. The total general fund capital improvement budget stands at 1,945,976 and includes almost $958,000 in ongoing contractual vehicle and equipment leases, town road aid, and the RLE HVAC energy efficiency upgrade project at $38,000 for the new Leaf vacuum unit. And we have a million dollars remaining in our road referendum for road, sidewalk, and parking lot repairs and paving. The infrastructure reserve
009of $450,000 includes $50,000 for the Rocky Hill Community Farm and reserves for road in infrastructure repairs as completion of the road referendum funds near facilities, parks. Their reserve is proposed at $250,000. Looking at $70,000 for the security key fob systems for the three fire companies in the ambulance facility, $65,000 for a five-year financing plan for two modular units at the public works highway garage to accommodate employee holdovers during significant storm events. $225,000 for pool infrastructure and $250,000 for Elm Ridge Pool. Now, you'll notice the total bottom line there is $610,000 well over the $250,000 reserve. Um, which indicates that there will be discussions required regarding the extension of some of those items out to the future years. And we have the board of education at almost uh well at $1.6 million for school improvements as
010I mentioned earlier. And finally, we have u almost $4 million in state funded grant projects. You see the list there, you know, they include Glastonbury Avenue sidewalks, Washington Street, um, Century Hill sidewalks, couple of covert designs, um, Silistine Highway study with Weathersfield to name a few. These next two slides highlight department budget requests against my budget proposals and shows accumulative changes in net impact. The first dollar sign shows the department requests. The second dollar sign shows my reductions after meeting with department heads. And the next two columns show net impact and cumulative change. So, looking at the bottom, click. Looking at the bottom, um, department requests total just over 5.1 million. Um, I made adjustments to those requests totaling over $1.5 million in cuts resulting in the proposed 103 million $600,000 budget we're talking about
011tonight. It's important to note that the uh last two highlighted rows, employee benefits, insurance, and education, um total 3.4 million on their own increase by major category. As you can see this pie chart, the board of education represents a 63% um followed by insurance at 33% and the remainder of the budget 4% increase total budget by major category board as usual the board of education represents just over half of the town budget um followed by salaries of 17% % operating at 11 and then we go to insurance at nine and so on to unassigned fund balance and percent of budget. So looking at this graph, so if you look, this is over the past 10 years. If you look at in uh the stream left 2015, the undersigned fund balance was just over 7.5%. It's
0127.6% for that $68 million budget of expenditures. If we jump to 2022, the unassigned valent balance dipped to just over 5% or 5.1%. And that was for that $82 million budget in expenditures. And jumping to 2024, we're back at 7%. And anyways, this is just to show you the the the ups and downs of fund balance over the over the course of a decade. Um, the ultimate goal here though is to build and sustain the unassigned fund balance at 10% utilizing funds in excess of that 10% for capital improvements, thus avoiding borrowing and referendums. Okay, on to Grand List. Here we go. Overall grand list decreased to 67% or $19.77 million from the 2023 grand list. Motor vehicles experienced the greatest percentage drop at 2.86% primarily due to the change in the state law and
013how we have to um how we have to value motor vehicles. Real estate experienced the greatest drop in value, decreasing almost $15 million or almost 6% primarily due to adjustments in value resulting from tax appeals and some adjustments due to vacancies, commercial vacancies. Personal property was a bright spot um increasing almost 1% or $1.7 million. Now, debt. Let's take a quick overall look at our debt. Um, looking long-term, the right column shows the annual debt payments on borrowing or referendums. By 2041, the town will have paid almost $88 million in principal and interest payments. And by 2042, new year's a bright spot, annual date debt payment should fall to zero, assuming, of course, we have no additional borrowing between now and then. On to revenue highlights. Town has been impacted by major drivers affecting revenue
014growth. uh transfer from fund balance has been reduced 75% or $450,000 due to the restriction of transfer from fund balance per town ordinance jumping back to that 10 percentage I just mentioned investment income suffered an 8% loss of $40,000 as we were expecting better rates as many of us were on the upside however the state grant funds have increased uh almost 2% or 1.75%. With ECS increasing $1.2 million while the state motor vehicle tax reimbursement of almost $930,000 will not be available for 2026. Licenses and permits show minimal increase of 3.5% or $34,000 and revenue from other sources are up almost 4.9% or or 25,000. Continuing on with um revenue, this time non- tax revenue, principally state grants and fund balance. We're down $255,000. Um, of note here is the inclusion of a new feebased
015revenue source for the fire marshall's office for commercial uh permit review and enforcement. And we're predicting uh $50,000 this year additional revenue for that particular program. All right, these last two slides are probably of most interest. the illustration of changes in the mill rate by category. So this graphic shows increases and decreases in the mill rate flow with each increase and decrease of the budget item. So the left column lists the budget items. The next column, um, I'm looking at my watch to make sure this clock was moved. The next column, um, shows the dollar sign impact, which shows the dollar increases and dollar decreases for each item. And the next column shows the corresponding mill change associated with each dollar in the cumulative mill rate change. So just looking at the first two rows,
016revenue loss and education, we're already up 1.36 mills at 30.53 mills. Then you add insurance increases of$ 1.15 million. We're up to, you know, 30.93 mills, which is additional point4 mil and so on and so forth down the chart where you will see how we eventually get to 30.99 ms or a 1.82 mil increase. Finally, the mill rate impact. So, this is based on a market value house at $400,000 and a car at approximately [Music] $35,000. Um, and this graphic shows the impact of that 1.82 mil increase on that house assessed at $280,000 and the car assessed at $24,620. The middle column is the current value at 29.17 mil rate. The right column is the value at the proposed 30.99 mil rate. And I draw your attention to that first green arrow, $510. Under this
017scenario, that $400,000 house would see a $510 annual increase in their taxes. Clicking down to that second green arrow, this is the motor vehicle tax, which is a 15% reduction, and it shows a reduction of a of uh $18 annually. And then finally, at the bottom, the combined tax for this house in this vehicle would be $41 annually or $33 a month or 5% increase. So, let's wrap it up. My proposed budget stands at 103,000. Yeah. You wish, right? 103,666,114. Increased total budget is 3.9 3.59%. Excuse me. and the proposed mill rate of 30.99 which effectively is a 1.82 mil increase. So with that a big thank you from team which is Mona and me and I'll leave it up to you to guess which one is which. Thank you very much. Thank you. We're
018going to move on to uh public comment. This portion of the meeting is specifically set aside for comments from the public who are asked to limit their comments to two minutes. Any person interested in providing public comment remotely should email uh public meetings.gov gov prior to 400 p.m. on the day of the meeting at which time a link will be provided to attend the meeting as well as instructions on how to participate. Joanne, do we have any written public comment? No. Okay. Do we have any public comment from the public? Okay. So, we're going to move to adjourn. Make a motion to close the public hearing. I'll second. All in favor? I. Thank you everyone.