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Mayor Unveils City Budget for New Haven

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New Haven’s mayor announced the city budget he is proposing for the coming fiscal year. WNPR’s Neena Satija reports on the tough choices he says the city has had to make.

There was some good news in the $487 million budget Mayor John DeStefano presented today/Thursday. The city plans to make dozens of new hires in the police and fire departments. DeStefano wants to fund new playgrounds, renovated school buildings, and other redevelopment projects. The Board of Education’s budget saw an increase for the first time in three years. But the school board’s budget is treated separately from the overall city budget, and the board plans to eliminate 60 teaching teaching positions and 119 education jobs overall. It’s possible that one public school will close. DeStefano said the city is committed to his school reform campaign.

DESTEFANO: “New Haven School Change has been extraordinary. We’ve had good progress on CMTs, good progress on CAPTs, dropout rates are down, we want to keep what we’re doing, and it’s the best wealth creation and violence reduction program we can pursue. That said, we’re going to have to do with less. And do more as everybody else is.”

DeStefano pointed out that New Haven faces many unique challenges. It has a larger proportion of Connecticut’s at-risk population. It has more than 10 percent of all the state’s subsidized housing. Nearly half of all its property is tax-exempt. And its unemployment rate of 11.7 percent is the third-highest in Connecticut. The city stands to bring in more revenue from property taxes because property values jumped up this year – but even that isn’t all good news.

DESTEFANO: “In certain sections of the city we’ve had huge appreciation in value despite, despite what we all know is happened in the housing market in the United States. And it’s tough to say to somebody, ‘your house rich but you’re cash poor. I mean you’re basically telling them to sell your house.’”

Earlier this week DeStefano proposed phasing in tax increases for anyone who actually lives in the property they own. That will require approval from the General Assembly – and he acknowledged it could be a tough sell. For WNPR, I’m Neena Satija.

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