Torrington facing a taxing issue

October 20, 2017 – BY BRUNO MATARAZZO JR. REPUBLICAN-AMERICAN

Carbone: ‘I think they want Torrington to fail.’

Torrington Mayor Elinor C. Carbone. Republican-American archive

TORRINGTON – How do you fill an $11 million hole in the city and school board’s $127.5 million budget?

That’s the question city leaders are going to be asking themselves repeatedly from now into next year after a component of the compromise state budget proposal calls for eliminating the motor vehicle tax in the 2018-2019 fiscal year. The move likely would mean an increase in the city’s tax rate of 45.75 mills, which is already one of the state’s highest. “I think they want the city of Torrington to fail,” a frustrated Mayor Elinor C. Carbone said about state legislative leaders who drafted the compromise budget proposal for weeks.

The car tax is seen as a regressive tax on the poor in that a resident in a poor city that has a high tax rate will pay more on the same type of car owned by a resident in wealthy suburb with a low tax rate.

Carbone counters that in Torrington and many cities, there are a high number of rental properties in the downtown area with tenants who use many services in the city. Slightly more than half of the students in Torrington public schools receive free or reduced lunches, according to state education profiles of Torrington schools. The state average is 38 percent. At Vogel-Wetmore School in the downtown center, that number is 82 percent. “Now, (renters) would not pay anything in taxes,” Carbone said. The mayor said the shifting of those taxes to property taxpayers is causing homeowners to think about moving out of the city before taxes go up.

Carbone reached out to the Litchfield County Board of Realtors to see what impact the budget impasse and the possibility of a loss of $20 million from the current budget – a cut from the governor’s executive order – is having on the real estate market in Torrington. She heard from real estate agents that “phones are ringing off the hook” from homeowners asking about selling their house because it would become harder if the tax rate goes up. “If we’re down $11 million in revenue because we can’t charge for a tax on motor vehicles, we have no choice but to send out the message that taxes on properties will go up,” Carbone said.

Filling an $11 million hole would mean a tax rate jump of approximately 6 mills, which would put the city’s tax rate above the 50-mill mark. The potential spike in the tax rate comes as the mayor has asked city department heads to hold the line on spending for two years in a row to keep tax bills from increasing. The city saw its tax rate increase from 36.6 mills to 45.75 mills in 2015. Raising revenue with a sales tax isn’t an option for Torrington because shoppers would go elsewhere to avoid the local tax, the mayor said. “Even the hospitality tax, we’re working and pulling our one hotel (Yankee Pedlar Inn) along and trying to be a good partner with him,” Carbone said. “Being a good partner means not imposing a higher tax on services they provide.”