Naugatuck Officials Finalize Budget, Set Tax Rate

Naugatuck officials set the tax rate for next fiscal year at 44.8 mills Thursday night after approving a budget of $110.9 million, a 3.08 percent increase in spending.

The tax rate, expressed in mills, is up significantly from 33.55 mills after a state-mandated revaluation saw the average home drop in value by 29.1 percent.

The average house in Naugatuck was assessed last year at $171,000, according to the Naugatuck Assessor’s Office, which says the average house has now dropped to $120,000. In the current fiscal year, the average homeowner paid $5,737 in real estate property taxes, and will pay $5,376 based on the new tax rate.

The increased tax rate, however, means that in all likelihood, most people will see a significant increase in automobile taxes. Commercial property owners are also likely to see a significant tax increase as those values went down just 3.8 percent on average in the revaluation.

The net increase in tax rate – what the increase would be had there not been a revaluation – is .93 mills.

The school portion of the budget was set at $59.47 million, an increase of 2.4 percent, and the municipal budget was set at $51.42 million, an increase of 3.87 percent.

The boards on Thursday added $23,000 from the reserve fund to the library budget, bringing the net total of spending for that organization to $600,000. That was added after several residents asked for more money for the library at Monday's public hearing on the budget. And the boards took out $103,000 from the school board's budget proposal after the Board of Ed. said it found that amount of savings from a new dental plan, a new bus contract and factoring savings from a natural gas contract, Board of Finance Chair Diane Scinto said.

The budget will go into effect after two weeks unless someone pushes for a referendum. They must petition and get signatures from close to 2,000 registered voters in order to force that referendum, per borough charter.