New Haven Register

Residents again reject Allingtown Fire District budget

By Mark Zaretsky, Register Staff

May 24, 2000

WEST HAVEN — Allingtown section residents overwhelmingly rejected their second straight fire district budget by a 93-69 vote in a contentious meeting Tuesday night.

The budget will now be bounced back to the fire board for futher cutting.

"This never happened before. They don’t know how to handle it," said John DeLillo, president of the Allingtown Taxpayers Alliance. He was referring to the two rejections so far of this year’s budget on the heels of two rejections before taxpayers approved last year’s fire budget with a one-mill tax cut.

Allingtown, which has by far the smallest grand list among West Haven’s three fire districts, has a tax rate that already is higher than what taxpayers in the First and West Shore districts will pay after their taxes rise by one-half mill each next year.

Robert Roy, chairman of the Allingtown Board of Fire Commissioners, said the board will reconvene and try to come up with another budget.

The vote followed nearly two hours of debate and some shouting. Much of it centered on overtime — which is expected to add up to $403,963 this year, well over the $249,593 budgeted — and proposed 6 percent raises for the chief and assistant chief that apparently already were put through without taxpayer approval for the current year.

"Taxpayers approved $249,000," said William Glover of Malcolm Road of the overtime account. "We have actual expenditures of $403,000!" he said, asking how the department managed to run so far over budget.

"When you have a massive overrun like this, there’s a problem," Glover said.

Curtis Jordan of Malcolm Road, just defeated in a run for fire commissioner, suggested that the board should cut overtime rather than raise taxes.

At one point, Robert Wittkofske of Dalton Street — one of several people police later threatened to eject — got up and said, "I motion that the Allingtown Fire Department consolidate with the city of West Haven."

He was ruled out of order.

The budget voted down Tuesday would have raised taxes by one-half mill, the same amount approved this month by the First and West Shore fire districts. The board cut the previous rejected budget from $3.11 million to $3.06 million and the previously proposed 0.64 mill tax hike to 0.5, or one-half, mill.

Each mill represents $1 per $1,000 in assessed property value.

Allingtown’s current tax rate, at 8.35 mills, is higher than both the 8.15-mill tax rate adopted by the First Fire Taxation District and the 7 mill tax rate adopted by the West Shore for next year. Because of the fire district increases, taxpayers in the West Shore and center districts will see their tax bills go up even though the citywide tax rate held steady this year at 34.28 mills.