ANSONIA — The legislature set “a dangerous precedent” when it snuck a bill forcing review of Ansonia’s finances into the state budget and should repeal it immediately, the state’s largest organization of municipal leaders said.
“There is no indication that this municipality should be subjected to state oversight under current law. These provisions, whether well-intentioned or not, give the appearance of an attack on one municipality and undermine its ability and authority to manage its own finances. This sets a dangerous precedent,” the Connecticut Conference of Municipalities wrote in a June 11 letter to legislators.
Lawmakers could “address this in a special session if one should be called before the start of the 2026 legislative session,” the letter states.
The one-page bill forces Ansonia officials to submit to financial review from the Municipal Finance Advisory Commission. It passed the legislature in an 80-70 vote after its author, State Rep. Kara Rochelle, D-Ansonia, successfully filibustered in the waning hours of the legislative session in defense against a repealing amendment.
CCM’s Board of Directors voted unanimously at a Wednesday meeting to urge the legislature to repeal the omnibus section of the state budget featuring Rochelle’s bill. The legislature should treat the bill in “a transparent manner” with a public hearing and deliberations, CEO and Executive Director Joe DeLong told CT Examiner.
DeLong argued that the bill had not been sufficiently reviewed by legislators and would never have made it to the House floor if it had.
“There is a right way to do a process and a wrong way, and this was the wrong way to do a process,” he said. “… The appropriate process would be to make sure that this thing was fully vetted and, if it made sense, then it needed to make sense for more than just the one town answering it. If it doesn’t make sense or it’s not written the right way, then it shouldn’t be done in a way that was done in darkness that creates a series of other problems later.”
Local control versus state review
The Municipal Finance Advisory Commission falls under the umbrella of the state Office of Policy and Management along with the state’s Municipal Accountability Review Board.
The commission provides advice to cities and towns with “high unemployment and poverty, aging housing stock and low or declining rates of growth in job creation, population, and per capita income” but can fine local officials for failure to follow advice.
The review board assumes control of a city finances, with four tiers of progressively strict oversight, if that municipality’s finances face deficit bonding issues, mismanage funds or demonstrate a lack of sound budgeting practices.
Rochelle has said she proposed the bill in response to complaints from her constituents that the city’s finances were opaque and possibly mismanaged. Rochelle also objected to the idea that the bill, which was referred to the Joint Committee on Planning and Development on Feb. 19, snuck through anything.
The committee passed it in a 17-3 vote on March 7 after two people testified against it in a February public hearing.
DeLong said he was unaware of Ansonia having financial issues that would require state oversight, and wouldn’t object to providing it if needed.
DeLong declined to name who voted on the Ansonia matter,
the voters for the Ansonia action, but the Connecticut Conference of Municipalities board includes Hartford Mayor Arunan Arulampalam, New Haven Mayor Justin Elicker, Bridgeport Mayor Joseph P. Ganim and Stamford Mayor Caroline Simmons. Stratford Mayor Laura Hoydick and New London Mayor Michael Passero are its president and first vice president, respectively.
Mayor Jeff Caggiano, Killingly Town Manager Mary Calorio, Greenwich First Selectman Fred Camillo and Torrington Mayor Elinor Carbone also serve on the board.
DeLong said Second Vice President Kurt Miller, who also serves as Seymour’s chief administrative officer and Ansonia’s chief financial officer, did not influence the decision.
Miller did not participate in the vote, DeLong said.
Listed as one of the state’s distressed communities, Ansonia has had a mix of recent financial successes and difficulties and is known for its contentious politics.
Three times this year, voters rejected the budget passed by the Board of Aldermen, which consists entirely of Republicans. The board unanimously passed a $68.1 million budget on its own on Tuesday after cutting expenses enough to avoid a referendum.
Ansonia has a AA- credit rating from Standard & Poor’s, gone from second-worst to 18th on the distressed communities list in 2024, and is rated as a low default risk for its $10 million in cash reserves. But it drew a warning from the credit agency for a risky “future revenues” economic strategy: City officials are using proceeds from a recent $41 million sale of its sewer utilities to reduce taxes and pay operating expenses until the year 2030.
With the passage of the 2026 budget, about $6 million is left from the sale.
The city will gradually eliminate its use of sale revenues as development of a downtown solar battery farm with Johnson Controls spurs the revitalization of several former brass mill sites.
Ansonia has also been late in filing its state-mandated financial audits since 2022 and some residents have said the latest budget lacked transparency.
Attorney and former Democratic Party mayoral candidate Thomas Egan claimed he went into City Hall on Thursday and found the budget still being assembled by staff.
Ansonia Corporation Counsel John Marini said the city Finance Department “is in the process of assembling the final budget packet following the aldermen’s vote” and that it would be completed on Thursday afternoon.
“The draft budget that the aldermen acted upon has been publicly available at this link since May 23,” Marini told CT Examiner. “The Board of Aldermen is permitted to vote on changes to the budget at a regular meeting. The document they voted on was at all times available to the public.”
City officials, who have dismissed Rochelle’s bill as politically motivated, plan to present their case to the advisory commission this fall.