HAMDEN – If the town sticks to its budget for this fiscal year, its estimated $46 million surplus for 2024 will fall to about $12.3 million by June, Mayor Lauren Garrett said.
The town’s Legislative Council has approved eight withdrawals from the fund totaling $18,157,951, and another $16 million of allocations from the account — $9 million approved by the council in addition to $7 million that Finance Department officials assume will be needed to meet expenses over the next nine months.
That leaves $12.3 million on June 30, according to a Sept. 11 Draft Fund Balance Projection provided to CT Examiner.
There has been growing confusion regarding the state of Hamden’s finances since the last independent audit was completed in 2023.
A report in July by one consultant described the town’s financial system as “highly dysfunctional” and plagued by understaffing. And the town has so far failed to complete either its fiscal year 2024 or 2025 audits.
The $12.3 million estimate depends on prior savings — $36,457,952 according to a FY 2023 audit, supplemented by $10 million in FY 2024 — only in part verified by audit.
And that $46,457,952, Garrett told CT Examiner, is only “a snapshot in time. That is for June 30, 2024. That’s not where we are right now.”
That uncertainty is compounded by the assumption that “all revenues and expenses will be equal to [what was estimated in] the FY25-26 Adopted Budget of $304.8 million,” according to the Sept. 11 Draft Fund Projection. “The forecast does not include any Fund Balance drawdowns for Capital expenses of $9.9m approved on 5/29/2024 by the Legislative Council prior to finalizing a bond issuance.”
For that $12.3 million to be at all realistic, Garrett told CT Examiner, the town would have to “run a very, very tight budget and try to save as much as is possible,” until June 30, 2026.
The town has two audit firms working with the Finance Department and hopes to have a finalized audit for the 2024 FY completed within weeks and to make its deadline for the 2025 fiscal year audit by Dec. 30, officials say.
Garrett, who bowed out of her re-election race for what would have been a third term, said the town’s fiscal mess was the result of short staffing, endemic to Hamden government, that predates her time in office.
That includes the absence, for more than a year, of a town finance director.
“We need staff in every single other department. Finance is not unique here,” Garrett said. “We’ve known that we need to increase staff in every single department for years, and we have not been able to do that because we’re also trying to balance that with having a high mill rate and high taxes.”
Garrett told CT Examiner she wants to leave Hamden’s next mayor in the best position she can.
“I am hoping that I can set up the next mayor and have a really clear transition plan for how we can save money within this budget,” Garrett said. “What needs to happen is for us [the council and mayor] to move projects along and work very closely during the next three months to set the next mayor up for success.”
On Sept. 15, the Legislative Council’s finance committee meanwhile voted 4-3 to hire a consultant to help track town finances and review the town’s financial procedures, and hire a budget liaison to improve communication between the administration, the council and the town’s Finance Commission.
Council member Sarah Gallagher, who proposed the hiring, told CT Examiner she was pleased with the move to add staff.
“I think those are both really important steps. We know that the finance department is short-staffed and needs to be looked at how we want to structure it to set ourselves up for success,” Gallagher told CT Examiner.
Gallagher said she hoped the hires would be approved in the next meeting of the full council.
“I think the other thing it does, and it’s really important, is creates dialogue between the council, the administration, the Finance Commission, and the departments of the town so that we can create a collaborative process where we’re all on the same page, because we weren’t all on the same page in the last budget process.”
The council meets on the first and third Monday of the month at 7 p.m.