MONROE, CT — Leon Ambrosey’s campaign and the Monroe Democratic Town Committee accused First Selectman Terry Rooney of “significant misstatements” during the League of Women Voters First Selectman Debate at Jockey Hollow Middle School last Tuesday and Rooney defended himself by issuing responses to each claim.
“Monroe voters need real transparency in their government and that is why Leon chose to run,” said MDTC Chairman Chrissy Martinez.
In a press release Democrats had a list of “claims” and “facts.” Below are each of their contentions followed by Rooney’s response in italics, parts of which he labeled “First Selectman Terry Rooney’s Fact” which was edited to say “Rooney’s Fact.”
Ambrose/DTC:
Claim: He restored the funds in the school budget.
Fact: He did not restore funds. His cuts left the system without funds to meet the same level of services and programs going forward.
Moderator question– If elected, what is your plan for tackling the upcoming budget season?
Rooney’s Response, time stamp 6:45: Our property values skyrocketed, and our tax rate is included with that. Okay, so we lowered the mill rate from 38. 27 to 28. 61. Our finance increased it to 28.67. The reason why these budgets are reduced, or the asks are reduced, is just to offset the impact to our seniors and those who are on fixed incomes.
Rooney’s Fact: Town services cost can always be more efficient and less expensive with technology or new processes. During 25/26 budget cycle my reduction was to a significant education increase of $4,303,370. I requested a reduction of that increase of $1,850,000, lowering impact on taxpayers townwide to $2,453,370 or a percentage 3.43%.
This helped to mitigate the impact of the state mandated revaluation which helped a mill rate result of 28.61. Money was restored in the process by board of finance bringing the mill rate voted on at referendum to 28.67.
In addition, at the end of the 23/24 fiscal year education had a surplus of 1.2 million and 24/25 had a surplus of $118,000 proving education has been well funded and budgets have been tighter and less wasteful under my administration.
Ambrosey/DTC:
Claim: He claimed that a new school was less expensive than fixing up Chalk Hill to accommodate our increasing enrollment because the State would reimburse us for some of it.
Fact: He clearly had not read the Report that said exactly the opposite. There is no
funding by the State 100% for the costs a new school. More funds are available for a rebuild.
Moderator question: We have three questions on the Chalk Hill School. They are basically, do you support the reopening of Chalk Hill School, or should something else be done with it, such as converting it into housing?
Rooney’s Response, time stamp 13:33: We need to build a new school, if at all. If we do need it, we need to build a new school. But the state or the federal government needs to cough it up. We all pay a lot of state income tax. Bridgeport got three $129 million dollar schools. It’s about time the state pays for a school for our town.
Rooney’s Fact: Renovations have a tendency to present future issues during and post construction in most circumstances that exist in old buildings. A new school would create a healthier environment for our children.
Bridgeport has received funding for three new high schools most recent being Bassick for $129 million, and as Monroe residents pay State income tax, a new school in Monroe, with state or federal help should be made available just like Connecticut cities.
Ambrosey/DTC:
Claim: He wants a mill rate of 25 mills next year.
Fact: That tax rate would require a $12 million reduction in your services next year!
Moderator question: Next question will go to Mr. Rooney. First Monroe just underwent a revaluation. What, if anything, could have been done to ease burden on the taxpayer? What was done, not what could have been done, what was done?
Rooney’s Response, time stamp 35:50: I’m very proud of what we did, even though I really wanted the mill rate to get down to 25. We only got it down to 28.67, but I’m going to fight to get it down to 25 because if we get it to 25, then we correct the impact of that reval. Thank you.
Rooney’s Fact: In order to bring the mill rate to 25.002 a reduction of $11,740,000 would have to be accomplished. With two surrounding towns having a mill rate of 20 or below I want Monroe competing with those towns in the area of property taxes.
Ambrosey/DTC:
Claim: There were no options, but to accept tax increases this year due to revaluation.
Fact: An option to phase in the revaluation was available.
Moderator question-Next question will go to Mr. Rooney. First Monroe just underwent a revaluation. What, if anything, could have been done to ease burden on the taxpayer? What was done, not what could have been done, what was done?
Rooney’s response, time stamp 37:15: I was hired to do a reval. It fell under my term. Many selectmen and mayors pushed it off. They pushed it off out of election season.
I knew that I was going to face this, but I took the matter into account and said we need to do this now and make the best decisions with it now or every year your taxes will go up significantly more. The goal was to get the reval accomplished and then mitigate it moving forward, which I know we can do.
Rooney’s Fact: Tax increase due to Education costs and some municipal needs increased taxes on my budget to a 2.84% increase, which was .06% below national inflation. After Board of Finance listened to community concerns the tax increase was released at referendum of 3.92% and passed by our community at referendum.
The State mandated reval had an option to implement over several years, however through long discussions with the tax assessor this wasn’t optimal for our community. We made a conscious decision to make more cuts to municipal and education increases, as well as utilize $4 million to offset the impact.
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