$680.4 million budget includes new investments in housing, education, parks, and public safety. 

(Video | Watch the press conference in its entirety here.)

NEW HAVEN, CT – Today at City Hall, Mayor Justin Elicker released his proposed budget for the City of New Haven for Fiscal Year 2024-25. The $680.4 million budget represents an increase of 2.66 percent, or $17.7 million, from the previous year’s budget, below the current rate of inflation.

“It’s an exciting time in the Elm City. New Haven is a vibrant and growing city where more and more people want to continue to live, relocate to, work, visit, start a business, and raise a family. Importantly though, as we grow, we must grow inclusively, equitably, and sustainably – and this budget aims to help ensure that happens,” said Mayor Elicker. “With a growing population, the need and demand for city services is also growing. In order to help maintain a high-quality of life for all our residents, my proposed budget makes critical investments in housing, our schools, our parks, and our public safety while also maintaining other city services and programs. I look forward to engaging with the Board of Alders and city residents to work together to finalize a budget that reflects our values, supports our growth, uplifts our residents, and strengthens our communities so more New Haveners can thrive.” 

Some priorities and highlights from Mayor Elicker’s proposed FY 2024 – FY 2025 include:

• Increased investments in housing by proposing seven new housing positions, including five new housing code inspectors and two new housing support staff positions, to help ensure that New Haven renters – which represent over 70 percent of our city’s population – are living in safe, healthy, and affordable housing. The city currently has only 13 housing code inspectors for an estimated 43,000 rental units – approximately 3,300 units per inspector – and additional staff are needed to ensure all units can be inspected in a timely manner. Mayor Elicker is also proposing to move the Livable City Initiative’s (LCI) housing development work to a newly created Office of Housing and Community Development within the Economic Development Administration in order to better integrate the city’s development and affordable housing initiatives. This will also allow LCI to focus exclusively on the important work of housing inspections, landlord accountability, and eliminating neighborhood blight. Finally, the budget includes an increase of $300,000 in support for individuals experiencing homelessness to bring the city’s total annual investment in supports for the unhoused to nearly $1.8 million – the largest annual investment of any city in the state.

• Increased investments in education by proposing an additional $5 million for New Haven Public Schools to support student learning, the retention and recruitment of a strong teaching workforce, and the expansion of a growing career pathways program. The city also anticipates an additional $4 million in state funds this year to support our schools. Additionally, the budget proposes $2 million in American Rescue Plan Funds over two years for the city’s Youth@Work program to ensure every young person who applies for a Youth@Work job gets one.

• Increased investments in parks by separating the Parks Department from the Department of Parks and Public Works so that the Parks Department stands alone to focus on all issues related to city parks. The new Parks Department would include a new district manager model similar to LCI’s neighborhood specialist model and the New Haven Police Department’s district manager model. The proposal divides the City into three parks districts, each with its own Parks District Manager, so that residents and community members will have an assigned Parks District Manager to their neighborhood that they can engage with on parks-related issues and concerns. The proposed budget also includes seven additional staff to improve overall maintenance with specific attention and expertise focused on maintenance of athletic fields to ensure our youth have high quality spaces to play sports.

• Increased investments in public safety by proposing five new positions, including four new sworn positions (lieutenant, two sergeants, and detective) to ensure proper leadership within the ranks of the New Haven Police Department and one new position within PSAP to ensure proper management of the city’s 9-1-1 emergency call center.

• Increased investment in pedestrian and street safety to reduce traffic injuries and fatalities in accordance with the city’s Safe Routes for All and Vision Zero initiatives by proposing to staff the Department of Transportation, Traffic, & Parking accordingly for the planned implementation of red-light and speed cameras to ticket drivers for illegally running red lights and putting pedestrians, cyclists, other drivers, and themselves at risk.

In total, the proposed budget includes thirty-one new full-time positions and two part-time positions paid for by the city’s General Fund. There are also seven full-time grant funded positions, which are not paid for by city tax dollars. The thirty-one positions account for approximately $2.97 million, less than half a percent of the overall proposed budget. There are currently 1,409 full-time municipal employee positions. 

The vast majority of the proposed $17.7 million increase between FY 2023-24 to FY 2024-25 is driven by rising fixed costs, larger pension and debt payments because of choices made by past administrations, and increased municipal salaries that ensure New Haven is staying competitive and attracting and retaining high-quality municipal employees.

To meet all of these obligations and to ensure city services meet residents’ needs, the budget proposes a 1.48 mill rate increase, increasing the mill rate from 37.20 to 38.68. The previous two years the mill rate was lowered to ease the impact of rising property values. New Haven’s tax rate remains lower than many other Connecticut cities, including those of similar size (like Bridgeport, Hartford, and Waterbury) and those in the area (like Hamden and West Haven).

“Every year as we put together the budget, we work hard to balance the services residents demand with our ability to pay for them. These are difficult, but important choices,” stated Mayor Elicker. “I believe the proposed investments in housing, education, parks, and safety are the rights ones for our city, and ones I believe New Haveners strongly support.”

The Mayor’s FY 2024-2025 proposed budget has been submitted to the New Haven Board of Alders for review and consideration, and the Finance Committee will be holding a series of budget workshops, public hearings, and deliberations in March, April, and May. The currently planned dates can be found at https://bit.ly/BOA-Budget-Schedule-FY-2024-2025 and they will be posted on a rolling basis on the Board of Alders webpage at newhavenct.gov/alders.  These meetings will also be streamed on the Board of Alders YouTube page at youtube.com/@boardofalders8363.

In the coming weeks, Mayor Elicker will also be holding budget town halls– – with dates, times, and locations to be announced soon – for residents to learn more about the budget, ask questions, and provide input and feedback on the proposals.

Per the City Charter, a final budget must be approved by the Board of Alders by the first Monday in June, which is June 3rd.

Mayor Elicker’s entire FY 2024-2025 proposed budget can be viewed on the city’s website at https://bit.ly/Proposed-Budget-FY-2024-25.  

PRESS CONTACT:

Lenny H. Speiller; (203) 725-4249; Lspeiller@newhavenct.gov