Last week, my town (Branford, Connecticut) passed a budget for the upcoming year (2026, for readers keeping track from the distant and unknowable future). That budget will fund the town’s departments and activities. As Chair of the Public Services Committee, I had an opportunity to (along with the other members of my committee and members of the public) scrutinize the budgets of the Police Department, the Fire Department, and the Department of Public Works.
The town’s budget this year came to $141 million. Last year it was around $135 million. The jump was due to a number of factors, including inflation, the increased cost of goods which has been a problem since COVID, and expiring assistance from the federal government and state, also related to COVID.
The budget has gone up substantially, which would be concerning under any circumstances, but two other things have happened, related to the proliferation of remote work (and flexibility for folks moving from city to suburb): there was a recent revaluation of property that resulted in many homeowners seeing the assessed value of their home increase by 50-75% without their doing any work on them. There’s a housing shortage impacted by many factors that is driving the price of homes sky-high. Good for home sellers and nobody else.
What else has remote work affected? Along with subscription services and online shops, remote work has helped accelerate a longtime trend that’s battering commercial real estate. Fewer storefronts are profitable on shoreline Connecticut, where real estate is often the most lucrative use of land. Fewer businesses means business is shouldering less of the tax burden. And that means higher relative taxes for citizen homeowners.
If that wasn’t enough, events have conspired to raise the cost of electricity and health care. Whether this is the fault of state legislators, businesses, the governor, or national trends beyond anyone’s hands depends on who you’re asking.
And that was before the president decided to renegotiate the terms of America’s trade with the rest of the world, or to pause that renegotiation, or to start it again, or — reader, I don’t know when you’re encountering this, so let it only be said for posterity that there was much uncertainty as to the state of America’s economy in May of 2025.
Individual citizens in the town have said in meetings and in conversation with me that this is creating a “perfect storm” for them. Particularly for citizens living on a fixed income, such as older citizens or retirees. Things are getting more expensive, quickly. It’s not clear everyone will be able to keep making the payments they need to live dignified and honorable lives.
But the budget needed to be passed — the work of the town must continue — there are buildings under reconstruction (or Police Department HQ today, the high school roof next year) and vehicles to be bought or upgraded (particularly fire trucks, which have become vastly more expensive recently). $141 million must come from somewhere.
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Before the budget was passed, it needed to be assembled. How does a town get to this point in the process?
The first step is departments assembling budgets based on needs and wants. Those departments, such as (under the Public Services’ Committee’s purview) the Fire Department, the Police Department, and the Department of Public Works — look at what they need to make payroll, and how to keep the equipment and properties they administer in good working order — and submit budgets to the administration. The administration oversees the function of the town. It approves the departmental budgets, packages them, and submits an overall budget to the Board of Finance for review and approval.
The Board of Finance reviews the budget as presented, and determines how to pay for it; largely through taxation. This is a fairly simple calculation in which the assessed value of Branford’s residential properties — the “Grand List” — is multiplied by the mill rate. The formula looks like this: a times b equals c, with a standing for the total taxable value of the Grand List, b standing for the mill rate, and c standing for the sum needed to pay for everything the town wants and needs.
Some taxes on commercial activity and revenue from departmental activity offsets the final bill to citizens, but these amount to subsidies; the bulk of the need for taxation has always and will always fall on the shoulders of taxpayers.
Once the Board of Finance has gone over the proposed town budget and determined the best way to pay for it, it recommends the mill rate (this step ultimately decides what a taxpayer will owe on their tax bill at the end of the year) and forwards the budget to the town’s Representative Town Meeting (RTM), which holds hearings and approves the budget or votes it down.
In practical terms the RTM is a little more than a formal rubber stamp; it can vote to pass the budget or not, but it cannot add more money to the budget. The RTM can subtract from the budget in certain ways; it can recommend or request that certain steps be taken. But it cannot (as Congress can do, for example) determine how and where to spend money by adding lines to the budget itself, it can only approve requests.
Once the budget has been passed the mill rate is set, and people know how much money they’ll owe at the end of the year.
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There was some wrangling at the RTM this year; in fact, the vote for the budget was split down party lines, with the Democrats, who have the majority, voting to endorse the budget, and the Republicans voting against the budget. This was not because the Republicans had real problems with the budget, but because of one specific action that the Democrats (I am a Democrat so I was part of this) insisted on making: cutting the contingency fund from $1,000,000 to $500,000. The assumption behind that move was that in cutting contingency that the Board of Finance would bring forward another $500,000 from the undesignated fund to cover expenses.
Here, one needs to understand the difference between the contingency account, which is a bank account intended to be used for emergencies and unforeseen circumstances, and the undesignated fund (anecdotally referred to as a “rainy day fund”), a large pot of money left over from budgeting in previous years that is not assigned to any specific use. To put things in personal banking terms, contingency is like a checking account; the undesignated fund is like savings, money you put aside for bigger projects or in case you really need to confront an unexpected bill.
In the meeting it became clear that the Board of Finance and Republicans believed that Branford should leave its undesignated untouched, and save as much as possible in it. The state (Connecticut) recommends that towns keep about 9% of their budget back for the rainy day fund; to have the highest bond rating (which makes it easy to borrow money), it is more common to hold back 18% or even 20%. Some towns keep back more.
9% of Branford’s $141 million budget is about $12.7 million; 18% of that budget would be double that, or around $25 million. Branford’s undesignated fund as of this writing is nearly $47 million.
Cutting the contingency fund was the RTM’s only way of forcing the Board of Finance to pay for things with the undesignated fund — in this case, potentially offsetting taxes by $500,000, and reducing the mill rate by a negligible amount. The Republicans felt strongly that it was a mistake for the RTM to force the Board of Finance to spend money this way; the Democrats felt that it was important for the Board of Finance to reduce taxes as much as possible, particularly as we could afford to do so this year, and many of us had heard stories of hardship from Branford residents.
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What a strange situation: the Democrats arguing for reducing taxes, and spending down what they saw as years of overtaxation — the Republicans arguing that the government (in the form of Branford’s administration and the Board of Finance) was being wise and prudent in collecting more taxes than the town needed to spend, saving for the purpose of allowing the town to meet any unforeseen catastrophe. One citizen, who publishes an online outlet that regularly defends the administration’s position, spoke out passionately in defense of the Board of Finance putting as much money as possible into the undesignated fund, and against the Democrats’ measure; he said that the town was saving money the way a responsible household should save money, and that spending that savings was “stupid.”
It was an extraordinary claim; if I understood it correctly, the idea was that the Board of Finance and the administration had, years ago, decided that the United States and Connecticut would be facing unnamed and unanticipated disasters including those prompted by climate change, politics, and trade, and began socking away money to create an undesignated fund big enough to tackle any problem. The citizen mentioned the likely absence of funds or assistance from FEMA after a disaster in Connecticut as an example of a potential place where the undesignated fund could be used.
This is amazing! The Board of Finance and administration were able, years ago, to predict with a fair degree of accuracy the collapse of America’s central position in global trade networks, the federal government’s retreat from providing services, and Connecticut’s inability to step into that gap in the short term. They envisioned the undesignated fund not as a “rainy day” fund, but something far more urgent. Rain passes, the ground dries. If FEMA goes away, one doesn’t just put it back together; particularly if there’s little political will or ability to negotiate and compromise at the national level. All that stands between a Connecticut town and real hardship is the wisdom and foresight of that town’s planners. And in Branford, the administration began accumulating a war chest.
A rainy day fund is for some sporadic and small misfortune. A war chest is when you will need to spend deeply and as part of some great and all-encompassing social effort to keep one’s home safe for months or years. These things are of entirely different magnitudes.
I mean this sincerely; I don’t think that’s incorrect, I agree both with the citizen who spoke out, and if I’ve understood that citizen’s meaning correctly, I agree with the Board of Finance and administration’s logic in deciding to build the undesignated fund into something greater than it was originally envisioned.
However (one should never begin a sentence let alone a paragraph with the word however; these are, however, desperate times), while I agree with this assessment that Branford is at risk, and with the course of action the administration and Board of Finance elected to take, I do wish that they had communicated this decision more widely, and sooner. To begin with, citizens (myself included) would have gladly contributed to Branford’s efforts to prepare for the dire times that may nearly be upon us. If there was some initial resistance to the idea, it would have become extremely popular no later than COVID, when disaster first came home for most Americans.
And there has been a cost to Branford of keeping this assessment limited to a small circle. Not only was there no need for the Democrats to insist on cutting savings, but, again, as the administration and the Board of Finance feel that uncertainty and disaster are inevitable, we’ve lost valuable years when we could have been preparing the town in other ways.
Think about it. If you ask the Board of Finance to prepare for troubled times, what does the Board of Finance do? It saves money. What does the police department do? It hires more officers and expands infrastructure (it is doing both). The Fire Department hires more firefighters and EMTs and expands infrastructure (as it has) and attempts to more fully cover the town with emergency services. What about citizens? Well, they might buy a 24-hour capacity battery for their home for $5,000 instead of taking a long weekend at the Spring House Hotel on Block Island. A citizen might not buy a new car they were eyeing, instead electing to keep the old one and invest in repairs instead — or get a utility vehicle or a small pickup truck. They might attend Red Cross courses to achieve certification in Basic Life Support to help with health care crises, or buy a chicken coop and the ordinance-permitted four chickens for their back yard to cut down on spending for eggs.
As I understand it the Board of Finance and Branford’s administration assess that for various reasons, Branford may not be able to depend on the state and federal government for help when it comes to certain things. I share that assessment (in fact I’d take it a step further, we shouldn’t depend on the state or federal government for many things we do). The Board of Finance and Branford’s administration are doing what they know to do to prepare for those emergencies: saving more than they would otherwise, investing now in services that can help cover gaps left by receding state and federal entities.
If the logic behind Branford’s huge undesignated fund is that we will need it for emergencies soon likely to confront us, that information should have been shared more widely. In saving our tax dollars (a good thing), we have missed years worth of time that could have been invested in leveraging volunteer energy adjacent to the police, emergency response, and in individual households (a bad thing). As things stand and knowing that the logic behind the undesignated fund is concern over the town, state, and country’s future, citizens must begin the process of supporting local initiatives now.
There’s a limit to what money can do, especially in the middle of a disaster. If you don’t believe me, read the articles about wealthy people in LA trying to flee the wildfires of last year, unable to hire helicopters willing to fly them out at any price. When the bad time comes, better to have the helicopter than enough money to buy 10 helicopters. The utility of cash drops off fast when the storm arrives.
Take it from someone who’s seen not one but two countries face war and invasion (a specific form of disaster). Afghanistan fell apart under the pressure brought by Taliban and under the weight of their own corrupt government; a deeply democratic and patriotic Ukraine bent but is still unbroken. When a disaster or disasters arrive in whatever form, if you’re not already prepared, it’s already too late. All the money in the world won’t make things better, then. You want to prepare today, before calamity arrives. What should Branford do to prepare besides continuing to grow the war chest that is the undesignated fund — the equivalent to stashing cash under our proverbial mattress? We should probably develop a plan with the fire department and police department to mobilize citizens for the various challenges they’ll need to be ready to overcome together, and which we can’t really afford to employ professionally on a permanent basis. This will give us the best chance of coming through these troubled times stronger than we were when we entered them.
This, friends, is one reason we have an RTM; this is why we have a citizen body that asks questions, and makes motions, and debates matters on the floor in public. Without this arguing over what to do with the budget and why, without the Democrats and Republicans disagreeing, we never would have known the reasoning behind Branford’s otherwise incomprehensible fixation on saving more money than anyone else says is necessary or prudent. Now that we know the logic — and can agree with it! It is prudent to save unusual amounts of money if we’re likely to face unusual problems! — we can embrace that logic across the town, and fully engage and organize the town’s citizenry to face those problems. The only question that remains is: how?
The Local Blind Spot 