State Senator Eric D. Coleman
May 4, 2006
Coleman and Fonfara Back Bill to Reduce Impact of Property Tax Revaluation for Homeowners in Hartford
During the closing hours of the 2006 session of the General Assembly, Senators John Fonfara (D-Hartford) and Eric Coleman (D Bloomfield/Hartford) helped to gain approval of a bill that is designed to reduce the impact property tax revaluation will have on homeowners in the City of Hartford.
The bill is an effort to ease in the revaluation that Hartford is forced to do a year from now. It aims to eliminate the surcharge that businesses currently pay and increase the assessment value of property by 3.5 percent each year over the next five years. It will also phase out 50 percent of the surcharge on commercial property.
Senators Fonfara, Coleman and Hartford officials pushed for this bill in order to limit the shift in the tax burden from business to residential taxpayers due to revaluation. Without this legislation homeowners would have faced a doubling of their property taxes.
"This bill will protect Hartford homeowners from double digit percentage increases in their property tax bills when revaluation goes into effect," said Senator Fonfara. "It is a fair compromise between the need to provide relief from the surcharge to businesses, while recognizing that residential taxpayers could not afford to be slammed with the huge tax increases we were facing."
"First of all this bill is critically important because with revaluation not having been done since 1999 any revaluation now would result in a tremendous shift in the property tax burden to residential homeowners. This legislation is accomplishing some much needed relief to residential property taxpayers in the City of Hartford. The property tax bills will increase somewhat, but nowhere near as much if it would have been without this bill," said Senator Coleman. "The second important thing that this bill accomplishes is with all of the plans to attract more middle class homeowners to the Hartford, if property taxes were increasing in any significant manner it would certainly be a deterrent to people being influenced to come back and reside in the city. It would probably contribute to the exodus of current Hartford residents seeking to move to the suburbs where property tax bills are much more manageable."
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