City Council Approves Senior Citizen Tax Relief, Money For School Bus Transportation

City Budget, City Council, Education19 Comments

Update: Both the senior tax relief and transportation items passed full council Tuesday night.

The City Council on Tuesday will vote on a senior citizen tax relief program advanced by Mayor Joe Ganim that expands benefits to eligible homeowners 65 years of age and over to begin for the July 1, 2020 budget year.

A joint City Council committee by a 9 to 1 vote approved the measure more than two weeks ago.

The city’s current senior tax relief program dating back to 1988 offers a flat $800 to eligible seniors with household incomes of up to $43,900. The new program would provide a $1,200 benefit for seniors with household incomes up to $20,000; $900 for seniors with incomes between $20,001 and $43,900; and $400 for seniors with household incomes between $43,901 and $58,000.

Also on the City Council agenda:

Communication from OPM re: Proposed Budget Transfers to Fiscal Year
2019-2020 General Fund Budget to Facilitate the Transportation of
Bridgeport School Children for the FY19-20 School Year in the total
amount of $1,200,000 From: Citywide Contingency Account ($500,000);
Citywide Required Reserve Account ($600,000) and City Attorney-Personal
Property Claims Account ($100,000) To: Light House – Transportation
Services Account, FOR IMMEDIATE CONSIDERATION.

See full agenda here.

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19 comments

  3. We received Governor Ganim’s 29% increase to our Mill Rate, then the Flucker cut my taxes by $107 for the whole Flucking year, while he was pissing in our face and calling it rain!
    Don’t forget Governor Joe ran this city from his cell phone for 8 months that we paid for!
    It’s time to retire Governor Joe, and his half-ass Police Chief, So they can start their new careers, driving for UBER eats!!!

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    1. Senator Moore voted against Sports Betting in 2018 in Finance, Revenue, Bonding Committee. In 2015 & 2017 she voted for East Windsor Casino. She’s controlled by the Working Families

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      3. So,,,what’s wrong with that. As I have been posting,casinos in the Northeast USA are cannibalizing each other’s business. The MGM Springfield Casino is posting under-performance. And you can bet that MGM will turn their Yonkers site into a destination casino. A Bridgeport casino will be failure right from the start. It will not have the entertainment options of the neighboring casinos and will be less of a draw because of that. IMHO, any CT/Indian casino in East Windsor will fail.

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    1. Harvey
      Should we let 1400 students walk the extra miles, and not support our seniors because many people don’t
      like Joe. Our job is to try and make a differences in where we can!

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  7. Ernie Newton,

    You didn’t care for those 1,400 students when you have voted to only give the Board of Education 2.4 million over the last two years when we needed $20,000,000. We have taken $18,000,000 in cuts over the last two years because of Mayor Ganim and the majority of the City Council.

    Mayor Ganim and the City Council will be voting to violate state law. Mayor Ganim and the City Council have ZERO authority to pay for staff, services and goods which are solely under the Board of Education’s purview. This is a flagrant violation of the Minimum Budget Requirement which REQUIRES the Mayor and City Council to appropriated funds to the BOE so that the funds are locked into the MBR and the BOE decides how to spend those funds.

    The Mayor and City Council spent $88,000 on athletic uniforms, $100,000 on a literacy initiative and $1.2 million on bus transportation expenditures in which they have ZERO authority over. ZERO authority over.
    Let me get through the Primary before I formally address this with the state

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    2. Maria
      We know you don’t give a damn about our children. The Mayor and City council put monies in for the school children all you care about is bull-sh–. You will find out if you couldn’t get 5 votes of the Bd Of Education. 11 Votes will be out of your reach. No one will ever trust you because as soon as you don’t get your way you will turn on them. Maybe you should have a talk with Rick Torres a nice guy but he got nothing done on the City Council because he needed 11 votes to pass anything. Please don’t let me talk about the committee process. What chairman or chairwoman could ever trust YOU!

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    1. Maria
      Must i remind you I couldn’t of betrayed the trust as you say i did. Elected 2017-2019 Top Vote getter. You must remember you need 11 votes and JOHN Ricc can’t VOTE!

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  9. Ernest Newton, you have felony convictions for betraying the trust of the very voters that elected you.

    It is not an opinion or point-of-view. It is factual.

    You are always speaking in terms which indicate I will definitely be joining the City Council. If I am elected, I have already told Samia I want the seat right next to you.:)

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