Bloomfield Town Council adopts a 3.07% increase for FY2027 Budget

After weeks of exhaustive deliberation, on May 6, 2026 the Bloomfield Town Council voted to adopt a 3.07% budget increase with a mill rate of 34.40. Our Democratic councilors led this difficult process with a genuine commitment to minimizing increased tax burden on homeowners, making additional cuts to the Town Administration budget to offset a shortfall in an earlier projection of state ECS (Education Cost Sharing) funding while maintaining the budget increase to the Board of Education.

We cannot ignore the increasing pressure from an economic climate marked by rising costs, so the council adopted a lean budget to avoid gutting the core services our community depends on while minimizing the tax burden.

Another factor that cannot be ignored is the recent revaluation that disproportionately shifted the tax burden onto residential property owners relative to the commercial base. Bloomfield is in the second year of a four-year phase in meant to ease the brunt of the reval, but one that also creates a built-in tax increase for homeowners. Our Democratic leadership kept that reality front and center throughout every decision this budget season. A referendum cannot eliminate the phase-in tax increase and only risks forcing even deeper cuts to town services and our schools, potentially undermining the quality of services residents depend on daily.

The Economic Development Trust represents our most promising path forward. It is a strategic investment designed to attract significant outside funding to our long-neglected town center, broaden our commercial tax base, and ultimately reduce the burden on Bloomfield's residential taxpayers for generations to come.

We are asking for your support of this adopted budget so we can move forward. Our town leadership responded to a challenging economic moment responsibly. Now it's our turn.