Letter to the Editor: Examining Claims on Norwalk Taxes and Education Budget

Letter to the Editor 4/5/2025

Thank you to the Board of Estimate & Taxation and the public for their engagement last week. I took time to digest the public concerns and pleas to the board. When I ran for Mayor in 2023, I emphasized fiscal responsibility. Since then, I realized that isn’t enough. We need fiscal transparency and accountability in the budget process. This should be happening throughout the entire year before the process of setting a budget ever starts. The Board of Education makes up approximately 53% of the budget. We should prioritize understanding it. The Mayor and BET should be working with each principal, school governance council and their administrative staff to identify what is and isn’t working. Identify the major budget issues and address them before March’s operating budget review meetings. 

During the public hearing, one parent described their plea for teacher funding as a “Hail Mary pass at the eleventh hour.”  No hard-working, tax-paying Norwalk residents should feel as though it’s their personal responsibility to keep the elected officials accountable for such a fundamental right as staffing our schools. Property taxes have increased exponentially in every district. How do we not have money to keep our dedicated teachers? I’d like to be transparent with you now and going forward. It’s because of exorbitant tax exemptions developers and big corporations are getting. The burden of property tax was shifted from commercial property taxpayers to residential taxpayers during the 2023 state-mandated revaluation year because of billions of dollars of tax exemptions. Residents haven’t even paid the highest amounts that they will pay on property taxes yet. The administration is using short-term measures to “soften” the burden residential taxpayers feel. One of those short-cut fixes is to draw down the fund balance. So, our elected officials deem that it is appropriate to use the fund to hide their mistakes in property tax exemptions to Corporations, but that same fund can’t be used to staff teachers in our schools? 

We need to be more transparent with the budgets. It is not enough to simply hold a public hearing, check the box that residents have spoken, and then proceed to vote on a recommended budget without giving full weight to what has been said. We need to allow the public more time to understand the budget, gather their thoughts and bring them to the table. Public hearings without deliberation is performative at best- and misleading at worst. 

I have lived in Norwalk my entire life, built my business and grew my family here. We need to do better for our residents. Let’s be responsible, transparent and accountable.

Thank you, 

 Vinny Scicchitano

Mayoral Candidate

Fact Check: Scicchitano’s Budget Claims

Claim: “Property taxes have increased exponentially in every district.”
Needs context. Property taxes rose significantly for many residents following the 2023 revaluation, especially in South and East Norwalk. However, increases varied by area, and the term “exponentially” may exaggerate the scope of those increases.

Claim: “Billions of dollars of tax exemptions.”
Unverified. The city provides substantial tax incentives to developers and large property owners, but no public data confirms that exemptions amount to billions. This claim lacks documentation.