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Danbury mayor presents fiscally cautious $2025–26 budget, proposes 24.99 mill rate
Summary
Mayor Roberto Alves presented a proposed 2025–26 budget that increases school funding and public-safety staffing, funds 15 miles of road paving and sets a proposed mill rate of 24.99; the council will deliberate and hold public hearings on components of the plan.
Mayor Roberto Alves presented his proposed fiscal year 2025–26 operating budget and capital improvement program to the Danbury City Council on April 1, laying out priorities and numbers he said are aimed at maintaining services while restoring staffing and addressing long‑deferred infrastructure needs.
"As your mayor, I respectfully present my proposed budget and capital improvement program for the 2025–26 fiscal year," he told the council, citing public safety, infrastructure, operations and education as the budget’s principal drivers. The plan calls for adding five police officers (bringing sworn strength to 175), a public-safety operating budget of $47.4 million, and $750,000 in capital allocations for police, fire and related technology.
The mayor said infrastructure is a top priority and proposed paving 15 miles of road annually until the city is “caught up,” with $13.5 million allocated for public works (a 28% increase) and an additional $4.0 million in public‑works capital projects. He also proposed insourcing information‑technology services this year after outsourcing in previous years.
Education remains the largest single driver. The mayor proposed an annual allocation of $172 million for the Board of Education (a 7.5% increase from the prior year) and said state aid and other funding will raise the city’s total contribution above $199.4 million when in‑kind services and capital are included. He noted the recent opening of Danbury High School West and said the board requested approximately $10.1 million to open that school this fall.
To implement the proposal, the administration submitted a mill rate of 24.99 — a 2.28% adjustment from last year, which the mayor characterized as "well under the rate of inflation." He said the average homeowner would see an increase of “less than 50¢ a day.” The mayor emphasized the proposal aims to preserve municipal services, add staff where the city has been under-resourced, and keep the city’s strong credit rating; he cited recent municipal note sales and a net interest cost of about 2.8%.
The council did not vote on the budget at the April 1 meeting; the mayor said councilmembers will spend several evenings deliberating the proposal and that components of the plan will be referred to public hearings and committees as appropriate.
Next steps: the council will schedule public hearings and committee reviews for pieces of the plan; the mayor distributed budget books at the meeting for council review.
