Paying More for Less in Bloomfield: Part 5 - The Mill Rate Mirage and the Town Manager's Foundational Failures
By Peter C. Frank
Editor-in-Chief, the Bloomfield Community Dispatch
(Did you miss the previous installment? Catch up on Part 4 of the series here.)
BLOOMFIELD, CT - May 29, 2026 — When the Town Council adopted the $118.4 million FY2027 budget, the administration touted a victory for the taxpayers: a 3.7% reduction in the local mill rate. On paper, a dropping mill rate implies fiscal relief. In reality, the administration is utilizing the complex mechanics of municipal revaluation to execute a mathematical illusion.
While the nominal tax rate is dropping, the actual out-of-pocket property taxes for the average Bloomfield resident are quietly projected to climb. Testifying during the May 6, 2026, Town Council Special Meeting, Director of Finance Darrell Hill confirmed on the record that the townwide average increase in assessed value is 9.7%. Because FY2027 is year two of a four-year revaluation phase-in, a home revaluing at the townwide average will see its property tax bill go from $8,910 to $9,434—a 5.88% increase, roughly $524 a year (or approximately $44 a month). For homes whose values rose above the townwide average, the increase will be substantially higher.
But the 3.7% mirage isn't the only deception at play. As residents trace this Budget back to its origin, a disturbing reality emerges: the Town Manager initiated this entire fiscal cycle using a structurally non-compliant document that omitted required executive spending data, while simultaneously ignoring zero-cost solutions that could have provided genuine relief to struggling taxpayers.
The Revaluation Reality (The Phase-In Surprise)
To understand how a tax rate goes down while your tax bill goes up, residents must look at the property revaluation phase-in. A mill rate is simply a multiplier applied to a home's assessed value.
By dropping the rate to 34.40 mills, the Town Council appears to be lowering the burden. However, because property values have significantly increased during the recent revaluation cycle, that slightly lower rate is being multiplied against a drastically higher property value.
The result is not savings. Based on the Finance Director's own testimony, an average homeowner faces a 5.88% hike, costing them roughly an extra $524 annually—about $44 a month. For those whose homes are valued above the 9.7% townwide average, the out-of-pocket hit will be far more severe. The administration's framing presents a false narrative: celebrating a lower percentage rate while ignoring the fact that the total cash being extracted from the community is expanding.
The administration's own Adopted Budget document acknowledges this gap in plain language: while the nominal mill rate drops, the equalized mill rate—the apples-to-apples comparison that controls for the revaluation—actually rises from 33.37 mills to 34.40 mills, a 3.07% increase. The 3.7% "reduction" exists only on paper; the equalized rate, which your bill is actually based on, is going up.
The Foundational Failure: Botching Charter Section 903
If the Town Manager is going to demand more cash from Bloomfield's residents, the absolute minimum standard of executive competence is to present a budget that complies with the law. He failed to do so.
Two months ago, when Town Manager Alvin Schwapp presented his original FY2027 Proposed Budget, he engineered a ledger that fundamentally violated Section 903 of the Bloomfield Town Charter.
The Charter legally mandates that the Town Manager's proposed Budget must feature an itemized statement showing "parallel columns" that explicitly include the "actual expenditures in the first eight (8) months of the current fiscal year" and the exact "appropriations requested" by department heads versus what the Town Manager actually "recommended."
This discrepancy did not go unnoticed by the public. Testifying at the April 16, 2026, Public Hearing on the Budget by the Town Council, resident Robert Burman stated on the record: "Section 903 of the town charter requires… an itemized statement of revenues showing in parallel columns… [and] an itemized statement of expenditures for each department… showing in parallel columns… actual expenditures in the first eight months of the current fiscal year… This does not solve the problem of Section 903's requiring the figures to all be presented in parallel columns, which this budget book does not do. Therefore, this Budget does not conform to the charter requirements. It is another example of the town manager violating the Charter in his oath of office."
A review of the document confirms Burman’s assessment. Section 903(b) requires five parallel columns for expenditures: (1) last completed FY actuals; (2) actuals from the first eight months of the current FY; (3) full current-FY estimate; (4) appropriations requested by departments; and (5) appropriations recommended by the Town Manager. Instead, the Proposed FY2027 Budget's department tables use a column explicitly labeled "FY 2026 Revised Budget"—a budget figure, not actuals—in the exact slot where Section 903 calls for the 8-month actuals. Furthermore, no column anywhere in the proposed document shows departmental appropriations requested alongside the Town Manager's recommended figures.
This omission is, on its face, non-compliant with Section 903. Whatever the administration's intent in formatting the document this way, the omission has the practical effect of preventing the public and the Town Council from seeing the delta between what frontline departments stated they needed to survive and what the executive branch ultimately authorized. He poisoned the well from day one, forcing the Council to deliberate using a structurally non-compliant foundational document.
A Lack of Vision: Leaving Money on the Table
The Town Manager's inability to format a budget according to the Charter is matched only by his inability to generate revenue without reaching into residents' pockets. While the administration deserves credit for cutting the 11.6% status quo roll-forward baseline to the 3.07% adopted increase, they declined to pursue zero-cost statutory tools that could have produced further relief on top of those cuts.
For example, the Town Manager could have pursued Municipal Energy Aggregation. Under C.G.S. § 16-245b, the Town has the statutory authority to aggregate residential energy demand. Comparable aggregation programs in other Connecticut and New England municipalities have generated household savings of $10 to $20 per month on the supply portion of electric bills, at zero cost to the municipal Budget. The administration ignored this.
The Town Manager could have implemented a Vacant Property Registry. Absentee commercial landlords currently sit on vacant properties, blighting our corridors while paying no penalties. Implementing a registry fee is a standard practice in Hartford and New Haven. Similar programs in comparable municipalities report generating $25,000 to $75,000 annually, incentivizing landlords to lease their buildings and stimulating the Grand List. The administration ignored this, too.
A Note on the Town's Response
The Bloomfield Community Dispatch submitted a media inquiry to the Town on May 29, 2026, at 10:00 AM with a 6:30 PM deadline for response. The inquiry was directed to Town Attorney Andrew Crumbie, pursuant to the Town Manager's April 21 directive, with copies sent to Town Manager Alvin D. Schwapp Jr., Finance Director Darrell V. Hill, Town Clerk Andrea DiStephan, and the entire Town Council.
The Dispatch offered to print, in full, any statement the administration wished to submit—including a general statement on the FY2027 budget if officials preferred not to address specific questions. We also noted that any statements received after the deadline would still be published, accompanied by a note indicating they were received after the primary publication deadline. As of publication, the Town has not responded. This article will be updated if a response is received.
Conclusion: The Crisis of Executive Competence
The FY2027 budget crisis is not simply a matter of a town facing hard times; it is the symptom of an executive who lacks both the vision to govern and the discipline to follow the town's foundational laws.
Town Manager Schwapp presented a budget that selectively framed the math, omitted the departmental funding-request column the Town Charter requires, and completely ignored innovative, zero-cost avenues for residential tax relief. When an administration protects its own bloated executive offices while failing to perform basic statutory duties, the taxpayers are the ones who pay the price.
The mill rate may have been tweaked to look like a discount, but the residents of Bloomfield are learning the hard way: incompetence is expensive.
Next in the Series:
In Part 6, the Dispatch will expose the administration's preemptive strike against the voters—documenting how the Town Manager moved to lock in binding severance contracts for 11 senior officials. As announced on the public record at the May 26, 2026, Town Council Meeting, the administration preemptively engaged a pension attorney through the Crumbie Law Group to finalize these retirements, locking in an irreversible institutional drain regardless of how the taxpayers vote at the June 6 referendum.
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