Hartford Mayor Pedro Segarra on Monday morning proposed a $543 million budget for the next city fiscal year, including keeping tax rates flat.
The proposed budget is a slight increase over the current year’s $540 million budget and still will exceed the $530 million in project city revenues for the next fiscal year, forcing the city to raid its rainy day fund to make up the difference, according to documents from the city’s office of management and budget.
The budget, once approved, goes into effect in July.
The bulk of the expenditures in Segarra’s proposed budget will go toward education (52 percent of the total budget), followed by public safety (14 percent) benefits and insurance for employees (13 percent), non-operating expenditures (6 percent), and debt service (5 percent).
The revenue mostly comes property taxes (48 percent) and contributions from the state budget (46 percent).
For future years, the city is predicting the gap between its expenditures and revenue will grow, starting with a $52.6 million gap starting in July 2014.