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David St. Hilaire
Finance Director |
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Dan Garrick
Assistant Finance Director
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| Address: |
155 Deer Hill Avenue
Danbury, CT 06810 |
Address: |
155 Deer Hill Avenue
Danbury, CT 06810 |
| Phone: |
203-797-4652 |
Telephone: |
203-797-4650 |
Additional Links:
Description
The Director of Finance directly oversees the City’s Finance Team and is located on the second floor in City Hall. The City Finance Team consists of the following Divisions: Assessor, Tax Collector, Purchasing, Risk Management, Information Technology and Finance. Each of these interdependent divisions play a key role in ensuring the most efficient and effective use of taxpayer’s dollars. The City’s Assessor, Tax Collector, and Purchasing may make, collect, and spend the “money,” but ultimately it must all be accounted for and analyzed using financial information systems.
The Department of Finance performs the accounting, reporting and analysis for all financial transactions for the departments and agencies of the City ensuring that no taxpayer’s dollar goes astray. Banking, investment and cash management functions are conducted in this department in addition to payroll and benefits administration. Also, the Department of Finance makes vendor payments and receives checks from the State, Federal and other departments. Financial reports are provided to the Common Council on a monthly basis, CAFR are created annually and independents audits are conducted and filed annually.
A taxpayer is often directed to the Assessor’s Office first whenever a question arises about their property taxes. Usually, a simple explanation or clarification sufficiently addresses the issue. When a simple explanation is not sufficient, the Assessor’s Office will conduct research to attempt to quickly resolve the issue. The Assessor’s Office also assess and manages approximately 29,000 taxable items of motor vehicle, personal and real property which collectively make up the City’s Grand List. The integrity of the City’s Grand List is important to every taxpayer because it is the basis for the calculation of the tax bill.
Once the Grand List is finalized, the Tax Collector then applies the mill rate to calculate the taxpayer’s tax bill. The majority of funding for essential services provided by the City, similar to other communities in Connecticut, primarily come from property tax revenues. The chief responsibility of the Tax Collector’s office is to collect property taxes.
The Purchasing Division is responsible for acquiring all the goods and services for the City Departments, Agencies and Capital Projects. They achieve their main goal is to obtain the best value for each tax dollar spent by going through an extensive bidding process.
The Risk Management Division’s primary focus is to promote the safety and health of City Employees, minimize damage and injury claims, ensure public safety, and administer quality and cost effective employee benefits. Risk management measures the risk and insures all City assets, including human assets, in the most responsible and affordable manner possible given the contractual obligations of the city.
In today’s economy, providing the uninterrupted flow of information and customer service technology are critical elements to the success of any organization. The Division of Information Technology provides the tread for the Finance Team, all City departments and to the City of Danbury.
Successes
The Department of Finance’s Assessor Division is striving to not only make more forms available on-line but also to allow on-line completions. For taxpayer convenience, the Tax Collector Division will soon provide taxpayers with the opportunity to make scheduled payments of their taxes on-line. The Information Technology Division continues to improve the City’s Web site and together the Finance Team is raising the bar for on-line municipal customer service. The Purchasing Division has made improvements to the bidding process and saved money this year by negotiating consolidated billings which has reduced the City’s mailing and handling costs.