New Haven Independent

Posted by: jeffreykerekes | May 23, 2008 8:42 AM

This is a sad state of affairs that nothing more could be done. It is a strategic success for the status quo-ers. See, the smart thing about this is that they have us fighting to find a few dollars for the homeless so that we do not focus on the larger systematic changes that are needed. So we have the shubert supporters fighting the homeless supporters. It sad. The real cost is in personnel. That is the single largest driver of the budget. If there is any savings to be had, it is here. We have multimillion dollar short falls in workers compensation fund, the early retiree healthcare benefit we give, 50-55% employee benefit packages etc... If we want to be so generous, which we might want to be, then we simply cannot have as many employees. We can't have it both ways. We can have generous compensation packages with fewer employees or less generous packages with a larger number. I agree with Mayor Daniels that we need to get rid of the double dippers -- the ones who retire and come back as highly paid consultants. Particularly in the BOE where it has been failing our kids. Do we really need a policy to bring back the same people that have been delivering failing schools? How does that saying go: Doing the same thing over and over agin but believing you will get a different result?

Posted by: FIX THE SCHOOLS | May 23, 2008 9:20 AM

JEFFREYKEREKES

You've got it exactly right - as does former Mayor Daniels. Trying to balance the budget in New Haven without taking on the BOE is like trying to wipe out the federal deficit without looking at the cost of social security, Medicare, and the Iraqi war - all combined.

Whether or not the BOA has any formal power to over ride the BOE on it's budget is besides the point. If the alders really want to do the right thing by their constituents, they need to make BOE spending (and the failure of the district) a major political issue.

Analyze the schools budget, break it down, compare the personnel budget with other districts and models (and yes, look at ALTERNATIVE models which are FAR more effective with the same $$). Compare performance among peer districts. Put pressure on this mayor to value the education of the kids over jobs for adults.

Fix the schools - and transform the regional economy.

Posted by: cedarhillresident | May 23, 2008 9:36 AM

OK first!!! I luv you...Brooks and Perez. Thank you for being the real voice of the people!!!!!!!!!!!!

I agree with Bitsey when she says the more we do the more we attract people. We can not" non profit" ourselves in a hole. I believe that churches and state will step up to the plate if the need is there.

Lastly I am sickened and pissed and totally mortified that this city is that corrupt! The rose color glasses are now off!! I was hoping that this year, a year where house cleaning can be done, it would be! And here we are again playing the same BS game we did last year.WTF!!! (sorry Paul not using real swear word but I am so mad). As Daniel's said the Double dippers need to go!!! That would lower the mill rate and save some of the other cuts from happening! The over staffing of the town (not in all dept) needs to be addressed to! Let me tell you that if this budget goes through as it is the citizens will be up in arms and in Hartford wanting to know where our money is being spent.

When times were good we let these things slide because we were in a position to....but we are not in that position any more and the FREE RIDES need to end!!! The budget can still be mortified and amendments can still be presented...

MY SUGGESATION IS:
City Hall make the cuts and lower the mill rate!!!!!
You want to make this city desirable, you want companies to move to New Haven and fill in all those development plans (and not Yale) Then LOWER THE MILL RATE and make this city an attractive place for them to come!!!!! CUT THE DOUBLE DIPPERS!!! AND CLEAN HOUSE!!!

Posted by: cedarhillresident | May 23, 2008 9:39 AM

Yes John that last statement was addressed to you.

Posted by: strangerthanfiction | May 23, 2008 9:56 AM

Those with good memories will remember that when John Daniels was elected Mayor, he at first expressed the desire to remain as a State Senator while he also served as Mayor. Also, regrettably, while he was Mayor he did nothing himself to trim back the Education bureaucracy or top heavy administrative salaries. More sour grapes from the ex-Mayor directed at his successor. It's easy to talk about this stuff, but Daniels had his chance and just didn't do the job, I'm sorry to say.

Posted by: cedarhillresident | May 23, 2008 10:32 AM

strangerthanfiction
You are right, but that does not justify this administration from ignoring the facts! And running the taxes up and the citizens down! They are smart people and everyone of them know where the money can be cut but because it is there friends and family's they are unwilling to make the cuts... maybe the state should come in and do it. They would have no persaonal commitment to the double dippers

Posted by: Edward_H | May 23, 2008 10:36 AM

I have got to say the picture of Moti Sandman says a thousand words. That is exactly how I feel everytime I read about New Haven's budget problems.

Posted by: Gary Doyens | May 23, 2008 10:43 AM

These finance committee meetings have been an exercise in mental intercourse and nothing more.

Taxpayers are on the receiving end and what we're left with is the hard decision to tell our kids they can't go to camp this summer, music lessons have to end, and that family vacation will be a day trip some place close because the City Hall has conspired to protect the status quo.

BOA President Carl Goldfield, when re-elected to that post this year, promised a more vigorous, more engaged New Haven Board of Aldermen. Mayor John DeStefano when announcing his re-election plans said he wanted "good politics" where the result of public policy and elections was not a zero sum game with only winners and losers.

It was all a crock. There is no leadership - with the exception of a few alders - there are only rubberstamping votes, squishy, whiney defenses of runaway spending and a bombastic mayor who refuses to take responsibility or make the hard decisions that real leadership requires despite clear evidence he is engineering a train wreck.

In the end, after hours and hours of public testimony from the very people who bear the tremendous burden for paying the cost of the city's bloated and mind blowing spending, the Finance Committee couldn't trouble themselves and the mayor couldn't be bothered to find the internal fortitude and integrity to provide any relief to taxpayers or to make the substantive cuts to staff and benefits that make up the vase majority of city spending. They are no better than big oil or anybody else who uses their power to diminish our lives for their gain.

This budget has a hidden 2+ mil increase in property taxes and when combined with revaluation, will escalate property taxes by 10 - 12%. As a result, homeownership in New Haven will continue to decline, poverty will continue to increase and it will put the dream of home ownership out of reach for new, young families who otherwise might choose to put down roots here.

I can barely contain my excitement in anticipation of the pontification of the many alders who will stand up at the full board meeting next month to decry the cuts as sacrificial and defend the tax increase as "bare bones." That, of course, will be an exercise in verbal intercourse.

The tax bill will arrive just before July 1. That will be an exercise in taxpayer XXXXing. Fill in the blank.

Posted by: Fairhavengal | May 23, 2008 11:27 AM

I really do not understand why we keep funding Tweed...can someone explain that to me?

Posted by: Exiled Italian Shill | May 23, 2008 11:46 AM

cedarhill - the problem with cutting the mill rate is this: every mill is worth $4.8-5M in collected tax revenue. If you were to drop the mill rate, say 2 mills for FY08-FY09, the city starts the budget with $8-10M in the whole.

The city was some $14M in the whole this budget cycle. Almost $5M of that was due to the rocket scientists that dropped the mill rate a single mill, just to say they cut taxes in an election year. But no one talks about that.

So cut another mill or two from the budget, possibly get even less money from the state next session, maybe deal with a decline in tax collections, the only increases would be in wages, health care and pensions and you are still back to a $10-13M problem next year.

So what do you do then? Well same as this year only at that point they would need to make a massive personnel cut and drop or charge for some services in the altogether. You might wind up paying for garbage pick-up if they privatized the DPW jobs in solid waste. They would need to close firehouses, maybe even sell a park for development.

That is why cutting the mill rate is risky. Reducing revenue must lead to reducing expenditures or else you wind up like the state. The policy question is what expenditures are cut?

Posted by: Gary Doyens | May 23, 2008 12:15 PM

Schill:

1. Cut the mil rate, cut the spending. They're both bloated.

2. The only reason the city started out with $14 million hole is because the mayor used phoney baloney, good time rock and roll revenue numbers from the state he had no hope of getting and he damn well knew it. He fraudulently proposed a budget as balanced when he knew it wasn't. By the way, the $6 million in concessions from the unions isn't real either and is still not set in stone. Yet the alders voted last night on a budget that said it was.

3. Tweed is a complete cluster. United is cutting 9% of their domestic flights; American is cutting 11% of its domestic flights. Rates are rising and fees for carrying on a single bag is going up. Nobody is going to be putting an airline at puny little Tweed - I don't care how how Chrissy B flies out of there. It's a dead horse goof for general aviation and business travelers who are more interested in convenience than they are about budget. Period. Any other plan is like spitting in the wind.

4. Cut employees and the 55% benefit package. It's the only thing that will save the city and its few remaining taxpayers. Other than that, there will never be enough money.

Posted by: What | May 23, 2008 12:20 PM

Exiled:

Cut everyone's budget by 25%. Either the unions can take a 25% pay cut, or lay off 25% of the workforce.

Painful, but simple.

Posted by: cedarhillresident | May 23, 2008 1:04 PM

Thanx Gary well said.

My jaw dropped when the union guy was up and they asked him what was going on and the answer was pretty much "I don't know!" I have no answers I am waiting to see what you guys cut because maybe I will not have to cut anything at all because after all it is only taxpayers money and we know how the taxpayers of new haven LOVE when we give there money away!

"What" that is the simple plan and we would survive it!

My

Posted by: Exiled Italian Shill | May 23, 2008 1:25 PM

Doyens & What - It was my experience in New Haven that those recommendations are over simplifications of a growing problem in the city: revenue that is equally raised across the board on residents, business and non-profits.

CT needs to enact property tax reform quickly. Too many cities are required to pay for their costs through only one source: property tax. Think how much better it would be if muni's had the right to enact an income tax on those that choose to work in the city as opposed to just property tax?

The problem I always felt to be in NH was that the two largest employers in the city, Yale and YNNH, are both tax exempt. Therefore for them to grow jobs, which they will always do as they are a non-mobile industry and will never close their doors and go to Mexico, they need to expand. Since they are tax exempt it increases the amount of non taxed property in the city, currently about 49% of all property is tax exempt.

Its a catch-22. To grow jobs you need to allow a non-taxable entity to expand and lose revenue. So the burden gets further pushed onto homeowners. The state, way back when, said it would make up the difference through payment in lieu of taxes (PILOT) and set the rate at .77 on the taxable dollar. The only problem is that the state never lived up to its promise and pays only in the .50 cent range on the taxable dollar.

Cutting your workforce to an unacceptable level gets you in trouble. Services go down and people move out. There are two types of people that live in NH: 1) the ones that choose to live there because it offers something unique with city services and 2) those they have to live there because they are kept hostage to their own poverty and cannot afford to live elsewhere.

Do either of you remeber when Mayor Daniels was running the show and how high the grass was in our parks? How bad the tree trimming was? What downtown looked like? Crime and murder? And the mill rate was in the 60's!

When I left the parks department was doing a better job with less workers. Grass was getting cut and trees were getting trimmed. Downtown is now a mecca and people come from all across the region to eat, drink and play in NH. No more boarded up buildings, no high grass, a much lower murder rate, by large the most affordable housing in the region or state. And a mill rate in the around 42. And all this with less employees.

Now lets go cut 5%, 15% or 25% of the workforce. Lets go back to the days of Daniels Administration when no one came downtown, all the deadwood employees that are now 100 years old and still on the union protected payroll still exist were hired based on patronage, Yale was losing out because parents would not allow their kids to attend a school in NH, and there were 3X as many employees on the payroll. Oh and lets go back to a mill rate in the 60's because property values went to 0 and the city could not rase ANY revenue.

Wo cares about Tweed and the Henry Fernandez experiment or that Vito's daughter flies out of there. If it collapses do you reall want to create, once again, a department of Airport with a staff on city payroll once again? Is it worth the few hundred thousand pumped into it to keep it afloat rather than the $1.7M it will cost to have the city run it again? If you are gonna be made over Tweed be mad at those Maturo jerks in East Haven for never allowing the airport a chance to succeed. They are the cause Tweed never took off (no pun intended).

And lets give the employees next to no benefits so that NH can model its self right after Wal-Mart. i am sure you guys will get quality employees just like Wal-Mart does, some might event be able to speak English.

It was a bad fiscal year and it aint looking any better next year from the state's prespective. Remember 2003 when Rowland rescinded state monies to munis across the board? So cut the mill rate and lower tax revenues and deal with recissions that will pull $5-8M from the NH budget.

Doyens you just like to throw rocks when you live a glass house yourself and have no knowledge of what it takes to run a large urban area.

Posted by: cedarhillresident | May 23, 2008 1:48 PM

PS
Remember this people when election time comes because I am, and no ward is off limits this time. I will be starting as soon as some one says they want to run against some of these people....If they can't make the cuts then they need to be cut!

Posted by: jackie | May 24, 2008 9:08 AM

E.I.S. and others have mentioned this:

"The state, way back when, said it would make up the difference through payment in lieu of taxes (PILOT) and set the rate at .77 on the taxable dollar."

Anyone know where I can find more about this? Are there grounds for the city/its residents to sue the state? That would be a great platform for the new mayor/BOA.

I've never seen so much inequality (of so many kinds) in one state in my life--and it's about time that somebody did something about it:

Equality breeds no strife. --Solon.

Posted by: The Trix Rabbit | May 24, 2008 1:25 PM

I couldn't put it better than Exiled Italian Shill. Proposing massive cuts in personnel will badly hurt the city in the long run. There are departments that could be "streamlined," but those cuts that have not already been made would not deeply impact the budget deficit, nor would they stop taxes from going up (this year or in the near future). At this point, without seriously damaging vital services or the very programs that make our city livable, no one can really "fix" the budget. Note that the same commenters who are complaining about the services that just got cut are the same ones who beg and pray for cuts all year. In other words, this problem isn't really solved that easily on the city level, and it's a good idea to look at the bigger picture.

The United States is currently in a recession of its own, with job losses, a huge drop in homeownership, rising taxes, and probably inflation. Certainly, food and gasoline, two of the most universal commodities in the United States, have skyrocketed this year. Why is this? Partly a huge federal tax cut that left the federal government broke and incapable of fixing these domestic problems immediately before a major terrorist attack, which forced us into a very costly overseas war that is nowhere near ending (that's Afghanistan). The subsequent Iraq war didn't help one bit.

Partly, this is because of an economy that was trashed by bad federal policy in the '80s under the Reagan and Bush administrations. This was fixed by the '90s economic boom (which was not really Bill Clinton's doing, so don't worry Republicans, I won't give him credit for that), but without the economic problems created in the '80s, and the subsequent destruction of our budget surplus by Dubbya, it didn't do the U.S. the kind of long-term good it should have.

More than either of these, it is the way we live. We drive further and more often than most other people around the world, and we do it in bigger and less economic cars (if you want proof, go to states that have had massive suburban development in the last couple decades, like Florida--most parking spaces there could easily accommodate a tank). We spend crazily as we send jobs overseas, we don't save properly, and what "went around" starting in the aftermath of World War Two is starting to "come around" for us. Not much we can do to change history, but we can get on the ball for the future so our children aren't in even more trouble.

By this point I'm sure my reader has lost all interest, but...in Connecticut, this is a big problem. We are last in job growth, which is dragging the half of our state's population that doesn't work in major out-of-state corporations under. It is hurting our children. It is increasing the polarization of the people in our state (I believe we also get the trophy for the greatest divide between rich and poor in the United States). The result is that all those folks with enough money to buy a big house in Woodbridge have no problems finding jobs. They can pay higher taxes, so their schools are better, and their kids go to college. In New Haven, our people make less and less money, have more trouble paying taxes (which, again, are rising across the nation, meaning that there is very little that the city government can do), and that means that we have the choice of a) bigger problems with schools, which we can't afford in the long run, or b) bigger cuts in services, which we won't survive in the short run. Additionally, the state basically tells us how much money we need to pay the schools, so our municipal government has next to no influence in that field.

The only real solution is to funnel some of that money from the rich towns in Connecticut into state coffers, and from there into cities. That will be a tricky maneuver and will require massive revision of the way taxes work in our state, and will not happen without a majority of dynamic, powerful state legislators from the cities as well as a similar governor. Governor Rell is not that person. To make matters worse, she hates Mayor Destefano, and has badly screwed New Haven several times in the last couple years. This is an election year for state legislators. Far more important than the presidential election, everyone should take part in pressuring your legislators to confront the Governor, on a united front with City Hall, and get some of the money we badly need. That means cooperation between the state delegation and the mayor. Luckily we have an opportunity to pressure our legislators this year to work harder for these goals. I certainly will be.

Posted by: citysavior | May 24, 2008 2:46 PM

good job to perez and brooks. How can the city bring into the fold changes from the perf report if there no money in the city? Here's the answer get on with the search get a chief in. delay the asst.chief positions until fiscal year 2009-2010 and only fill the last assitant chief poistion that chief badger vacated when he retired. This money can be spread out to the city to save educational programs and may be a cut in the mill.

Posted by: Ken Langley | May 24, 2008 8:15 PM

Jorge Perez was the President of the Board of Aldermen (and a good one) until Czar John decided to dump him in favor of a puppet who would do what he (the Mayor) wanted. It is time for the Board of Aldermen to start acting like it represents the voters and taxpayers of this City, not the Mayor. New leadership would help.

Posted by: Fedupwithliberals | May 25, 2008 8:15 AM

CEDARHILLRESIDENT

I ran out of the house after reading this thread for the first time and saw pigs flying! Then I remembered hearing about biblical events like The Rapture, which foretells the end of days when a certain 10th district New Haven liberal starts talking like Barry Goldwater. Do I have to be afraid? Think about the whole space-time continuum! For the sake of all things holy, please stop making sense!!!

Posted by: cedarhillresident | May 27, 2008 8:23 AM

Fedupwithliberals
Can you clarify which 10 district Alder....the old one Ed or Allan my new one.

Posted by: Exiled italian Shill | May 27, 2008 11:47 AM

Ken - Do you really think that Perez is all that different from Goldfield? Or from Phil Voigt for that matter? No matter who the President of the Board is, no matter who the person that is sitting in the seat at any given moment might be the same thing is always true: they work with the administration during their tenure.

Posted by: Gary Doyens | May 27, 2008 4:18 PM

Exiled Italian:

You're fact challenged. Private citizens had more to do with downtown re-development than the city. Joel Schiavone was the primary - David Nyberg and others have followed including Yale. The city had a hand here and there, but small by comparison.

Second, Tweed will not fold without New Haven tax dollars - it can lay user fees on the 40K flyers who choose to use Tweed despite its relative high cost when compared to other nearby airports.

Third, cutting the number of city employees is possible and desireable - the BOE has a lot of administrative fat - special assignment teachers with no classroom responsibilities; principal interns; and any number of consultants and patronage jobs. There are some city departments which could be consolidated and we could reap the savings of not having as many managers.

Fourth, the number of jobs is just one problem. It's the benefit package which according to City Hall costs 55% of payroll. That's more than twice what private enterprise pays and it's way rich. If that figure was cut by 15 - 20%, city employees would still enjoy a robust benefit package in excess of all the rest of us.

And finally - we need an administration which is going to stay within the budget that is set, even with its out of control spending in place. It hasn't even done that little bit responsibly, including the mayor who has overspent his mayoral budget.

And while you think this is a large urban area - think again. New Haven is relatively small. It's only large by CT standards which is a pretty low bar.

One last point: Aside from the people who reside here because of economic/poverty issues, I don't know anybody who lives in New Haven for city services. In fact, studies show those who pay property taxes consume a disporportionately low share of city services. We live here because it used to be affordable, because it's near where we work, and has a diversity we appreciate.

Posted by: Daniel Sumrall | May 27, 2008 6:33 PM

This kind of stasis was one of the reasons I chose to put myself forward as an alder candidate. Too bad most who want change don't really vote for it. Ah, well, guess the city deserves what it gets...

Posted by: cedarhillresident | May 27, 2008 6:57 PM

****standing up and clapping***** Well said Gary!!!! Now if we can only get the Alder's to listen and town hall to listen! I can't for the life of me understand WHY not one person has made know REAL cut proposals! Chump change was presented. There is know way these people do not get it! And I don't care who votes it out at least put it one the table. who knows maybe by the grace of god they will make some real change!

Sorry I am posting this poem everywhere it just seems so fitting.

ROAD LESS TRAVELED

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth

Then took the other as just as fair
And having perhaps the better claim
Because it was grassy and wanted wear
Though as for that, the passing there
Had worn them really about the same

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet, knowing how way leads onto way
I doubted if I should ever come back

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence

Two roads diverged in a wood
And I took the one less traveled by
And that has made all the difference

Robert Frost

Posted by: Fedupwithliberals | May 27, 2008 7:43 PM

CEDARHILLRESIDENT

Sorry you didn't get it. I was talking about you.

Posted by: cedarhillresident | May 28, 2008 9:07 AM

Fedupwithliberals
Ouch... Now you know I had to ask is that good or bad to the History major in my office and his response was that it is a slap in the face to who I am (with an explanation). But I will say this much, the more I get involved and the more I learn about government my views are varying from my original understanding.

Posted by: Fedupwithliberals | May 28, 2008 4:07 PM

CEDARHILLRESIDENT

The comment was not meant as a slap in your face. I was complimenting you on your clarity of thinking. Barry Goldwater is not exactly a figure of shame for those who are on the right side of an issue.

Posted by: cedarhillresident | May 28, 2008 8:05 PM

hmmm...well then big wet sloppy kisses :)

I do have to say as I watch the whole budget thing unfold in New Haven and see elected officials choose to cut homeless shelters and theaters rather than cut the double dippers and high priced useless positions, I am getting jaded. Some of the cuts that were offered up were cuts that were already on the plate. The school closing was in place and the move to troop was happing long before it was offered up as some kind of tragity. The 6 mill. in union cuts ....hmmm still have heard nothing on that. Is that going to be the news in a few months that the budget fell short six million sorry suckers. And not one meaningful cut has been offered up...not one real move to change the way the city is ran has been offered up. I fear the thought that my republican friend makes sense to me.....and that scares me :0
OHHH stay away from the dark side.....