New Haven Independent

Posted by: Ken Joyner | November 20, 2008 12:39 PM

I attended this meeting along with Rebecca Turcio and Gary Doyens of NHCAN. We were more than surprised to learn from Will Clark's hand-out and his testimony that this High school in community project was completed in 1994, during the administration of Governor John Roland (Jan. 1995 to July 2004).

It was not until July of 2007 according to Clark, that he learned of this 1.757M discrepancy. According to Clark for the last 10 months he has been in negotiations with the state over the cost, but to no avail.

Only now has Clark alerted the finance committee of this new cost over run, which is in addition to the roughly 19M school construction over run approved by the BOA in May of 2008, in spite of the fact that Clark was aware in May 2008 of this new discrepancy.

Interestingly, only after the Rell/Destefano gubernatorial race of 2006 and their subsequent spats, did this problem occur.

What strikes ones curiosity is that during the previous 11 years, not once did the BOE question itself concerning the value of the land, valued in 1995(@2.2M). Ten years later after steady increasing land value we now discover that the 1995 land was only valued @ 700K. A difference of 1.5M, according to the state.

Here again, the assessors office was not requested to provide a land evaluation in 1995, or today.

Despite the lack of this important information, the Finance committee passed the measure with a favorable recommendation to the full board, even after requesting a follow-up one page summary of the ten page hand out next week.

Your tax dollars at work.

Posted by: BOE | November 20, 2008 1:59 PM

Hey Ken, good thing you got up and testified about this at the public hearing! Nope, you guys just sat there and said nothing, then waited to get home and type away on your computer.

Posted by: Ken Joyner | November 20, 2008 3:35 PM

BOE, or is it BOA, Whatever.....

What a keen observation on your part.. Allow me to explain. Those in attendance, as well as, the finance committee were not timely made aware of the particulars of this proposal.

Jorge Perez was the only alder to complain of this lack of notice on the part of the BOE.

Consequently, we were in the dark so to speak, as to the five W's. What, where, when, who, why, and more particularly, how much. As I said above " We were more than surprised to learn from Will Clark's hand-out and his testimony that this High school in community project was completed in 1994." Some fourteen(14) years earlier than the state of Ct. request for repayment, and not the ten(10) years as I stated above.

As you can see from this scenario, the lack of facts before hand made it difficult, if not impossible to present a creditable response.

After the meeting we had the opportunity to question the testimony more closely and as a result we are using this forum for a response. We wish the finance committee would do so as well.

But... I don't think they will.

What appears unmistakable is that the New Haven taxpayer continues to be hammered by mistakes, cost over- runs, untimely/ delayed budget reporting, steady increasing fees, all on top of yearly tax increases.
This is not phenomenal doings, it's doings because I can... and it's approved too!!!

Posted by: Gary Doyens | November 20, 2008 5:20 PM

BOE:

We don't attend these meetings, take time away from our families to testify endlessly or needlessly. We are there to monitor and to provide testimony when we feel it appropriate; when we feel something is being left out of the discussion or where the concerns of taxpayers are being ignored or not taken into consideration. We did so last night on other topics including another last minute, unbudgeted, poorly executed idea for a power plant for $5 million in new emergency debt.

However, on the state's recapture bill, it was well noted at that table last night, and only by pulling it out by repeated questions to Clark and Weisselberg, that this had been an on-going problem that had been intentionally hidden, intentionally not budgeted because they (Clark and Weisselberg) believed it could be swept under the rug and absorbed across 20 years. They were wrong. What could our testimony have possibly added to that conversation and disclosure? Not much except to plead once again for timely information, for attention to detail, planning and full disclosure that will spare taxpayers the brunt of expensive mistakes.

Since it seems you were there BOE, why didn't you stand up and explain why with all that high priced help at the BOE, and declining public school enrollment, how in the world Weisselberg et all can continue to project a growing school population, repeatedly use wrong calculations and send taxpayers scrambling to the bond markets once or more a year to cover more ineligible and unbudgeted expenses? We are talking tens of millions of dollars in rejected expenditures just this year alone and the state has not audited all the new schools yet. Given our track record, I'm quite sure they will find more to reject and more for us to borrow.

Posted by: citizen | November 20, 2008 7:48 PM

Your article claims that there is a 15mil renovation going on at HSC. I can tell you for a fact that there is no work going on at HSC.