New Haven Independent

Posted by: James | December 10, 2008 3:52 PM

And have the Mayor and Ron Smith considered giving back their raises yet? Given how little the Clerk does and how much the Mayor is asking other people to give up, it's a continuing insult that the Mayor is hanging on to his raise as well as one for his do-nothing crony. Why, Paul, do you continue to refuse to ask this question?

Posted by: Concerned Jake | December 10, 2008 4:16 PM

Hey John,

Listen closely, HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Oh and, go build another school. Whaddaya think your the auto industry or something?

Posted by: Friendsofjohn | December 10, 2008 7:00 PM

With all the talk of union givebacks, its about time someone asks the Mayor how effective are his Department Heads managing their agencies. What actions have they taken to suppress overtime, minimize sick time use and monitor purchasing. When is the last time the Mayor or his CAO held a Department Head staff meeting? Someone needs to hold Chief's accountable for their action or inactions. How much does the mayor expect taxpayers to give a city where funds are used without accountability. Who will we have to bail out thi year - FD, PD or BOE?

Posted by: cedarhillresident | December 10, 2008 7:10 PM

First CHANGE THE CHARTER so Alderman have some control of Union contracts!!!! Second change the charter that allows the mayor to appoint the heads of the BOE! Those are starting points. Then screw it, if the unions don't want to work with us in hard times, (when they gained so much in good times) start the firing and with the pink slips send a note that says this is because the dumb fu*ks that head your union are greedy mother fr's. That simple! Johnny they know you do not have the BALLS to do it! They are calling your bluff! You would rather tax the Fu*ck out of the empty pocketed residents of this city till it is empty then grow some hairy ones and just clean house! Guess what the residents will back you if you give us a break! I will stand right their with you and so will many others!!! Just do it!

Posted by: cedarhillresident | December 10, 2008 7:19 PM

....or this whole thing is a publicity scam by the city to protect the mayor so no union concessions have to be made and yet again the tax payers see and increase. But the mayor can walk away saying he tryed. "Work the media baby! Lets make it look like we are trying." hmmm not something the administration has done in the past...."....it's an illusion!"

Posted by: City Hall Watch | December 10, 2008 9:55 PM

Mayor:

I will give you an entire day of my time and will personally sit with you and go through the budget to find the savings you need. It's not hard. The hard part will be handing out the pink slips to 500 employees - and not the grunts who do all the work either. It means you'll have to trim the BOE Central Office; dump the patronage gigs; sell the city cars so that nobody including you takes a taxpayer car on personal businiess; shrink LCI to what it was before you greatly expanded it; immediate hiring freeze of all departments, all positions unless absolutely critical to service delivery; cancel all contract employees; end all overtime; trim the payroll of senior managers by 15% including yourself; put all but essentially borrowing on hold; I'll wait for your call before I put any more ideas out here.

Posted by: jeffreykerekes | December 11, 2008 7:55 AM

The City of Hartford recently did an analysis of its BOE and found only 50% of all money spent on Education made it to the classroom. What is the percentage here? Hartford cut 100 people from their central office. We have the top 500 people in our BOE making $100k in compensation and the top 100 people make about $150k. This sounds like a place to make some cuts.

Posted by: sandy | December 11, 2008 8:22 AM

lets start with city clerk Ron Smith who makes a hellava lot of money doing nothing (when is he there).pink slip time...Sally Brown and her workers do fine handling that office....you have all these school administrators..you don't need that many(over a hundred grand a year).pink slip time....even with unions you get laid off and they have a right to bump...REMEMBER THE MAYOR GOT HIS RAISE HE DID NOT GIVE IT UP....AND WHO EVER VOTES FOR HIM AGAIN DESERVES WHAT THEY GET...

Posted by: Streever | December 11, 2008 1:40 PM

If the unions would agree for their members to pay the standard percentage of their health care plans, we'd be out of this mess, too, and let's not forget Destefano has been trying to get that through for a year.

(although I do have to ask why we gave such high raises this year! I supposed we didn't realize we'd be in this mess, but there were some warning signs. I think if we can not give any raises this year--I know that's tough for city hall employees--but it's the reality out here in the private sector--we can start some of the saving.)

And yes, please, let's evaluate some of our education spending. This seems so obvious though that I feel a bit silly bringing it up.

Posted by: strangerthanfiction | December 11, 2008 3:30 PM

The Mayor deserves the chance to speak directly to the rank-and-file of the unions. If their jobs are on the line then they should be able to hear directly from the Mayor how the situation stacks up and what it would take to solve it. Direct communication of this sort can only help.

Posted by: James | December 11, 2008 4:15 PM

Amen, Sandy. Smith makes about $50k/year for his part time patronage gig. He is rarely in the office and to the best of my knowledge does very little real work. So little, in fact, that he has another full-time position which, from what I have been told, is similar in its demands on his time. It's high time we eliminated this largely ceremonial position. That the Mayor continues to cry his budgetary crocodile tears while maintaining do-nothing patronage jobs and pocketing a nice raise for himself makes anything he has to say irrelevant.

Hey, Unions, why not make John giving up his raise a precondition to any talks? How dare he sing his sad song to you, asking you to take one for the good of the team while he is not only not willing to take a hit but, quite the opposite, is pocketing a nice INCREASE to his own personal salary? COMPLETELY OUTRAGEOUS. This man has no credibility in a budget crisis, no leg to stand on asking others to renegotiate their contracts as long as he is taking his raise. Same goes for Ron Smith, a parasite who lives off of political favors and the hard work of others.

These guys are laughing all the way to the bank while asking us to suck it up and tighten our belts. I'm not listening to another word of it, giving an inch on my contract, paying a cent more in taxes until these pigs give up their raises. How, WHY are you not talking about this, Paul? For a year I've been begging you to put this blatant contradiction, this slap in the face in the public eye. Why won't you talk about it? You're plenty editorial when it comes to everything else. Why not this?

Posted by: Paul Bass | December 11, 2008 5:53 PM

James - I agree. It's a great question! I'm sorry I keep forgetting to ask it when I run into the mayor. I'll try my best to remember next time. Thanks for keeping after me on it.

Posted by: RichTherrn | December 11, 2008 8:17 PM

I'm reluctant to comment much, but just to correct information.
In terms of the Board of Ed, the Central Office directory is at http://www.nhps.net/admin/ . About 35 of those are administrators.. most are 12 month employees, have double/triple graduate degrees. VERY few have salaries above $125. Administrators pay between 15-20% of health plans. And the number of NHPS administrators has decreased by more than a dozen since 2007.

Posted by: Rankandfilemember | December 11, 2008 8:22 PM

As a "rank and file" union member I have to say I would welcome being invited to speak to the mayor about what concessions we would be willing to make. Amendola and the other union "elite" go to these meetings and refuse concessions without speaking to us first. Most of ARE more than willing to "give back" if it will keep people employed. As a union member (to which we have no choice as to whether we want to be in the union or not)we are never notified when meetings are being held, and our voices are not being heard. Amendola goes to these meetings stomping his feet and refusing to discuss concessions-he doesnt care-he's already beyond retirement time-this is nothing more than a game to him. Having him represent the management staff of the City is a disgrace. Talk to us-we will give back, take our COLA, pay more for our insurance-in this financial disaster the majority of us will vote to give back to save jobs!!

Posted by: C'Mon Jeffrey | December 11, 2008 10:37 PM

Jeffrey:

For someone who heads an organization that reviews the City budget so closely and claims to want transparancy it is amazing that you would not have accurate facts or intentionally create an incorrect perception (not too transparant). The top 100 making over $150K at the BOE? You are not talking about salary, as the number is actually 1. I guess you are spinning and talking about total compensation and factoring in assumptions for benefits. Well if that is the road you are going down then lets be fair. The Register runs the Total Compensation of City and BOE employees annually. The top 100 has only a handful of BOE workers. Please disclose your math and your assumptions in the spirit of transparancy and openess or are you becomming that which you claim to despise???

Posted by: 3144 Member | December 12, 2008 7:48 AM

Please ignore the posting by RANKANDFILEMEMBER. All union meetings are well posted several weeks in advance. They are well attended. Larry is open to listening on all issues. I don't agree with what happens every time, but I think he does a good job.

RANKANDFILEMEMBER is an administration stooge posting misleading information. If you surveyed 3144 members a very large majority are not prepared to consider give backs until DeStefano gives back his pay hike. As his pension is related to his best paid years it means he will increase it by over half a million dollars. I doubt the tax payers of New Haven can afford this.

Posted by: Tom | December 12, 2008 8:48 AM

I spend a lot of time at the downtown library so I see lots of faces come and go. the staff says that they can still hire part timer people but they can't replace the full time workers who retired or just quit. things are bad over there. mostly everybdy there is part time. somebody said there tryin to bust the union

Posted by: James | December 12, 2008 9:41 AM

I would like to encourage all union members to refuse to even talk to the administration until DeStefano and Smith give back their raises. It is unconscionable to lay people off and to ask others to forgo their salary while lining your pockets at the same time.

BOA, how dare you leave this on the table. How can you even begin to look at budget cuts while these two pigs gobble up tax payer money? We should be cutting all patronage jobs like Smith's. Not raising the pay for doing nothing. Shame on you all for playing along. You're no better then DeStefano and Smith. Except you aren't the ones profiting. They are. Which makes your position that much more pathetic. What are you afraid of? This isn't Chicago or New York. The Mayor is small potatoes. He's a pathetic little man who gloats over and abuses the limited power that comes with being mayor of a third-tier city. Have some balls and stand up for your constituents. Stand up for yourselves.

Posted by: Gary Doyens | December 12, 2008 10:11 AM

C'Mon Jeffrey:

Why in the world would you not consider total compensation? Pull your head out....benefit packages are direct drivers on the total cost of an employee. Just because the city doesn't count it that way, doesn't make it so. The city also doesn't count debt service for the new schools or any of the other capital expense within the school budget - does that mean that's not a real element to be included in the overall education budget? Absolutely not.

Posted by: steve beck | December 12, 2008 3:39 PM

This has been interesting to follow. I read book in graduate school titled, "The Shame of the Cities" author, Lincoln Steffens - it was published about 100 years ago. I took it off the shelf again and leafed through it, reading parts I had highlighted. Although nothing was written about New Haven he writes about patronage/corruption in really big cities - Philadelphia, St. Louis, New York. Although 100 years old it is truly amazing how relevant it is to this discussion. The message I took from the book was that it is up to the public to take action, something called civic engagement - it has been said any times on these posts. If you don't like the people throw them out - if you don't like those people throw them out. And there were just as many immigrants 100 years ago as there are today - there really is no excuse for these shenanigans. I know it took us eight years to get rid of Bush, but JD has been in office 14 years. Throw them out.

Posted by: JasonM | December 12, 2008 5:20 PM

Why are public employees allowed to unionize in the first place?

An employer that will never go out of business, cushy white collar working conditions, jobs not too demanding, salaries paid out of the taxpayer's pocket -- unionizing city employees is not exactly a blow against oppression.

No wonder the union-plagued Northeast has been losing population for decades to more sane and rational states in the sunbelt.

cf. Steven Malanga,
"The Conspiracy Against the Taxpayers"
http://www.city-journal.org/html/15_4_taxpayers.html

"The Real Engine of Blue America"
http://www.city-journal.org/html/15_1_blue_america.html

"The Mob That Whacked Jersey"
http://www.city-journal.org/html/16_2_new_jersey.html

Posted by: C'Mon Gary | December 12, 2008 8:40 PM

My head is in transparent reality thank you Gary.

No need to insult someone who is simply attempting to understand Jeff's argument, which to the uninformed would lead to the conclusion that he was talking about salaries. I am sorry to attempt to engage in a factual budget debate I guess it is more fun to just make it up and attack anyone who questions your almighty opinion no matter how factully baseless and intentionally inaccurate it is.

OK, lets use total compensation. You and Jeff should disclose that is what you are doing and provide the assumption you are using. Administrators and teachers pay the highest cost sharing in the City and highest co-pays and prescription coverage. They also do not make OT so I assume you would be factoring that into your total comensation review when you look across the board. If you do that I think you would find a handful of BOE folks in the top 100 and more in the top 200 earners in the City. The vast majority of the list from the BOE side is still much closer to $100K even if you add all your assumptions in. Regardless of how you spin medical, even if you double what it actually costs, you still would not come anywhere near Jeff's numbers. 100 people over $150K would mean all of the Administrators and Central Office staff. It is simply not so and from your reading you know that. 500 people over $100K would mean that you have to get into teachers. Not sure any of them are breaking the $100K mark with or without benefits.

Police and Fire would make up the bulk of the top 100 or 200 list and you know it. They make big OT and pay lower cost sharing for the same or better benefits (remember you would be adding in the Pension also as I know you would not have you head tucked down on that issue).

I beleive we should have a transparent debate. You are a valuable voice in that debate. However you lose clout when you are not transparent yourself and are not willing to accept any criticism when you spin facts to pursue your attack on public education funding.

Posted by: Edward_H | December 13, 2008 1:07 PM

Too bad there are not more public officials/employees like this guy

HIGHWAY MAN RETURNS HIS 25G RAISE

http://www.nypost.com/seven/11152008/news/regionalnews/huh__highway_man_returns_his_25g_raise_138842.htm

Posted by: NHPS Teacher | December 13, 2008 2:08 PM

For the record, NHFT 933 members are meeting with the mayor Monday afternoon.