New Haven Independent

Posted by: James | December 16, 2008 8:39 AM

DeStefano responded that he is only the 19th highest paid person in the city, and he had gone six years without a raise.

So who are the other 18, and how appropriate is their salary to their experience and duties? This should be public info, so maybe the Independent can follow up?

Regardless, it's still completely disingenuous for the mayor to ask others to do what he is unwilling to do--make a personal sacrifice for the good of the city. He needs to lead by example, not by justifying his own inaction.

Posted by: Steve Ross | December 16, 2008 9:05 AM

Most of the numbers are for routine and expected items. It looks like the city had a $20 million budget hole this year, not the $6 million previously reported. As usual Johnny Boy has his excuse. Its Governor Rell and the economy. How lucky he is to get this excuse. How unlucky will we tax payers be when the real cost of the recession is revealed. DeStefano just threw money at everything in the good times. I'll be happy if my taxes just go up 20% next year.

Posted by: RichTherrn | December 16, 2008 9:06 AM

There are less than 133 administrators in New Haven Public Schools, nowhere near 500! Several of the 10 month administrators (usually assistant principals and assistant supervisors) have salaries below 100K.

Posted by: robn | December 16, 2008 9:14 AM

The $4.2M in loss to tax appeals tells you a lot about the fairness of the recent reval. $4.2M represents about 4% of the taxes levied upon residential owners, which is a lot. One out of every 20 of your neighbors apparently caught a break. I'd love to see the list of appeals heard by the state tax appeals court and the reasons why the plaintiffs won. My experience was that the city employees who heard the first round of appeals flagrantly ignored very valid complaints. The only residential owners who could seek further redress were those willing to pay burdensome legal fees and put it all together within 30 days of their city appeal. Terribly unfair burden.

Posted by: 2nd Amendment | December 16, 2008 9:15 AM

G'bye. Hope we can sell the house...

Posted by: Been There | December 16, 2008 9:19 AM

I like the John that isn't running for Governor.
The Unions helped to bring down Detroit, don't let them bring down our city.
The unions need to learn how to work harder, create more efficiencies and accept less or say good bye to many more jobs.
I'd start by making the organizing be volunteer based.

Posted by: jeffreykerekes | December 16, 2008 9:28 AM

That number of 500 people in the BOE making over $100k is total compensation, not just salary. The top 100 people earn $150 in compensation. Don't forget, benefits cost a lot of money. Rob Smuts reported in the Budget debate last budget year that benefits are about 55% of compensation.

Posted by: RichTherrn | December 16, 2008 9:48 AM

According to my paycheck, I pay 18.5% of my premiums/dental..~ $57. (goes up 1% a year). The total cost to the city is thus around $6500 a year... nowhere near 55% of my salary. And I certainly haven't used that much (insurance is not the same as compensation). If I happen to retire from New Haven, I suppose the cost of the city share of the medical could be counted, but my pension comes from the state. Because there are several different plans depending on the situation, it really better to talk about salaries. The fact remains there are not as many administrators as stated, 7 plus positions have been lost in the last year, and few administrators have a salary above $125K .

Posted by: Streever | December 16, 2008 11:28 AM

I think this problem is a little bit too complex for the comments section of the NHI. The lack of verifiable numbers & figures is a bit overwhelming at this point.

More to the point, what can we do?

Can we, as private citizens, engage in the lobbying process?

I know the State doesn't see many people lobby who aren't paid to be there: it's time for us to step up & engage the state in order to ensure our city is able to run.

The State may be facing a deficit, but money has to be spent somewhere. Let's lobby to keep it here.

Posted by: jeffreykerekes | December 16, 2008 12:21 PM

We shouldn't shy away from numbers. The numbers don't lie. We may have an incorrect assumption or calculation -- if so show us. Its like open source software, take a look and help us make these numbers better. Here is how we calculated the BOE numbers and you can look at the actual spread sheet. Where have we gone wrong? If we are wrong, let's have the City post the average compensation of employees. Salary alone is not the total cost of employing someone so it is a partial measure at best. The mayor is looking to renegotiate benefits because he knows that's where the real cost is. And its not only current employees but retirees that we are paying for. We need an honest discussion of all these costs to make informed decisions. Did you know we OWE retirees and pension funds HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS of dollars?

Posted by: RichTherrn | December 16, 2008 2:16 PM

This shows the problem with trying to analyze without facts. The issue is that you keep referring to POTENTIAL benefits as "compensation", giving the false impression to others that we (teachers/administrators/educators) are walking away with those funds. Yes, an employee costs more than a paycheck, but it is hard to quantify. I don't know where you got the 37% that is added to each BOE salary in the spreadsheet. That's the assumption I don't know the source for. As I showed, my personal current health benefits cost the city about 6% of my salary (others are different depending on the plan and dependents), that I pay 18.5% into. But, even using your spreadsheet, it doesn't match the numbers you stated earlier (55%). The categories by department on the spreadsheet mix together salaries from teachers, administrators, clerical and other unions, but each is different in benefits, days, etc... Are you trying to anticipate retirement costs? You could then subtract all my unused sick, personal and vacation days (or those of any dedicated educator) and take that back from "compensation"... or account for the thousands of dollars my science teachers spend out of their own pocket for materials and supplies, or the "overtime" educators put in without "compensation". And... most BOE educators, teachers and administrators, get pension from the state.. not from the city (Remember educators don't get Social Security either). That's why it makes more sense to discuss salaries if you discuss "compensation".

Posted by: Streever | December 16, 2008 2:21 PM

The numbers look pretty clear, Jeffrey:
for principals at schools, average salary==$107,920
average with benefits==$148,122

So the city is spending about 41k on the benefits on an employee who makes 107k.

What is the fix?

Can we reduce the price of healthcare?

What about a municipal pool of healthcare?

Would it save money to have all municipalities negotiate health care price together, using the same provider?

I think we need to start looking at regional & state-wide solutions and not just city-wide.

Posted by: Streever | December 16, 2008 3:14 PM

To be fair, Rich, Jefferey posted that "Smuts stated" it was 55%--then he went & checked the numbers.

The numbers are still high even if they don't match what Jefferey says Smuts stated: I think it would be worth it to look at ways to lower that cost to us, without reducing the benefits we offer our employees.

I think it's worth looking at the price of health care if we did work with other municipalities--seeing if we couldn't collectively bargain a better price for our cities in CT.

In the end, if we can't, we will just lose more jobs & employees, and that's not really something anyone wants to occur, right?

Posted by: RichTherrn | December 16, 2008 3:32 PM

Yes, I understand.. I just don't want the impression there that an educational administrator is "getting" $40,000 in health premiums! I am probably on the low end with my $6000. I don't have any issue with examining different ways to do health care costs.

Posted by: cedarhillresident | December 16, 2008 3:42 PM

The unions maybe asked to do even more in the near future! This is hard times! What is a union? It is to protect peoples livelihood! Right now the people that will be losing their jobs are the most at risk and I believe it is the duty of the unions to protect those people! That means working with the mayor! I am sorry that this is happening but guess what it is not just New Haven. Union leaders have had a time of glory where life was easy to protect their members but right now times are different and their jobs have become not to get more but to make sure their members have a job to go to! Unless they are willing to take some cuts across the board their are going to be alot of people out of work! That simple DO YOUR JOBS MAKE THE CONCESSIONS!

BOE is out of control sorry! Their are many positions that can be Eliminated and will have no impact on the education system. until something is done with the Health care system and the out of control costs their is little we can do. Jeffery summed it up right. Benifit packages should alway be figured into the total income of each position when reviewing it. Ex: Park ranger lives in the house in a park he care for the bills are paid UI gas ect. are paid for by the city on top of the salary and medical and pension. City people that drive city are insured and gased up by the city is another perk not included. Expense account for gathering and party and travel another thing. All these little things add up. And should be part of the math when figuring out someones worth at their position.

Posted by: cedarhillresident | December 16, 2008 5:28 PM

ps let's not forget about the non-union positions when it come to budget cuts and the PT double dippers

Posted by: MSM | December 16, 2008 8:21 PM

I attended yesterday's meeting and am somewhat confused as to what is was all about. I didnt need the Mayor to give me a Power Point presentation to tell me that things are tough all over and that the state of Connecticut is not overly concerned about the health of its cities.

His mantra appeared to be "we all have to pitch in and do our share." First off, who is "we?" It seems to me that teachers' salary increases havent kept up with the rate of inflation, perhaps ever. Also, I seem to be one of the thirty-percenters ie a city employee who lives in the city. Im sure that number decreases significantly when you figure in how many are homeowners ie tax payers whose rates have increased forty percent over the past four years and will continue to climb as new assessments are phased in; even though, real property values will continue to fall as foreclosures and unemployment rise.

It seems to me we need forward thinking to come up with long term solutions- not simply everyone has to do more for less. How about attempting to build the tax base by coming up with workable retirement packages and giving meaningful incentives for new membership of all bargaining units to live in the city they serve?

Posted by: RichTherrn | December 16, 2008 9:16 PM

http://www.cityofnewhaven.com/Finance/Benefits.asp
gives the true cost of health premiums per employee that can be used to calculate the city's cost (not at all based on a percentage of salary). Note how educators pay the highest percentages. And again, teachers and administrators are paid pension by the state NOT the city. http://www.cityofnewhaven.com/Finance/Pensions.asp for that list.
I do my mileage with the IRS, not the city (saves us both money). and there's no special party account I am aware of!

Posted by: C'Mon Jeffrey | December 17, 2008 7:49 AM

Thanks to Richard for putting some easy to find facts into the debate and debunking in a couple of posts the irresponsible and incorrect assumptions being put out by NHCAN.

The 55% assumption was clearly wrong to begin with and hopefully is now done. The 37% is equally odd and inflated and unclear as to what it is based on. Medical cannot be compared to salary or calculated based on salary as one has nothing to do with the other. The cost of medical is the cost of medical. Salary is salary. If you want to do total compensation you can add the cost of medical to salary but should not use salary, an unrelated cost, as the base from which to multiply or divide off of.

A look at the City budget gives you to total medical cost. Divide that number by the number of empoloyees or perhaps insured lives and then you may have a decent medical number to work from, again an easily found and explained assumption. Make sure however to confirm that the medical number you use is a gross cost and that credit is already given for cots sharing paid by employees (again, Richard is correct to note that Teachers and Administrators lead the way here with other BOE Unions at or above the rates of City Unions).

When you do that math I think you will find that the average cost of medical is somewhere between the $10K and $15K range.

Now if we want to continue on the total compensation discussion remember that while you would add OT for most other employees on the City and BOE side you would not add it in for Teachers and Administrators as it does not exist. Not sure I want to give Richard his credit that he is looking for as the credit is assumed in his salary but there is no add.

Let's now go to pension and retiree benefits. No Pension for Teachers and Administrators.

On the contrary the OT accounts for virtually every other department are in the budget and easy for you to factor in as is the Pension annual contribution for non Teacher and Administrators (also Paraprofessionals are not in the Pension).

As for retirement, Richard is correct that this is more of a pay as you go deal as a self-insured and is alread rolled into the medical number noted in the budget (I beleive) and therefore you need not double count that. Also, the State pays towards the cost of Teacher and Administrator retiree health insurance thus providing an offset for these two groups that does not exist elsewhere.

Cedar Hill a couple of clarifications for you as well if I might. First, the BOE represents 37% of the City Budget. However, the City gets 34% of its budget from the State earmarked for Education (numbers straight out of the City budget). This means that the City is actually paying less for education than it is for a number of other City Departments and line items. The BOE is not running wild, it is running and has run quite lean with the City's % of its budget dropping every year over the last decade from over 40% to a new low of 37% last year. Most other towns across the State pay above 50% or their budgets toward education.

The BOE has been extremely proactive and has balanced its budget with less than CPI increases for virtually every one of the last 10 years. The average increase of about 2% a year does not cover many of the fixed costs already in the budget (including salary increases in Union contracts, transportaion, energy costs, special education costs, to name a few of the fixed costs). That means that every year the BOE goes back to the drawing board and cuts to essentially run the system with a no growth budget. In spite of that test scores are up across the board, food and schools are safer, cleaner and healthier, graduation rates and AP courses and scores are going up and suspension rates are going down.

I, for one am pleased with this progress and would like to support the continuation of it as much more work lies ahead in these difficult financial times. Defunding these legitiamte and identifiable postive results is nothing short of short-sighted.

Posted by: jeffreykerekes | December 17, 2008 9:47 AM

Here is a calculation about total costs of employment (salary, pension, benefits) of City employees of which, non salary costs are 45% not including the multi-hundred million dollar deficits in pension funding and retiree healthcare. I received an email from Smuts about the BOE employees. I was unaware that the State pays the employer portion of the pensions for teachers and admin. That said, I know we all pay that State portion from our other pocket in the form of sales taxes and income taxes. The good news is that this money is not a reflection on the City's ability to pay this portion of the money.

The 55% number was presented on two occasions by the City in meetings. According to a recent email I received, this is for specific unions and not for all city employees. That 37% number I used in the previous spreadsheet was a proportionate approach to roughly calculating cost by allocating such costs of benefits to each department based on the number of employees. That spreadsheet was manually entered by volunteers and should be available from the City. The city makes it difficult for citizens to see what is happening in a clear and digestible format. This takes a lot of time to create and analyze and we welcome your input in getting the information right. That is why we need an open and transparent process to measure what is happening to make informed decisions. I invite you all to help improve such numbers so we can present a clearer picture of what is happening. We believe in transparency and that is why the spreadsheets in these comments are available as well as those on our website.

No matter how you slice it, the financial health of the City is grim. We are totally dependent on the State and the state is doing poorly. The State is also made up of mostly suburban communities who do not see their futures tied to the Cities. This is a major issue when you are competing for scarce resources.

Posted by: City Hall Watch | December 17, 2008 9:54 AM

Richthern:

Here's a history lesson. Teachers and educators had an opportunity to join the social security system. All they had to do was vote for it. It was defeated. In 1959, the CEA, the Connecticut Education Association, banned any more votes on the issue. So stop using that social security crutch like its something that was imposed on you. It wasn't.

Posted by: City Hall Watch | December 17, 2008 11:53 AM

C'mon Jeffrey:

Your use of percentages is misleading. The BOE portion of the budget is not 37% - and the only way you can get to such a number is by leaving out a great many items that are BOE expenses, which are covered in other parts of the budget. Debt service on the new schools; health benefits and the like are not accrued in the BOE budget. Having said that, the BOE percentage of the total budget may have declined anyway, but it is not from prudent spending and ferreting out wasteful and unnecessary expense. It is because the growth in spending in other areas of city governement have escalated so rapidly, it makes it appear the BOE percentage smaller, but the actual dollar outlay is much higher. It may be clever to talk percentages, but it's a slight of hand only.

Posted by: Streever | December 17, 2008 11:55 AM

I appreciate Kerekes & Thern keeping this debate civil & using their identities. It makes it much easier to read & believe them when I know who they are & that I may be looking at them across a table at city hall.

Posted by: tmj | December 18, 2008 8:17 AM

I say it again...the Mayor and BOE( Reggie Mayo) and more from BOE take a pay cut for a year..times are hard for everyone..i was a union member for years and yes we hard some consessions to make but we survived..Now it's time for top officals to do the same take a cut in pay...and if the Mayor cries he has not got a raise in years and he deserves the one he got...get over it that's the past ..you just don't live like the average person....

Posted by: jackie | December 18, 2008 9:12 PM

@cityhallwatch.
"In 1959, the CEA, the Connecticut Education Association, banned any more votes on the issue. So stop using that social security crutch like its something that was imposed on you. It wasn't. "

Now, it is possible that Rich wasn't born or active as an educator in 1959 and that he shouldn't be held personally responsible for that decision as you see to imply, correct?

Posted by: RichTherrn | December 19, 2008 9:00 AM

With more science education, maybe we can invite a time machine to go back and fix that!