New Haven Independent

City Workers Pinch Pennies

by Melissa Bailey | December 10, 2009 7:29 AM | Permalink | Comments (15)

Sally Brown thinks her pens will last until July — but the photocopying paper won’t. As the city moves to close a $7.5 million budget hole, Brown and other city workers are following strict orders to scrimp.

Brown (pictured), the deputy city clerk, is feeling the impact of orders from the city controller’s office to cut back on spending. She and other city managers are looking for new ways to cut even the smallest costs, from cable TV and leaf pick-up scheduling down to handwriting implements.

The “expenditure control program” aims to cut at least $3.5 million in city spending, said Controller Mark Pietrosimone. As the result of three directives in September and late November, the effort collected about $2 million by freezing money that departments have not yet spent. The program affects all city departments except not the Board of Education, whose budget the city cannot control.

As part of the program, the city yanked $3,500 that was earmarked for office supplies in the clerk’s office.

“If I had known this was going to happen, I would have gone out and stocked up,” said Brown Wednesday.

The cuts mean that May Reed (pictured) and other clerk’s office workers can’t buy any more pens until July 1, when the next fiscal year starts. Brown said she thinks the pens will last.

But the paper won’t.

The clerk’s office has two public photocopiers, where attorneys, real estate agents and title searchers often make copies of land record books. Staff have a photocopier, too. There’s enough paper to last only another month, Brown said.

Brown said she will be able to order more paper. She has to estimate how many pages she needs and submit an order to the city controller.

That’s the way the city will handle all spending for the rest of the year, said Pietrosimone.

“If you want to buy something, you have to do a purchase requisition” through the controller, who will “make sure it’s essential,” he said. The goal is to “remove frivolous purchases prior to them being made.”

The city does some form of “expenditure control” every year, Pietrosimone said. But this year’s program is one of the most severe he’s seen in the past 10 years.

On Sept. 25, he issued a memo ordering all unallocated money to be frozen. Then he went further: He went through each department’s planned purchases, making cuts where possible and freezing that money. Departments who want to use the frozen money have to make a request to spend it.

Leaf Pickup Delayed

The Department of Public Works budget was cut by $400,000 and parks and recreation was cut by $260,000, Pietrosimone (pictured) said. So far, that hasn’t meant a significant change in what services the city offers.

For the parks department, it has meant a cut to the money reserved for plumbing repair, landscaping and cable television, he said.

For public works, it may mean a delay for some curbside pickup.

Public works intends to save money in part with a new strategy for overtime hours, said director John Prokop. Instead of having workers do overtime hours on the weekdays, he has been calling them in on Saturdays, when there’s less traffic, so they can be more efficient.

“If you’re going to pay the overtime, might as well get more bang for your buck,” Prokop said.

For example, workers didn’t have time to finish a recent leaf-pickup route during regular work hours. So Prokop waited until they could come in on a Saturday — when there are no school buses, and quieter streets — to finish the job.

As a result, New Haveners “may go a week and a half before they get their leaves picked up outside their house,” Prokop said. He emphasized that the city isn’t eliminating the service, just doing it cheaper. “It gets done eventually. It just might take a little more time.”

Mid-Year Cuts?

Why the need to scrimp?

The city is trying to climb out of a $7.5 million budget hole for the current fiscal year, and Gov. M. Jodi Rell is threatening more cuts to cities and towns.

The city started the year $6 million in the hole due to an overestimate of state aid. The deficit came from $3 million in cuts to a statewide pool of Pequot casino funds, and $3 million from PILOT funds that Mayor John DeStefano budgeted for in excess of the governor’s budget, that also didn’t appear in the Democratic legislature’s budget proposal.

The city sunk deeper into debt due to several factors, including a $1.5 million combined drop in parking ticket revenue and investment income.

The city’s deficit for this fiscal year now stands at $7.49 million, according to the latest monthly budget report. Reacting to a state budget crisis, Rell has proposed making mid-year rescissions that would cut $84 million in municipal aid.

Those cuts would mean a $7 million loss for New Haven, the mayor has estimated.

“A cut of this magnitude, in this amount, would do at least one of three things: force us to draw into a deficit, layoff employees including in our public safety sector and consider mid-year tax increases,” said mayoral spokeswoman Jessica Mayorga.

However, several top-ranking city officials said they do not believe the rescissions will go through. The cuts would have to be approved by the legislature. Both Democratic and Republican legislators have come out against mid-year cuts to municipal aid.

DeStefano has been working on the issue as part of a 12-person state panel on municipal aid. The panel met for the second time Wednesday.

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Comments

Posted by: Pissed off resident | December 10, 2009 9:00 AM

How about checking that ALL windows are closed at Wilbur Cross HS (among others) after school, on weekends and during winter break? I can't count the number of times I've seen windows wide open on sub-zero weekends. As a taxpayer, I'm not interested in paying to heat the East Rock outside neighborhood!

Posted by: Ned | December 10, 2009 9:54 AM

"The clerk�s office has two public photocopiers, where attorneys, real estate agents and title searchers often make copies of land record books."

Why are these records not online?

Posted by: j | December 10, 2009 10:14 AM

For the parks department, it has meant a cut to the money reserved for plumbing repair, landscaping and cable television...

Cable TV????? WTF

Posted by: Kids First | December 10, 2009 11:40 AM

I agree about not paying for heat to go out the window, but spend a day in any New Haven public school and you will find that the temperature varies from classroom to lunchroom to classroom as much as 20 degrees. Some are too hot and others are freezing. There has got to be a better way to regulate the thermostats, or was that not part of the school construction plan.

Posted by: City Hall Watch | December 10, 2009 12:45 PM

Observations:

1. The city always over estimates the dependency payment from the state. ALWAYS. Why did the budgeteers including the mayor and the BOA, out of an abundance of caution, not revise their estimates down to a more prudent level? Hope is not a strategy.

2. During the last budget, the school system complained that they were over budget on utilities. I pointed out then and others have pointed out now, that the windows are always left open at Wilbur Cross. Principal Coggins was asked last year to close the windows, at least after school and on weekends. It never happened. This is just stupidity and laziness. It is likely happening elsewhere and further, aren't all these schools on some expensive utility monitoring system that supposed to be saving us all this money?

3. �If you want to buy something, you have to do a purchase requisition� through the controller, who will �make sure it�s essential,� he said. The goal is to �remove frivolous purchases prior to them being made.� Why was this not done during the budget process? Why would there ever be "frivolous purchases?" Are we still buying water?

4. The lack of technology in the City of New Haven is costing city taxpayers millions of dollars. Traffic, parking tickets and taxes should be able to be paid on line. Ordering dumpsters, bulk pick-up and other city services should be done on line too. The list could be expanded..some cities allow you pay and pull your building permits on line. Deploy technology, cut the FTE. Seriously look at the need for 400 cops. Do we really need all that muscle? Are our citizens so much more violent and lawbreaking than other cities our size? It's doubtful.

Posted by: truthtopower | December 10, 2009 1:48 PM

Maybe the City Hall administrators who got salary increases could donate some pens and paper to the staffers.

Posted by: Brian Tang | December 10, 2009 4:39 PM

I agree that more things should be online, but that would require additional IT personnel�which would cost money. It's a Catch 22.

Posted by: City Hall Watch | December 10, 2009 5:44 PM

Brian Tang:

The IT improvement would cost money. It is worth every penny and would be paid back most likely in a year or less. More technology means less employees. There is a direct payoff.

Posted by: Ka Ching | December 10, 2009 7:02 PM

So THAT'S how the department heads are funding their raises.

Posted by: lol | December 10, 2009 11:19 PM

Maybe the mayor can pitch in by paying for his own gas (like the rest of us shmo's) and driving himself instead of using police officers on duty (and overtime) to chauffer him around? Just a thought...

Posted by: curious | December 11, 2009 7:16 PM

I wonder how many pens or reams of paper can be purchased for the $50,000 the City pays for just one lobbyist in Hartford. That's what Chris DePino gets and there are others. What exactly are we getting for our money. If you listen to the Mayor's constant complaints about the State, apparently not much. I would also like to know what the City spends in legal fees to outside law firms. In a nutshell, the City's fiscal problems are caused by gross mismanagement and until this Mayor stops spending like he's got it, nothing will change, it will only get worse. Expenditure control should have been practiced all along.

Posted by: tonni | December 13, 2009 10:57 AM

Amazing new schools .... no books..pencils...paper....got to bring your own...
city hall bring your own also..everyone buy your own..amazing isn't it...mayor gets his raise and reggie mayo gets his...no give backs they give.....bah humbug...

Posted by: everit st | December 13, 2009 3:23 PM

Speaking of fuel usage - here's a great one. On EVERY street sweeping day in our neighborhood, 3-4 sweepers would show up across from our house (bordering the park) and idle from 7am to 8am while the drivers stood around, drinking coffe and chatting with the Tow Truck drivers (who didn't have their trucks running - guess which group pays their own gas?)

Tlaking the them and trying to reach supervisors each had zero effect. I assume that this process is replicated with other trucks in other neighborhoods. So we're paying labor + fuel and receiving nasty emissions + a loud street with city workers having to increase the volume of their cursing so they can hear each other over the noise.

Hmmm

Posted by: anon | December 13, 2009 9:26 PM

Everit - absolutely there should be a policy that bans idling of city vehicles (including police and fire) for more than 2 minutes, with a $1000 penalty. Citizens should be able to enforce the ban themselves using Youtube, etc.

Of course, since so many of the city administrators and employees live in the suburbs, the quality of our air / elevated asthma rates among our youth may not exactly be their #1 concern.

Posted by: nelson pickering | December 14, 2009 10:28 AM

"The clerk�s office has two public photocopiers, where attorneys, real estate agents and title searchers often make copies of land record books. Staff have a photocopier, too. There�s enough paper to last only another month, Brown said."

For anyone who has been to city hall to make photocopies of land records or other documents, the city charges over $1 per page for you to make copies using their machines. For them to say that we (brokers, lawyers etc.) are burdening their office supply stock by paying $1/page is absurd. SO glad I moved out of New Haven last year so now the majority that voted Mayor back in can deal with him.

City Workers Pinch Pennies

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