Paul Bass File Photo
Darnell Goldson has an offer for city employees who live outside New Haven: Move into the city and enjoy a year without car tax; or stay in the suburbs and get hit with a “community contribution” tax.
Goldson (pictured), West Rock’s alderman, detailed the deal in a submission to the Board of Aldermen Monday.
Goldson said he aims to lure more municipal employees to move into New Haven. According to Goldson, only 33 percent of New Haven’s municipal employees live in town. As a result, millions of dollars in city salaries leave the city each week, he said. That money ends up paying property and car taxes in suburban towns, instead of going into city coffers, he argued.
To try to counteract the trend, Goldson is proposing an order called the HomeWork Program.
His proposal, which the city has no power to impose without changing state law, earned a quick rebuke from one union president, and was dismissed as “illegal” by the head of the Board of Aldermen.
His program would require city workers to live in New Haven within six months of their hiring date. The proposal includes carrots and a stick.
The carrots: city employees who move to New Haven would receive a waiver for car tax for the next fiscal year. City residents would receive extra points on civil service exams. The Board of Aldermen would also develop an “incentives program,” which could include helping homebuyers with down payments on mortgages, Goldson said.
The stick: effective immediately, all municipal employees who live outside New Haven would be required to pay a “community contribution” of 5 percent of their gross salary.
Aldermanic President Carl Goldfield dismissed that “contribution” as an illegal tax that the city has no authority to levy. Any such tax would also require changes to labor contracts.
Goldson’s proposal faces another barrier: There is a state ban on residency requirement laws. That’s why he also submitted a resolution calling on the state legislature to lift that ban.
While his plan faces significant legal and contractual obstacles, Goldson called it a starting point for discussion.
Both the resolution and the proposed order will appear on the agenda of the next meeting of Board of Aldermen, after which they will be sent to committee. Read drafts of the order and the resolution here and here/ For a “Fact Sheet” assembled by Goldson here. For a copy of the spreadsheet he used to make some of his calculations, click here.
Goldson anticipated — correctly — that his plans would meet opposition from aldermen and city unions.
Sgt. Louis Cavaliere, head of the police union, decried Goldson’s proposal. There is “no legitimate reason” to force city employees, including police, to live in New Haven, Cavaliere said. Only 13 percent of city police live in New Haven, according to Goldson.
Alderman Goldfield said that while he agrees with the spirit of Goldson’s proposal, it is illegal. He said the state law is unlikely to change, and there’s no money to offer incentives.
Justin Elicker, a freshman alderman from East Rock, was a little more optimistic. He said the plan has problems, but also potential.
Elicker, who has been separately examining the employee residency issue, suggested an alternative approach to increasing the number of city employee-residents. He suggested focusing only on incentives, such as giving city employees’ children preference for spots in magnet schools.
Time To “Give Back”
“It’s only fair. Look at the numbers,” Goldson said of his proposal. He rattled off numbers gathered from the city, and from the Connecticut Conference of Municipalities. While the median household income in New Haven is $29,000, the average salary of city employees is $57,000, he said. “So these people are doing well by any standards. It’s time that they give back.”
He rattled off other numbers that showed New Haven falling short of other towns: While only 33 percent of New Haven’s employees live in the city, 62 percent of Branford employees live in Branford, and 50 percent of East Haven and Guilford employees live in those towns.
Goldson’s latest bills come as a companion to his HIRE Program proposal, submitted last month. That program would give grants to city businesses that hire city residents. The HIRE program proposal is headed to a joint meeting of the finance and legislation committees.
Part of the “community contribution” fee imposed by the HomeWork program could go towards the HIRE program grants, Goldson said. The HomeWork program could also raise several million to help ease the tax burden on city residents, he said.
The “biggest roadblock” to the proposed order will be unions, Goldson predicted. “Unions are going to aggressively fight it,” he said.
But Goldson suggested the HomeWork program could prove to be a useful “bargaining chip” in the mayor’s upcoming labor negotiations. Mayor John DeStefano will negotiate eight union contracts that expire this June 30. Police and fire contracts expire the following year. Goldson suggested that the mayor pressure unions to agree to the components of the HomeWork program — or face layoffs.
Goldson said if fellow aldermen find his proposal too aggressive, he’s open to negotiation. “It’s about starting a conversation,” he said.
He acknowledged that reaching 100 percent employee residency is probably not achievable. That’s just the starting point for negotiations, he said. “I believe in give and take.”
Goldson also acknowledged that although his program includes incentives for employees who move into town from the suburbs, it doesn’t include rewards for those who already live here.
Union Opposed
Paul Bass File Photo
The police union’s Cavaliere expressed unequivocal opposition to Goldson’s proposal. “There is no legitimate argument for that ordinance,” he said.
The police union contract with the city expressly allows officers to live within 20 miles of city limits, he said. The city can’t make laws that contradict that, said Cavaliere, who lives in West Haven.
“Our officers go out there and put their lives on the line,” said Cavaliere. Before police officers get hit with a tax, why not tax illegal immigrants? he asked.
Cavaliere dismissed the notion that police who live in New Haven can do a better job because they are more invested in the city and know it better. “That’s so false,” he said.
“Who are they to say where I can live?” he said. “It’s almost like the Obama health care plan which can fine me in four years if I don’t have health insurance.”
Elicker: Try These Carrots
Goldfield said he agrees that it would be nice if more city employees lived in New Haven. “I don’t think anybody disagrees with the sentiment,” he said. But the bill is “all completely illegal.”
The city has no right to take 5 percent of employees’ salaries, Goldfield said. “They state Department of Labor might have something to say about it.”
It’s common for new aldermen to come in and wonder why more city employees don’t live in the city, Goldfield said. But with the state ban in place, it’s nearly impossible to do anything about it. And state law is very difficult to change, he said.
The suburban towns that benefit from the status quo would resist attempts to change it, Goldfield said. “You’re deluding yourself if you think a resolution is going to get it done,” he said. “Sending a resolution doesn’t do it.”
Without being able to implement a tax on non-resident workers, the city can’t use a stick. And without extra money for incentives, the city can’t afford any carrots, Goldfield said.
Thomas MacMillan File Photo
The problem of how to attract city employees to move to the city is one that he’s been looking into, said Elicker (pictured). While Goldson’s plan is “all stick,” Elicker said, he’s been coming at it from the carrot side.
“It’s important to understand why people aren’t living in the city,” he said. Elicker said he suspects the main concerns are schools, safety, and high property taxes. To find out, he’s been working with the city’s Human Resources Department to create a survey for all city employees. The survey would seek to figure out what’s keeping employees from living in New Haven, so that those problems could be addressed through incentives.
The city could offer a homebuyer program like Yale does for its employees, or a tax discount for the first several years of homeownership, Elicker said. If the problem is schools, the city could give children of city employees preference at certain magnet schools, he said.
Elicker said that while these are ideas that he’s hasn’t yet fully researched, they could save the city money in the long term. With more city employees as homeowners, the city could strengthen its tax base with steady, employed taxpayers, he said. And the school preference option would not likely cost the city a lot of money, he said.
There are “clear benefits” to having a cop or firefighter or trash collector living on your street, Elicker said. For one thing, they’re likely to care a little more, he said. For another, there is environmental benefit to people living close to their jobs.
The task is to “do what we can in the legal framework we’ve been given,” Elicker said. Goldson’s “pie-in-the-sky proposal” is a little “premature,” he said.
“I think it definitely can be worked on,” Elicker said. “The spirit is great and I’m excited that he put it out there.”
Bad idea.
Instead, how about the aldermen put their collective effort into making New Haven a really, really attractive place in which to live.
If the city ran more effectively, - and turned its schools into world class institutions of learning, then we wouldn't have to worry about capital outflow. Great schools are a magnet and lead to the creation of great neighborhoods. And great schools for all leads to the creation of a great city. Incomes rise, property values rise, taxes stabilize, service burden per capita falls.