1‑Time $2M Covers Cop OT Budget Bump

Tom - thank you for chronicling Elicker's finance mess, and the unraveling of his tenure as mayor.

It doesn't matter. Elicker or another democrat will be elected anyway

The more understaffed the department is, the faster the burnout rate, and the more loss of employees who can be paid more in lower crime municipalities with a contract.
And then the more overtime the city will need to pay, and the more employees will struggle with stress, anxiety and depression and may not be in the best frame of mind, because of the unsustainable work conditions of the current department in the city.
The city needs to get this figured out, because its costing more, taking longer response times, losing out on hiring or retaining our best and brightest, and is burning out those who remain in the department out of dedication and caring for our little city.

Hold on to your seats, folks. When the pandemic relief money (not used as such in many instances) runs out, it is going to be a bumpy ride!!

These people have no clue about fiscal responsibility. If Yale gifted the city 3 billion dollars today this administration or any democrat led administration would spend it in less than 3 years and would be raising taxes just like they are now. The financial recklessness is mind boggling. If managers in the private sector run their departments like this they are fired within months. But in government they are rewarded and reelected.

4 years of free reign . Thank the voters

This is the highest overtime budget in the history of the city. It is gross and it's a clear indication that Chief Jacobson is a pencil pusher who can't balance his budget or staff his department adequately to stay in budget. It is entirely foolish to spend Rescue Plan money to balance this budget or any number of other line items in the budget. It is a myth, dare I say, a bold faced lie that the city will use its traditional method of ghost employees funding to balance any department including the police department. We have more than enough cops to patrol our streets in this city of 135K people. The idea that it takes more than 400 cops with unlimited overtime is a joke and an insult. Fire Jacobson.

If the city has hired 70 and lost 75, thats a pretty bad sign.

Management studies have shown that people will work like a dog for $#!+ if they believe in what they're doing.

Sounds like a leadership crisis to me.

If you read their contract, only 20 ppl per year can retire. That means 35 non tenured ppl left. 35 ppl times 100k to train = 3.5 million.

If Elicker is the custodian of resources, its time to do a recall. 26 million for church street south dirt, 7 million for days inn, 1.1 million for antiquated parking meters. Dude wastes money like its his job.

And whats going on with the admin. I feel like the bleeding wasnt a full blown internal bleed out under Dominguez.

Overtime is very popular with the police. Who doesn't like extra duty income, especially when it involves standing by a construction site.
Heather's comment identifies the problem with the approach of under-staffing and increased overtime. Since this is NOT a new problem, the administration is signaling that it will be business as usual.
Do not be deceived by the ongoing construction and new businesses.
We, however, face reduced services and increased taxes.
This same scenario played out in Stamford. And it never benefited those who were already there. They had to leave because they couldn't afford the taxes.
This what the decline of a city looks like.

So the police department received 2 million dollars for the Covid relief fund but the officers were never compensated for working through a major pandemic? That relief fund was supposed to go to the officers for working everyday during the pandemic while everyone else is at home collecting their money.

Sounds great that the mayor is going to use the money to pay for overtime. From what I’ve read over the last few articles these officers are stuck at work for 16 hours unwanted numerous times a week. But hey that’s ok we’ll use the money that we were supposed to give the officers to pay for their unwanted overtime.

2 years without a contract is absurd and it sounds like the department is shot well over 100 officers without help coming. Who would want to make 20,000 less a year, worse medical, worse pension, hold overs, and no contract….New Haven is hiring sound welcoming.

PS I heard the other city employees received their Covid relief money….

Pay the police department….

When the NHi lists the amount of OT paid to the police department, can you please investigate how it was earmarked?

So when police officers work St Pattys day, the Freddy fixer, or 4th of July, thats probably forced overtime.

How much of that OT was spent guarding prisoners at the hospital last year?

When the NHi does an article like this, Id like to see more investigative reporting. The readers deserve to know how the city spends tax payer funds.

I agree Thomas Anderson. We really need to see the deployment data and be able to break it down by type, geo location and whether it ongoing, seasonal, one offs, public or private facility, and overlap with either Yale campus or YNHH, East Haven, West Haven, Hamden or Orange, Woobridge - adjacent towns - to assess the justification and efficency for the deployment strategy.

@hillresident -
Elicker just paid 26 million for dirt plot of church st south, 7 million for a dilapidated hotel, 1.1 million for parking meters. Parking meters! They have apps for paying! Parking meters!

Meanwhile every officer that leaves is like 100k in training dollars gone to another town.

Justin Elicker, "pennywise" dollar foolish. And like Penny wise, a clown.

His "stewardship" of this city can only be classfied as gross incompetence. Look no further than EV article where 20 plus cars are stored but not being used.

So lets buy cars to show we're "green" but theyll sit for years because no infrastructure. And car's values are actively deflating! Theyll be worthless in 4 years.

Jesus Christ!

But yeah, covid money for police. Nope, screw those ppl. Gotta let my EVs depreciate.

WOW WOW WOW! Seems like every commenter here has more COMMON SENSE/BRAINS than those controlling the purse strings! People keep voting for the same old, same old and nothing changes! Things go from bad to worse! Like the country, New Haven is on the decline. Very sad indeed!

Thomas Anderson-

Not sure what article you read, but in the March 11 story in the New Haven Independent, the city has purchased 43 Chevrolet Bolts and of those 43, only SEVEN are in use which means that 36 sit “plugged in.” I don’t believe the Mayor drives a Chevrolet Bolt. I read that he drives a Nissan Leaf! Just blows my mind how money is spent in New Haven!

New Haven as a City, exists under the system of capitalism, a system that is rotten and deteriorating. It is never going to get better. "It" cannot repair itself. "It" created the conditions that will and is bringing about a system closer to a social democratic system. For example, many cities now have to provide school aged children with breakfast and lunch! In New Haven we have a small village of tiny homes to house the homeless (thanks to those who created this) and this situation, created by the capitalist system will only grow. Out of necessity, capitalism is and will continue to create the conditions on all levels of our society that necessitates the creation of socialism.

Capitalism does not have the capacity to "get better". It's demise is inevitable!

New Haven's problems are similar to that of many other towns and cities in CT and across the country.

It's the system stupid! It's not Mayor Elicker! It's not the BOA.

Updated annually, the Distressed Municipalities' lists identify the state’s most fiscally and economically distressed municipalities and are used by state agencies to target funds for needs which may include housing, insurance, open space, brownfield remediation and economic development programs, among others. The lists develop statistical indicators measuring the fiscal capacity of each municipality based on the tax base, personal incomes and residents needs.

Formerly distressed municipalities with eligibility remaining are Enfield, Killingly, Naugatuck, New Haven, Preston, Stratford, Bristol, Groton North Stonington, Plainfield.

@ThomasAnderson

Well said. I don’t even know where charging stations are in New Haven never mind enough of them for that amount of cars. But that’s ok, we’ll just use money from someone else’s fund to pay for new charging stations.

Dennis...thank you for your comments. I especially like this one..

"Wrong again!! It's the Unite Here bla, bla, bla,...the Mayor, bla, bla, bla.

Thanks for recognizing the power of Unite Here including Locals 35, 34 and 33.

I was one of those who helped create Local 34. Along with thousands of other clerical workers and the workers from Local 35, we went on strike in1983 during the most glorious union drive ever! We had to power to shut Yale down! Yup! We shut Yale down! And, they deserved it!

We women, (92% of us who worked at Yale), one of the wealthiest corporations in the world made 59 CENTS on the dollar compared to what men made! Thousands of us wore 59 CENT buttons! And, because of Yale's exploitation of it's workers that continues to this day, we won.

Yale treated us like crap. And to prove this we had lunchtime rallies where women got up and spoke about the way Yale managers treated them. Of course, Local 35 workers already knew this. And, people far and wide, especially other clerical workers from places like Boston University and other Universities came to New Haven to support us.

Many of the downtown businesses put signs in their windows that said, "Strikers Welcome!"
We made national headlines and we got what we fought for - an amazing contract negotiated by our fellow workers.

Here's the thing Dennis...unions are not spectator sports. Workers go on strike out of necessity...to put bread on the table. Workers go on strike because of unbearable working conditions like we had a Yale...arrogant professors, managers who exploited us because they didn't have a union!

Workers go on strike when they've had ENOUGH of the kind of crap Yale gave us and it's still that way today. But, that's the reason there are UNIONS at Yale...

Yale produced the unions! Yale produced the unions at Yale because of their arrogance and power and the way they treated us workers.

All power to HERE UNIONS Local 35, Local 34 and Local 33!

Don't forget the 3 or 4 million that the city lost due to the horrible mismanagement of the IT department.

This is merely the 2024 version of the same police overtime article where we are all appalled about the amount of money spent by the PD. Blah, blah, blah....You blame the Chief of Police? That is unreal. The guy is trying to run the city with 320 cops. You may say, and I will agree, that we can probably run the PD efficiently with that number of officers, but not with the policing model that exists now. But, any deviation to the "New Haven Community Policing" model is met with fear and panic. Additionally, in policing circles nobody wants to work for Justin Elicker, so good luck hiring. He's anti-police and we all now it. At the end of the day, don't waste any more time commenting because IT MEANS ABSOLUTELY NOTHING!! You all voted for this mayor and it's not like he squeaked by, he pounded his opposition. As they say, elections have consequences, enjoy them now. Next election, get off the couch and go vote.

Don’t forget a health and wellness coordinator needs to be added to the blue sheet now as well. We must be printing money in the mayors basement.

ElmCityLover...communism does not and has not never existed as a social and economic system.

Communism is a theory, and ideology and an idea.

Socialism, however, does exist. Capitalism created the conditions for it to emerge, just as Feudalism
created the conditions for capitalism to emerge.

Socialism purpose as it exists today in some countries is to create a more level playing field to the majority of its citizens.

This idea is contrary to the capitalism we live under where we tolerate being exploited by a few rich, White people who have all the money (and control) and we working class people are happy, content little campers at the bottom trying to survive on crumbs they throw us.

In some States in the USA the minimum wage is $7.50!!! And, I expect, that those kinds of jobs do not come with healthcare benefits.

Capitalism created socialism/social democratic socialism because the working people fought for it and won. Those countries, unlike the decayed capitalism we try to survive under, have benefits such as universal healthcare - even for women!!!! Only men get ownership of their bodies here!

Some countries have free schooling through college and we don't even have FREE community colleges yet! They have ample time off for having a child - like months, not weeks. A friend of mine, an MD, just had a baby and she gets 6 weeks off!!! Why? Because the hospital worked her so hard she couldn't "save up" vacation time!

Go ahead say, "Why don't you move if it's so bad here?" I'd be happy to hear that. Why? Because to me a remark like that proves you can't defend capitalism. Why? US capitalism is a decaying system with extreme poverty being just one of it's glaring features. Rich people (maybe you're one of them), though, can defend capitalism. Ask Bill Gates, the Tesla guy, Leonard Leo, Clarence Thomas and his buddy, the billionaire, Harlan Rogers Crow.

In the US we have socialism for the rich and rugged individualism for the poor!