Would You Like That Parade On Layaway?

New Haven is trying to balance having great cultural events that bring people together and how to recoup the costs of police overtime from the people who organize those events.

The Board of Alders Public Safety Committee and acting Chief Administrative Officer Sean Matteson wrestled with that question during a meeting at City Hall, coming to the conclusion that there will be no silver bullet to tackling the high cost of police overtime as it relates to major events.

The Connecticut Open tennis tournament —one of the three major events that ran up a police overtime tab of nearly $700,000 in the last two years —is no longer happening in the Elm City. Alders told Matteson at last week’s hearing that they still expect him to come up with a solution that reins in city costs associated with such events while simultaneously getting more organizers to pay their bills.

A number of solutions were on the table from alders for keeping organizers from leaving the city holding the bag after revelers leave. They included taking a hard line and just saying no to permits for event and parade organizers who can’t or don’t pay their bills; to putting a dollar amount on a menu of city services associated with events and offering a payment plan.

Matteson’s predecessor CAO Michael Carter had suggested reconsidering what is a city event and streamlining permitting, billing, and payment process. Matteson proposed creating a committee to scrutinize an organizer’s ability to pay.

The proposed body, which could be made up of different departments but also alders, could have the ability to reduce the costs for certain entities based on ability to pay weighted against the cultural significance of an event and how best to recoup what is owed to the city.

“A lot of these events are good for the community,” Matteson told alders. ​“They provide both civic outreach and they express and demonstrate the diversity of our neighborhoods and the residents that live here. Some of these events cut across socioeconomic boundaries. They bring people together.”

He said the value of such events has to be weighed against the cost to the city. But they also have to be weighed with an eye toward equity. That means that ability to pay shouldn’t necessarily outweigh whether an event should go forward because some organizations like some communities are better financed than others.

“I think there’s never going to be one perfect answer,” he said. ​“I don’t think this is an empirical thing, that is to say, there is no such thing as a formula, a two plus two equals four. These are subjective. I think you need to look at some of these applications and events with an ability to pay of the entity which is requesting it.”

That said, the high cost of overtime and how to manage it down ​“is a real thing,” according to Matteson.

Downtown Alder Abigail Roth said she agrees that events such as parades help ​“make our city what it is.: But she said she is concerned that right now the city isn’t recouping anywhere near what it has to expend to make sure these events stay safe. She asked Matteson if the city is looking at ways to staff events using personnel other than the police that doesn’t run afoul of union contracts. She also advocated for working with organizers to ​“right size” their events to something that they can afford.

Pointing to data for 2017 – 2018, she noted that events cost more than $1.3 million in police overtime, but organizers paid only about $500,000. That means that taxpayers had to eat the more than $800,000 cost difference.

She also noted that in 2018, the St. Patrick’s Day Parade cost about $93,600, the organizers paid about $15,000 of that cost.

“For something that is called the Greater New Haven St. Patrick’s Day Parade, maybe we should be reaching out to neighboring communities whose residents are coming to our city,” she said.

Fair Haven Alder Jose Crespo concurred with Roth. He said it might be time for the city to get acquainted with the word ​“no.”

“We don’t want to turn anyone down but we can’t allow a chunk of money to be lost,” he said. ​“We do not have the time, we do not have the personnel or the money. We have to be fiscally responsible.”

Quinnipiac Meadows Alder Gerald Antunes said saying ​“no” sounds simple, but it’s not that easy, especially in a city where events of cultural significance happen in every neighborhood.

Beaver Hills Alder Brian Wingate agreed.

“I hope we don’t lose our uniqueness,” he said. ​“I know overtime is high but I hope we don’t strip it down to the point that we keep people from coming together.”

To that end, Bella Vista Alder Renee Haywood suggested the city offer a payment plan for events, or a sliding scale for paying for events that require police presence, requiring organizers to put a deposit down toward their events; or even simply telling them how much not paying the bills impacts the city.

“This is a hurt,” she said. ​“This is hurting the city.”