Melissa Bailey Photo
(Updated) A city union president heard a pitch from the mayor to rally the troops behind his proposed budget — but she decided to hold the phone.
The union president, Cherlyn Poindexter (pictured), joined other municipal labor leaders Monday in a private confab with Mayor John DeStefano in his City Hall office.
DeStefano called them in to discuss efforts by some city aldermen and a citizens group called New Haven Citizens Action Network (NHCAN) to shoot down his proposed $467 million budget for the coming fiscal year.
He asked the union leaders to rally their members to contact aldermen to oppose NHCAN and to support City Hall as the budget heads toward a final vote in coming weeks. Mayoral Chief of Staff Sean Matteson circulated tailored lists for each union president with a set of aldermen to contact.
Poindexter’s response?
She said she agrees with NHCAN that the budget has waste in it.
“The mayor is pitting the unions against the residents,” she charged.
She has invited all 30 aldermen to a meeting with municipal labor leaders Saturday morning. She promised to unveil her own ideas there about how to cut alleged fat from the budget without sacrificing union jobs.
“I will tell the aldermen on Saturday where the waste is,” Poindexter promised in an interview Wednesday. “And there’s a lot of it.” The only example she’d give as a preview Wednesday was City Hall’s decision to hire a prison reentry coordinator.
Ronald Hobson, president of the city clerical workers union, said he too was unimpressed with the mayor’s call to lobby aldermen on behalf of the budget.
“We’re not going to do that,” Hobson said. ” From what I hear, the budget is not going to work. He knows it’s not going to work.”
The mayor’s message resonated more with the teachers union. Union President David Cicarella said he’s inclined to have his people make some calls to aldermen to oppose a 10 percent cut.
“A 10 percent reduction to the Board of Education would be devastating,” he said. “There’s only so much in books and paper [to cut]. It’s got to be staff. Yes, you can probably shave an administrator or two or four, and not renew some contracts with consultants. But you’ll never get to $17 million [in cuts] without getting two, three hundred teachers. That’s not palatable.”
Everyone Invites Suggestions
Thomas MacMillan File Photo
DeStefano (pictured) said Wednesday that he called the meeting in order to respond to what he called budget critics’ incomplete message. They’ve called for a 10 percent across-the-board tax cut without, he said, offering ideas about where to cut. He said he wanted to let the unions know that if such a move succeeds, union members will lose their jobs.
He said his message to the assembled union presidents was: “I want you to be clear. If I get a budget that doesn’t balance, I’m going to be required to balance it. And I will. You have a stake and an interest in this just as taxpayers do.
“By saying, ‘Cut the budget 10 percent,’ but not identifying where, I think [budget opponents] are very knowingly trying to push dramatic reductions to the workforce. It’s just clear that that would result” in layoffs.
DeStefano said he got a clear message in community meetings that people don’t want to see policemen or firefighters or teachers laid off, or libraries closed, or other services cut. “The way to reduce employee costs is going to have to be accomplished with health care and pension [adjustments]. I’ve been up front with unions about that. I don’t think we’re in a position where we should cut the number of officers who patrol New Haven’s streets,” the mayor said.
Poindexter said she doesn’t want to see the budget cut 10 percent across the board. “Cutting services means laying off my people,” she said. She also said other cuts can be found without laying off her members.
“The unions are city residents as well. We are on the same page as them. We are not against NHCAN,” she said. “Taxes do pay our salaries. But there is a lot of waste in that budget. What the mayor’s doing is pitting the unions against the residents.”
NHCAN has invited people to volunteer ideas about how to cut the budget or raise new revenues in order to avoid a tax hike and proposed parking-revenue monetization deal. Read about those efforts here. Some ideas include moving faster to installing parking fee-collection kiosks, raising street parking rates, and increasing weekend and other off-hour ticketing of illegally parked cars.
DeStefano said he welcomes suggestions for closing the budget gap without a tax increase. The city has invited city workers here to submit ideas for efficiencies or new revenues. The mayor said he similarly welcomes any new ideas that come out of Saturday’s union-NHCAN meeting.
A group of aldermen, too, has been meeting this week to draw up alternative ideas for closing the budget gap. Hearings on the budget — some of which have been stormy — continue Wednesday night at City Hall; the Independent plans to live-blog it so people who don’t attend can follow along. The budget comes up for a final vote at the Board of Aldermen on June 7.
Both Sides Lobby
Thomas MacMillan Photo
NHCAN organizer Jeffrey Kerekes, at far left, at a budget protest.
Meanwhile, NHCAN has done its own targeted lobbying to match City Hall’s, both on this website and in a mass email sent to city workers Wednesday in response to the mayor’s meeting with labor leaders.
Here’s what the email message said:
“Join us in our effort to keep New Haven affordable and to keep quality city jobs through increased efficiency, more accountability, and getting rid of divisive tactics that split this city so we do not work together.
“We understand the mayor and his executive staff are trying to rally you against the budget cuts that more than 1,000 citizens and taxpayers are seeking. Please understand we are not against city services or against any one department. We know there are considerable savings that can be achieved in every budget in the city. We also know the mayor has not looked for any of them which is why the people you serve, are facing property tax increases as high as 21% including the phased in reval. This is on top of taxes that have doubled for most of us across the last 7 – 10 years. Would you put up with that in your town?
“The City of New Haven is in a tough financial spot because of the mayor’s decisions across the last several years, some going back even further. It’s not all the ‘state’s fault’ all the time, as he would have you believe.
“As you know, when the mayor was running for governor, he put the school board on auto-pilot and didn’t even attend any meetings let alone monitor its budget. He agreed to generous union contracts he knew then and definitely knows now, we could not afford. In fact, the pension and healthcare promises he made to you are underfunded by hundreds of millions of dollars that no amount of tax increases will ever be able to cover. Each year he budgets only enough to pay for that year’s needs and puts virtually nothing aside for your future retirement. The debt the city is carrying has mushroomed and is robbing vital cash resources from city services, education and the proper funding of your pensions. It now consumes $62 million in mortgage payments this year — up from $30 million in 2002. And he plans to add at least another $100 million in debt this year.
“How much credibility does the mayor and his executive staff have when asking you to call an alderman about our fiscal crisis? This is the same mayor who demanded a $25K raise the day after the election and settled for $16K. This is the same staff who gave themselves unbudgeted stealth raises and allow their friends and favored few to take “special assignments” and consultant contracts most of whom were already drawing a city pension, and then laid off city workers, many of them, the lowest paid. This is the same administration who consistently violates the rules of employment so that millions are paid out in settlements and grievances and fires people for speaking with the press.
“The fact is we are in a financial crisis. Families are losing their homes and many of our citizens are out of work or are working for reduced wages. Our middle class is shrinking and the underclass is growing. We simply cannot afford any tax hike let alone a double digit one all because of poor decisions, planning and making promises we can’t keep.
“Before you pick up the phone to call a member of the Board of Aldermen, please re-consider doing so and instead channel your energies into finding efficiencies in your own department or in another department with which you are familiar. Send your ideas to us so we can help champion concrete ways to run an affordable and sustainable city. We have a community budget presentation that we would be happy to share with you and your membership. Let us know where and when we can do our presentation on the budget.
“Thank you for your service.
“(NHCAN) New Haven Citizens Action Network”
At this late date, it's inappropriate for the mayor to ask that someone tell him where to cut.
He knows his departments better than anyone else. It's up to him (and to some extent, the Board of Aldermen) to figure out what the city can do without over the next few years.
The members of NHCAN aren't the elected representatives of the people of New Haven. The mayor and the aldermen are. They were chosen to do a difficult job that sometimes requires painful decisions. That's how our government works, when it works.