nothin Kerekes Fights For Budget Document | New Haven Independent

Kerekes Fights For Budget Document

budgetdog.jpgA open-government showdown moves to Hartford Friday, as a New Haven budget watchdog fights for a five-year economic projection that he claims the city destroyed.

Jefferey Kerekes (pictured), of the New Haven Citizens Action Network, filed a complaint with the state Freedom of Information Commission (FOIC) in January after the city refused to produce a copy of the five-year study.

The city told him he could take a look at it, but he couldn’t take home a copy, because the document was a draft based on faulty assumptions and would mislead the public. Therefore, it was in the public interest to withhold the document, argued Kathleen Foster, assistant corporation counsel for the city.

Kerekes insisted on receiving a copy of the document and filed a complaint with the FOIC. He argued that the document was vital to an honest debate about the city

Thursday, on the brink of an FOIC hearing, the city caved: Foster agreed to release the document if Kerekes agreed to withdraw his complaint.

Kerekes showed up in City Hall Thursday at 4 p.m. to receive the document. He looked it over for about 20 minutes. He concluded the document was not the same one he had gotten a peek at last year during a meeting of the Financial Review & Audit Commission.

Totally a bogus document in my opinion,” said Kerekes. It’s totally different.” The original document showed a drastic increase in taxes, he said. However, the draft he was given Thursday showed taxes flat for five years. The typeface and formatting were different. He suggested the document was massaged after he first got a peek at it last year, in July, to hide the city’s bad news.

Kerekes asked for the copy he had seen. Foster replied that it didn’t exist.

She said they threw out the copy of the document that I had originally requested,” he said.

Kerekes, fuming, refused to drop his complaint. He handed the document back to Foster and left.

Reached by phone Thursday, Foster had a different take on the exchange.

Nothing was destroyed,” she said.

Foster said the city produced the latest draft of the document Kerekes was looking for. The document is dated October 2008, before Kerekes filed his FOI request.

The draft Kerekes saw may have been different,” she said, but it doesn’t exist anymore. This is the iteration of this document.”

She said the document, a one-page spreadsheet, was rendered irrelevant” by the market crash and was never completed beyond draft form. The document used the five previous budget years to predict the next five years. The subprime mortgage crisis undermined that assumption, she argued, because the last five years was no longer a good prediction of the next five years.

Kerekes replied that he has trouble believing that the draft he saw doesn’t exist somewhere in an email box. He is moving forward with his case, which is set to be heard before the FOIC in Hartford today at 11 a.m.

Foster said she plans to appear at the hearing with the city comptroller.

She charged that as a member of FRAC, Kerekes should be conscious of conserving the city’s financial resources.

You know how much money it’s going to cost the city to go up and argue this?” she said. It’s kind of a big waste of time.”

Kerekes balked at the comment.

And they can’t just release the document? This would have been over months and months ago. This is a waste of time.”

If the city threw away a document that might be crucial to this year’s budget season, it should be held accountable, he argued.

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