The final recommendations to the New Haven Board of Aldermen from the Blue Ribbon Citizen’s Panel on the Budget is ready. Its a worthwhile read. Thanks to all the panelists and city staff that contributed to its construction.
Archive for the ‘Budget’ Category
Blue Ribbon Budget Panel Reports to BOA
Tuesday, June 30th, 2009Citizens Budget Commission – NYC
Saturday, May 16th, 2009The NYC Citizens Budget Commission provides an interesting website reviewing NYC finances. Their mission: “The Citizens Budget Commission is a nonpartisan, nonprofit civic organization devoted to influencing constructive change in the finances and services of New York City and New York State government.” Check out their Myth of Uncontrollables, which directly confronts the notion of “its all fixed costs,” the mantra of the New Haven BOA and Administration.
Democrats release their State Budget
Friday, April 3rd, 2009Check out the Democrats version, and response to the Governor’s budget.
Sales Receipt Lotto Ticket To Raise State Revenues?
Tuesday, March 31st, 2009Here’s an idea they use in Taiwan to increase State revenue which should cost relatively little to implement. Make each sales receipt into a lotto ticket. When you buy something from a store or restaurant, that receipt becomes a lotto ticket. Consumers will now demand receipts from every purchase and if that register receipt paper with preprinted lotto numbers was created and sold by the State, the State could increase the number of transactions actually being reported. We have all seen or suspected instances where sales were not being recorded. This proposal would eliminate or significantly reduce the number of unreported transactions. Right now, why would a consumer care if the merchant reports the sale. Now, the consumer has a vested interest in getting a receipt and the State wins too.
This program would also encourage people to come and shop in Connecticut since they have a chance to win big for every purchase they make. This would stimulate the economy in addition to increasing reported transactions. Furthermore, you could make this part of a State sales tax increase in an effort to make a sales tax increase more palatable. Since this program would inconvenience retailers and restaurants, give any store that sells a winning ticket a percentage of the winnings. Given the volume of sales of any store or restaurant, they actually will have better odds than most consumers.
The State could hold a drawing on a quarterly or monthly basis. The State could also mail lotto tickets to people who self-report online purchases, bringing in additional dollars from unreported online transactions. The State is already set up to run lotteries so the only new burden would be to print and sell register tapes and sell them to businesses. The cost of doing this could easily be paid for out of increased revenues. While hopefully unnecessary, consumers could even be fined for leaving a store having made a purchase without a receipt if you wanted to enhance reporting and remove incentives to keep transactions off the books.
If you like this idea, please contact one of your state representatives or the governor’s office.
Annotated Budget Explanations (Forms 106)
Tuesday, March 17th, 2009Here are some of the forms 106 which purportedly explain the line items in the budget. I have added some comments and highlighted some questions. There are 248 pages thus far and the file is 11MB, have fun.
City Budget in Excel
Tuesday, March 17th, 2009Here is the City Budget, FY 09-10 Budget in Excel Format.
You might also have interest in checking out our source document page.
Annotated Budget
Thursday, March 12th, 2009Check out the Mayor’s Proposed Budget with comments and notes (4.1 MB). Let us know if anything stands out in the budget that we missed. Stay tuned for updates to this annotated budget as we continue to spend time on it.
Budget Available
Wednesday, March 4th, 2009The new budget proposal is out and we are already underway with reviewing it. Here is the schedule of meetings regarding the budget this year:
- March 11, 2009 Public Hearing on the City budget
- March 24, 2009 Budget Workshop (overview) – Finance Committee
- March 31, 2009 Budget Workshop – Finance Committee
- April 7, 2009 Budget Workshop – Finance Committee
- April 13, 2009 Budget Workshop – Finance Committee
- April 22, 2009 Budget Workshop – Finance Committee
- April 30, 2009 Public Hearing on the Budget – Deliberations workshop
- May 7, 2009 Deliberations on the Budget
- May 13, 2009 Deliberations on the Budget
- May 26, 2009 Board of Aldermen Special meeting
Mayor’s Budget Presentation
Thursday, February 26th, 2009You can read the presentation here.
