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 ‘Debt Obligations’ Category
Blue Ribbon Budget Panel Reports to BOA
Tuesday, June 30th, 2009
Freedom of Information Commission Hearing – Part 1
Friday, May 1st, 2009There was a hearing at the State Freedom of Information Commission today. You can read the background in the New Haven Independent and The New Haven Advocate. Here is the sanitized version of the city’s projections. The attached version is different then the one Jeffrey saw in July 2008 and the one he requested under the FOIA. Notice that the City’s projections keeps taxes completely unchanged for five years. I don’t think anyone believes that taxes will remain completely flat for five years. Things inherently cost more each year. More updates forthcoming.
Why the City Can’t Hope For Its Own Bailout…
Wednesday, November 12th, 2008Check out this Government Accountability Office (GAO) video summary of the economy. This is before the latest meltdown and bailouts. Did you know you owe the US Govt $350,000?
http://www.gao.gov/media/video/fiscal/windows/amfiscal.wmv
Mayor On Financial Problems
Wednesday, October 22nd, 2008Although this letter from the Mayor focuses on the national financial mess, New Haven’s financial problems have been years in the making. This was coming to a head without the latest national pressures. What is happening, is now, these issues can no longer be managed with one time revenue infusions from selling City assets, or other financial engineering. We have written elsewhere, and provided testimony, that the budget is mostly personnel related. That is why the Mayor’s letter focuses on union renegotiations. Tweed, Shubert, the trolley to nowhere, and other major ticket items still pale in comparison to the major driver – personnel cost. This is simply a fact of the city budget. The fact that the city employees and the citizens still do not understand this is a failure of leadership on this issue. We need transparent government, multi-year financial projections to make sound decisions, and accountability at all levels of city government and city spending if we want to start digging our way slowly out of this hole. I am hopeful that the current administration will take the necessary steps to greater transparency, community involvement, and encourage honest and rigorous discourse on the financial state of this City so we can begin coming together to right this ship. Have some ideas? Send them our way.
Is New Haven Insolvent?
Monday, June 23rd, 2008According to Andy Ross, the City of New Haven is insolvent (unable to pay its debts). We have resorted to “financial engineering” to make our budget work (like borrowing from one credit card to pay another one’s monthly minimum payment). Read his informative article from the Grand News.
Contact your alderperson
to ask them about this article. We sent them all a copy of the article.
Bankruptcy In Our Future?
Thursday, May 8th, 2008See below for a NYTimes article and Harry David’s contextualization.
Note the size of Vallejo — 115,000 compared to New Haven/s 120,000. Vallejo’s payroll costs were 80% of the General Fund compared to New Haven’s 65%. New Haven’s Mayor will be proposing some modest payroll trimming that may not be sufficient. We have the experience of Waterbury to look to and to try to avoid going down the path of profligate spending in a constrained tax climate. Harry
US | May 8, 2008
City Council in Bay Area Declares Bankruptcy
By JESSE McKINLEY
The unanimous vote was cast after efforts to squeeze concessions out of Vallejo City employees failed and with the city facing a $16 million shortfall for the fiscal year.
2008-9 Budget Recommendations
Wednesday, February 20th, 2008(NHCAN) is pleased to announce the budget recommendations for the 2008-2009 Fiscal Year. We have prepared a list of recommendations including the ending of unsustainable subsidies, to the reorganization of departments, to the transformation of the budget document itself. Below you will find the link to the full document (2.3 MB), as well as, shorter versions of the document. We recognize that some of these recommendations may be impractical or even naïve. We invite you to consider these in the spirit in which it is offered and to offer superior alternatives for the general good. We look forward to continuing this discussion.
2008-2009 Budget Public Comments(2.3 MB)
Executive Summary Only (414 KB)
Full Document Without the Appendices (1.4 MB)
Appendices Only (2.0 MB)
More Efficient Government
Sunday, October 21st, 2007Read the City’s Proposal for Cost Containment.
Here is one of our responses and suggestions for cost containment.
NEW HAVEN CAN BE BETTER!
Saturday, October 6th, 2007New Haven Citizens Action Network (NH CAN) was created last summer by a group of New Haven citizens who wished to participate in the deliberations of the Board of Aldermen during the 2007-8 budget process. Our objectives were to ensure that the proposed budget fiscally sound and would not create a tax burden on future taxpayers. We were also interested in keeping city government open to participation from the general public.
Summer has come and gone. The BOA has not welcomed citizen inputs and had prevented public comments on items before the Board. There is a solid majority of the BOA that votes as a block to approve the Mayor’s wishes without too much challenge. Consequently, New Haven CAN has shifted it’s focus – from working with the Alders to working to elect more independent minded Aldermen willing to check the Mayor’s propensity to tax and spend.
The New Haven 2007-8 budget totals $445 million, with Special Funds and Capital expenses adding another $272 million. This is equal to over $14,000 per New Haven household. Of this amount, about 30% is paid directly by City taxpayers, another 50% comes from State taxpayers with the remaining 20% being borrowed. The City has commitments of over $1,100,000,000 – about $22,000 per household — for pension liabilities, debt and retiree health care. Future taxpayers must pay for this.
The budget process is seriously flawed. There is no culture of cost control, of eliminating unnecessary activities to pay for new initiatives. Transparency is lacking. Education spending accounts for 38% of the General Fund. Yet one has to estimate the additional costs for employee benefits, pensions, debt service, the Capital and Special Fund accounts to get a better estimate of total education costs which are closer to 61% of total spending of $717 million.
The budget process is not integrated with the cost drivers that dominate the budget. Contract negotiations commit taxpayers for a good part of the budget, yet occur independently of the budget process. Pension plans still use the more expensive Defined Benefits approach rather than the more widely used Defined Contribution approach.
The budget process does not relate expenditures to any measures of anticipated outcomes. What should we expect for the $17,000 spent per school student each year? How effectively can we expect Police and Fire personnel to respond to incidents? For Public Works to repair sidewalks and roads?? Etc.. There is no reference to such benchmarks in the 400 plus pages of the budget.
Future Indebtedness
Monday, August 20th, 2007Its a bad financial picture for the city. And the BOA just passed a back door raise for the city executives that should have been a part of the budget discussions. We need to begin discussing measures of success. What are we getting for the money we spend? Should we not reward executives based on the money saved or actual services delivered, rather than the money spent? See the numbers on where we stand and ask your alderperson and the mayor how they plan to address this financial picture?
