Check out the New Haven Register Article on municipal employees. Be sure to check out the graphic at the top of the page that lists the top ten BOE employees and the top ten City Employees.
Archive for the ‘Transparency’ Category
What They Make.
Sunday, March 29th, 2009Annotated 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.
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?
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.
Transparency International
Sunday, October 19th, 2008Transparency International seems like a good organization investigating corruption and working on transparency. Here are their definitions:
How do you define corruption?
Transparency International (TI) has chosen a clear and focused definition of the term: Corruption is operationally defined as the misuse of entrusted power for private gain. TI further differentiates between “according to rule” corruption and “against the rule” corruption. Facilitation payments, where a bribe is paid to receive preferential treatment for something that the bribe receiver is required to do by law, constitute the former. The latter, on the other hand, is a bribe paid to obtain services the bribe receiver is prohibited from providing.
What is “transparency”?
“Transparency” can be defined as a principle that allows those affected by administrative decisions, business transactions or charitable work to know not only the basic facts and figures but also the mechanisms and processes. It is the duty of civil servants, managers and trustees to act visibly, predictably and understandably.
Know about local corruption or have ideas for increasing local transparency? Contact us!
A Little More Transparency. Thanks to the Register.
Friday, August 8th, 2008Tax on residences actually rises 14.5%, not the often repeated 9.8% line repeated ad nauseum by City Officials. Mine increased 22% this year, and 72% since I moved here 5 years ago. What was your increase?
Read the New Haven Register Article: Tax on residences actually rises 14.5%.
We should have the percent increase/decrease printed on our tax bills just like the cell phone and other bills show what our bill was last time and that it was paid. We need increased transparency on our tax bills.
You might want to take another look at our projections of where taxes are headed. See the spreadsheet or PDF version.
Budget Deliberations Debacle
Thursday, May 8th, 2008The aldermen said we needed to demonstrate to them that people care about the tax issue and we turned out 100 people. They promptly canceled the meeting after it started. Why couldn’t they deliberate about the cuts they want to make, the future cuts and savings?
Here is the press coverage:
Thank you to all of you who came. Please come to the rescheduled meeting and bring some friends and neighbors.
2008-9 Forms 106 — “Detailed” Line Item Explanations
Thursday, March 27th, 2008The detailed line item forms are now available for download (6.1 MB). These detail what each department is spending money on.
