Mayor Joe Ganim will submit his first budget of JG2 tonight to the City Council. It will be referred to the council’s Budget and Appropriations Committee. City financial officials say taxpayers will experience a mixed bag as a result of implementation of reassessed properties for the budget year starting July 1. Council agenda here.
Also an addendum to the council agenda includes the return of Stuart Rosenberg as a city fire commissioner.
The long-time chairman of the Board of Fire Commissioners resigned three years ago in a dispute involving the city’s proposed changes to the retirement benefits of city firefighters. James Morley also resigned as treasurer and a trustee of the Pension Plan B. Morley issued his letter of resignation to Rosenberg who issued his resignation to then-Mayor Bill Finch. Rosenberg and Morley also sent letters to participants of Bridgeport Firefighters Pension Plan B.
For background on this see here.
Will he show us what the $20 million debt consists of? Or do we just take a convicted felon’s word for it? Show me the $$$!!!
Wingnut,
$20 Million of debt? You are referencing what article or report, please?
The most common $20 Million financial issue being tossed about at this time is the shortfall in the Operating Budget for the 2015-16 Fiscal Year. The projections of revenue last year were too optimistic and also betrayed ignorance of what the State budget could provide. The expense estimates were also incomplete as to retirement plan funding, overtime that was not managed, etc.
If that is your target, then blame the authors and presenters like Tom Sherwood and Anne Kelly-Lenz for what showed up when they departed.
I shall be speaking to the City Council at 6:30 PM this evening and will be making a symbolic and hopefully memorable presentation to them about their fiduciary responsibility. Why not visit City Council chambers at 6:30 PM? I will show you the February monthly financial report for the City. The situation is real and the G2 team is tackling it in the limited ways open to them at this time in the budget year. How much can they reduce the Finch administration damage? Time will tell.
If the City Council does not hire independent outside consultants to guide them in determining both the validity of the projected deficit AND the reasonableness of assumptions made in compiling the new budget (i.e. revenue assumptions, collections rates, new revenues, ROI for pension investments, etc.), it is totally irresponsible and there is no one to blame except the council and its President Tom McCarthy.
But he may be more concerned about running for State Senate than he is about running the City Council.
Also the council should include in their final budget approval the requirement any surplus generated in this year’s budget MUST be returned to taxpayers in the form of a rebate.
This will take out the incentive the Ganim Admin may have for inflating their first-year tax increase so as to reduce or stabilize future year mil rates.
Politics or Policy. That is the question that needs to be answered.
I have my own doubts about the $20 million Flatto deficit and I have been saying that since this was announced. Government budgets are just as political as they are fiscal if not more so. From the beginning I have felt the Ganim Administration will use the “$20 million deficit” as the reason for a higher mil rate and blame it on Bill Finch. Four years later, just before the next election, lo and behold Ganim and Flatto will announce a mil rate decrease due to their “extreme fiscal diligence in the first three years of their administration.” The fact that approximately $10 million of the $20 million is attributed to the Bridgeport Police Department, I really felt that was a red flag. It was an election year and the police were the beneficiary of relaxing the overtime prohibitions that had been in place. Perhaps it was a type of bribe to keep the police neutral. It did not work. As to the unfunded Police Pension amount, I had spoken to someone last summer well before the election about the unfunded Pension. The spouse of the person I spoke to is a visitor to OIB. Government budgets should not be looked at in a vacuum as a field exercise in Accounting 101. We should also remember Ganim is asking for a whopping $178 million bond/borrowing binge and who is going to monitor how that money will be spent? Another reminder of the craziness of government budgeting is just in the last month the State of Connecticut suddenly faced an immediate fiscal emergency and millions of state aid were in danger of being lost. Somehow, the legislature pulled a rabbit out of a hat and all was well.
Frank,
Keep your eyes up. The State emergency of $200 Millions is about the current year, just as the budget Ganim inherited was shown as $20 Million initially, already diminished by $3.5 Million and with further reductions likely by June 30, 2016.
The State’s real problem is much larger and it is with the two-year budget they face forming in the next months.
The $178 Million you identify as a “binge” is merely his laying out a five-year plan. Of course it has not been explained in the context of a BALANCE SHEET in the red. The CC when called on are likely to be asked to vote on this year’s amount, about 25% of your binge. Nevertheless the real issue is what each department has requested, what priority it has for them in accomplishing their mission, how it will save future budget dollars, how it will increase asset values on the Balance Sheet, etc.
We have heard nothing about the CAPITAL BUDGET from Mayor Ganim. I am respectfully waiting for his vision, plan, and the details. Governors and Mayors always want more money. Legislators find it difficult (at least in CT) to represent taxpayers in any meaningful way. Therefore, we should look for full stories, timelines and financial reports, including balance sheet info more than once per year. Hope you pick up a schedule of the Council Budget Review meetings over the next month and are able to attend some of the sessions. The budget should be posted on the Office of Policy Management Departmental site shortly.
Remember the story about how the Ten Commandments came to be? Moses was called to the mountain and he was provided three tablets with 15 Commandments it is said. He stumbled on his way down and one of the tablets was destroyed so humankind only received 10 Laws. If the CC were to get serious and care about our existing high level of taxation (along with the confusion of revaluation and a new mil rate) they would head for a zero net increase in the face of this year’s net deficit that may have to be carried over into next year and the yawning BOE problem. Calls for leadership at all levels and a new practice of Open, Accountable, Transparent and Honest governance. Are the people ready for the changes? Will they step up their own watchdog behavior? Time will tell.
The existing high level of taxation is a state problem. The legislature refuses to increase the income tax because that is where the money is. So in the Sate of Connecticut, we have a 2-1/2 revenue situation. The State of Connecticut relies far too much on the sales tax and property taxes and keeps income taxes to a minimum, to the detriment of those who must pay high property taxes and high sales taxes. When a multi-millionaire buys a gallon of milk in a fancy la-di-da shop on Greenwich Avenue and when a working poor Bridgeport resident buys the same gallon of milk at the ghetto Stop&Shop in Black rock, the Greenwich shopper steps into their Mercedes while the working poor walks home with their purchase. BOTH PAY THE SAME SALES TAX.
Frank, that’s where their campaign money comes from in both parties, don’t tax the rich so we give them an entitlement.
And then look at the number of our elected members of congress and senate and their net worth, possibly a little bit difficult for them to understand the challenges of the people they are elected to represent.
ballotpedia.org/Net_worth_of_United_States_Senators_and_Representatives
*** Just stop and look at who’s on the city’s B&A committee and who the co-chairs are. Does anyone on the B&A committee have any financial budget 101 experience or has sat on other city budget committees before and made any positive changes or line item ideas that where useful during past city budgets in general? Is there anyone on the council with any past or present financial, accounting, banking, etc. experience that could prove helpful towards achieving some types of budget cuts ($fat$) that will help in reaching towards some of the $20 million debt? *** TIME TO JUST GO THROUGH THE MOTIONS AND RUBBER-STAMP WHATEVER JOE’S GOT UP HIS BUDGET SLEEVE FOR BPT. ***
Mojo, sad but true.