22 comments

  1. This is f’n ridiculous.
    Paying Gaudett not to be chief.
    Paying Chapman to make believe he is chief.
    Paying AJ to act like a chief.
    All to make Paris prove he is chief.
    At the taxpayers’ expense.

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  2. Correction, Bob Walsh:

    This is f’n ridiculous.
    Paying Gaudett not to be chief.
    Paying Chapman to make believe he is chief.
    Paying AJ to act like a chief.
    All to make Paris prove he is chief.
    And only to have Joel Gonzalez (The B.P.D. Janitor) be the Chief of Police.
    At the taxpayers’ expense.

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  3. Hey Bob Walsh, I’ll tell you what’s “f’n ridiculous.” I’ve sent e-mails to Elected Officials on many occasions. Last week I sent one to my State Rep. Ezequiel Santiago (notice the spelling). I wasn’t getting any reply from Rep. Santiago. I finally managed to contact Santiago via text during the week and he was going to look for the e-mail I had sent. I took a picture of the email and texted it to EZ: “Joel, looks like you misspelled my name on the e-mail.” Santiago, I didn’t misspell your name, I got your e-mail via a link.

    Guess where that fucking link was! Yeah, here on OIB. If you look under “Government” on the right side of your screen, at the bottom you’ll see State Legislative Contacts link which you can see below. Look at the link e-mail address for Rep. Santiago (notice spelling):

    House District 130
    Ezequiel Santiago Ezequiel.santigao@cga.ct.gov

    Representatives (Legislative Aide: 860-240-8585)
    House District 124
    Andre Baker
    House District 126
    Charlie Stallworth charlie.stallworth@cga.ct.gov
    House District 127
    Jack Hennessy Jack.hennessy@cga.ct.gov
    House District 128
    Chris Rosario
    House District 129
    Steve Stafstrom

    House District 130
    Ezequiel Santiago Ezequiel.santigao@cga.ct.gov

    Senators (Legislative Aide: 860-240-8600)
    Senate District 22
    Marilyn Moore
    Senate District 23

    Ed Gomes

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    1. Let me share what this bullshit e-mail error caused. The deadline for submitting bills passed. Only alternative now is to try finding a bill to attach it to if possible. Thank a lot, Lennie. Makes me wonder who received and read the e-mail I sent. I’m going to try sending a message from this laptop and see what happens.

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  4. How is it Ganim’s fault Finch acted like a child and gave Gaudett a contract simply to piss Ganim off? Everyone in city government knew Finch was going to fire Gaudett had he won the election. He made it a point to tell everyone. Any new Mayor picks his own Chief. Check New York. This is especially true when the Chief’s contract is due to expire. This isn’t rocket science. Go Joe! Keep cleaning house.

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    1. Excuse me but Joe Ganim is acting like a spoiled brat from Easton. Regardless of what Finch did or did not do, he extended the contract and now JOE wants the taxpayers to bail him out again because of some silly campaign promises he made.
      What about the promise to control spending?
      What about the promise to put off reval?
      What about the promise to balance the budget?
      Before it is over Joe and his supporters will be blaming Finch for the years he did in the Federal pen.
      Grow up Joe and be a man.

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      1. Gaudett had a contract. I assume that was binding. How does Ganim get rid of that, just throw that away? It’s impossible and not legal, he had to do this he had no choice. Got it salaries not really needing the city Finch ruined the city. It’s the pensions and the health care for those pensioners that is ruining the city. When you’re allowed to count your $60 overtime working for United illuminating standing by a truck and that counts into your retirement average that’s a problem.

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        1. That is simple. You prove he is incompetent (if he truly is). The you fire him. You make him miserable in the job. Then you are in a much better position to negotiate. But that takes time. So Joe instead takes our money, throws it at Gaudett and tells his boss Paris he kept his word.

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      2. Bob, you’re really taking the election loss very hard. Joe Ganim took that OPM position right out of your hands. That’s what grown, real men do. Take your meds and relax.

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  5. How do you ask a question about a buyout when the cost of same has not been planned in a current budget and that same budget is likely to end the year (even after careful and controlled tending and mending) with a sizable deficit on June 30, 2016 equal or nearly equal to the $13 Million reported “city fund balance” in the 2015 Comprehensive Annual Financial Report distributed yesterday to Council members? Is it that easy to spend taxpayer money necessary for seemingly higher priorities? OIB? Time will tell.

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    1. JML–thanks for reporting on the 2015 Comprehensive Annual Financial Report. Do you know if it is available online yet?

      Your comment is a bit of a riddle, so I’d like to prompt you to demystify it or clarify it a bit.

      — We have a $20 million mid-year deficit. If that deficit held to the end of the year without any change, would it consume the $13 million fund balance and leave us $7 million in the hole entering the next fiscal year? (I don’t know if we are in FY 2016 or FY 2015 now.)

      — If we trimmed the $20 million mid-year deficit by $7 million, would our fund balance at the end of the year be $0?

      — If we took extraordinary measures and managed to wipe out the $20 million deficit, would our fund balance would remain unchanged at $13 million?

      JML, is there a rule of thumb for municipal fund balances and/or is there a target for a Bridgeport safe fund balance? In the recent history of Bridgeport, is a $13 million fund balance safe, secure or risky? How is it affected by the capital budget? And how does it affect the interest rate and ratings for the city in the capital markets?

      — DTD

      P.S. I realize this goes far afield of the police chief(s) question. So FWIW on that question (which after all is the question Lennie asked!) my answers are a kind of “Both/And.” Yes, any mayor should have her or his own police chief. And yes, it was indeed a terrible precedent–but not imposed by Mayor Ganim. His predecessor handed Mayor Ganim this unwise and terrible precedent.

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      1. Doug,
        Thank you for your interest and for reading the input that caused you to question.
        First off, we are in the FY 2015-16 budget created by Finch (and company). The G2 administration finds enough in error because of excessive overtime, and other expense overruns because of failure to budget line items that should have been included as well as a failure to pay attention to State actions by projecting revenues from the State that had not been available the previous year. There is a “hole in the budget” for sure. And the $20 Million projection already assumes an employment freeze of sorts that will save $4.5 Million of what we have called “ghost positions” in the past. They were empty and were meant to stay empty, allowing a positive variance to offset deficits in other departments or line items.

        The Comprehensive Annual Financial Report on the FY2014-15 budget is complete and was delivered by Ken Flatto to City Council last evening. It was put up on the City Finance Department site today.

        Regarding the “Undesignated Fund Balance Policy” of the City, mentioned under “Budget and Accounting Policies” commonly the usual statement: “To maintain a balance of funds within the total unreserved, undesignated fund balance to be available for unforeseen contingencies.”
        POLICY (as stated in 2013-14 budget) “The sum of all components identified for the undesignated fund balance level will be set at no less than 8.0% of annual operating expenditures and other financing uses (transfers out) of the prior audited fiscal year with the annual approval by the City Council. In the event that the undesignated fund balance exceeds 12%, the amount exceeding this percentage may be available for appropriation at the discretion of the Mayor with the approval of City Council.”

        I remember no discussion or change of that policy in the past two years so let us assume it is still POLICY whether practically observed or not.

        On page 4 of the 2015 CAFR it states “the total fund balance for the General Fund alone was $13.7 million; $13.4 is unassigned. Available general fund, fund balance at year-end represents 2.4% of total general fund expenditures, $552 Million.”

        Now, to answer your question, the City fund balance may have been around 8% when Ganim was Mayor the first time for there was $55 Million and a lower operating budget, but Fabrizi, Finch and Finch2 terms continued to reduce the number while Operating budgets generally increased.

        I therefore follow your logic, if Ganim, Flatto, Nkwo and others do their best by close of FY2016 on June 30, but can only reduce today’s projections (net of “ghosts” and reduced Principal and Interest in spring from refunding) to $17 Million and then further by managing Overtime and closing down most expenses in each department to arrive at a $13 Million deficit, and our City fund balance of an equivalent amount of $13 million to be reduced to $0. The cupboard would be bare! Sobering? I would think so.

        This negative might serve to concern rating agencies going forward. Lower rates tend to increase cost of borrowing funds, whether short-run Tax Anticipation Notes or longer-term bonding. However, at the moment we are at a historically low interest period for municipal issues. Will it continue this way for long? What do we need to do to deal with this issue and others after taxpayers get serious? Time will tell.

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        1. The Bank Of Japan just went into negative zero rates. Perhaps bond ratings will be less of a concern as the oil cartel continues to collapse and the US FED gets spooked during an election year. It’s a GREAT time to borrow money.

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        2. “… short-run Tax Anticipation Notes …”

          JML, talking about TAN. That’s one heck of a cookie jar, did you look into how much was borrowed and paid back? Interest paid? I’m not sure if Finch got a TAN for the fiscal year.

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