Taxed To The Max, Councilwoman Brantley’s Ready To Sell And Get Out–General Lee Tells Council ‘You Fail As Fiscal Watchdogs’

Last week City Councilwoman Evette Brantley told OIB she was going to vote against Mayor Bill Finch’s budget proposal and in fact any tax increase proposed by her peers on the city’s legislative body because taxes have reached her breaking point. Was she blowing smoke? Well Monday night at a sparsely attended public hearing on the budget, the West Side councilwoman announced she’s about ready to sell her home and leave town.

Check this out from CT Post reporter Brian Lockhart:

The most interesting thing to happen at Monday’s hearing occurred afterward, when Councilwoman M. Evette Brantley, D-132, approached one of the Black Rock speakers to commiserate.

“Our taxes are just as high as yours. I’m ready to sell and get out of here,” said Brantley, a homeowner.

Read more here.

Fiscal watchdog John Marshall Lee Monday night addressed the council at the public hearing, telling council members they have failed as fiscal watchdogs. An excerpt from Lee’s comments:

The first subject is oversight, monitoring, acting as watchdogs (especially around financial issues) and representation of citizens. Having spent the past two years with Andy Fardy and other taxpayers attending your department sessions, I conclude that you fail sadly as fiscal watchdogs. There are multiple reasons but one significant one is that most of you only wish to hear the gospel from the City. That is a limiting factor to your intelligence, common sense, and/or life experience. A “true watchdog” will check things out. You seem to believe as the Mayor does about my comments, “We disagree with that gentleman,” as he responded to a questioner who was waving my sheet of observations at one of his recent meetings.

Well the Charter is being ignored or violated regularly. And that hinders you if you expect to be “watchdogs” first and foremost. Let’s look at the vacant positions funded annually by this Council, the “ghost positions” that BOB has shown you for the past two years. Most of those positions remained as vacant at the end of the year as at the beginning. But you went along with the Mayor’s proposal and used $4-5 Million of taxpayer appropriations last May. What happens to that money after you pass the budget? And if it is not spent as proposed and passed with your vote, how is it spent? Well, the Budget and Appropriations Committee should monitor it monthly, but that is difficult because the monthly reports, due by the fourth Friday of each month comes two months after close this year, and with less regularity in previous years.

What happens then? A September, 2012 monthly financial report was issued showing over 60 department changes with a net reduction of $3.6 Million in Full Time Compensation Line Item 51000. That report did not reach you until December 6 and with no meeting until January, has the subject been discussed by you yet? Those were some of the “ghost expenses,” but you just let them slip away and stay dead. I have to tell you that this is not honest. It’s taxpayer money that you have wasted. Taxes were raised to support “the ghost expenses.”

The CT Post talked about Police Overtime in an article this morning. I went back to 2007-08 external audits and found that Police internal overtime did not become a major problem until 2011-12 when it totaled almost $4.5 Million. (You only received irregular reports that year, 3 months, 5 months, 3 months and then the final month draft.) You could have seen that Police Overtime issue developing. And it continued this year, though the reports fail to provide you with a narrative as to variances so you may not be paying attention. The overtime is an issue in the Fire Department, too.

Have you thought about why this is so? Is it because the City has negotiated with public safety employees and those active employees currently in Plan B will transfer to CT MERF where overtime pay is included and helps to create highest three years of compensation for pension calculations? Very possibly. The overtime has been showing up for over 20 months. Where are you as watchdogs? Failing once again to perform?

Secondly many of you talk about the GRAND LIST increasing, but are you not aware that it is the NET GRAND LIST on which taxes are calculated, and that it may be decreasing in its ability to soften the tax bite on residents? So whether the GRAND LIST increases with values on City, State, Federal or hospitals and universities, it does not help the taxpayer much. Why do you keep parroting what the Mayor says? It is irrelevant to current taxpayers, isn’t it, but the trend in the NET GRAND LIST is relevant and you do not report it. And Steelpoint is looked at as the center of economic development, but you need to fill out your story to let taxpayers know that if that project was completed tomorrow, they would have precious little help because a special taxing district has been created which has first claim on taxes from those property owners.

Finally I want you to look at the Education budget. Our local share of Education expense remains the lowest of the largest Cities in CT by tens of millions. That is something you need to deal with. BOE budget is not complete. Check it out with the Public Schools. Last year Mayor Finch was the “Education mayor” and claimed he was fully accountable for getting funds to the kids in the classroom. This year he submitted a budget to you that showed City funding for education is flat. I happen to know that the State has sent a reminder to the City of the necessity of funding at least $3.3 Million additional to last year. The Sherwood-prepared numbers for Education, and most other departments are an illusion and you are laboring over them. It’s a shame because it is a sham and you are falling for it again.

Why not put out an RFQ for a professional service firm to assist you monthly:

• to review,

• understand, and

• perhaps even learn what performance analysis, and budget analysis, and professional advisors can let you know, independent of the administration that put you in a role as competent representatives?

Time will tell.