Former U.S. Comptroller General David Walker was a featured speaker at a meeting of The Movement, a new coalition offering a public forum to potential mayoral candidates. Walker shares some of the points he touched on in his presentation Thursday night.
There was a good and diverse crowd at the library last evening. I provided about 10-15 minutes of non-partisan facts about Bridgeport’s financial and governance challenges. I then answered several questions. The majority of the evening was appropriately focused on the five members of “The Movement” and hearing from Bridgeport residents who attended the event. One questioner asked what were Bridgeport’s greatest challenges. I said: poor leadership; many conflicts of interest, and; too many unengaged and uninformed voters. I also noted that there were several areas where the state needed to act in order to help create a better future in Bridgeport. These include repealing the law that allows City employees to be on the City Council when it is in conflict with the City Charter; focusing free enterprise development zones and incentives on cities with high unemployment and developable land, like Bridgeport; improving the equity of the education funding formula, and; appointing a Financial Control Board to restructure the City’s finances and help it avoid bankruptcy in the future.
Well here is something David Walker and I agree on, Financial Control Board to restructure the City’s finances and help it avoid bankruptcy in the future. I said review and Walker said control, I’m referring back to the review board and their rules when they took over. Mr. Walker points out some good points but they are not new but they can work with the right candidates.
Another major observation by David Walker and Howard Gardner last evening is the importance of keeping an eye on the two processes that go into building the Mil Rate after the budget review by the City Council.
Walker said you must “grow the Grand List faster than you grow the budget” to stabilize City finances. The ways to accomplish that are subjects for every taxpayer to understand. Then they can see whether words and actions coming from the Mayor’s office or votes from the Council are consistent with that wise concept.
For instance in the budget year ahead, does anyone expect City Hall will advocate an increase in taxes? And if they do not propose a budget that requires more taxes, how will they accomplish that? Will they slash employee “ghost” positions that have been left unfilled in various departments in the past? Will pension funding decrease to even less than full funding scheduled? What other devices may be used? Time will tell.
JML, the only answer is cutting the workforce and cutting and freezing wages. Growth sounds nice but really. Yes, “ghost” positions most be gone but once again the hard-working City workers must pay the price for the failure of the mayor and the City Council.
Mismanagement by city officials affects the taxpayer more than the city employee who probably lives out of town.
Ron,
Did you see Mayor Finch’s cover letter that accompanied the Annual Budget sent to the City Council last spring? There is a copy of both the submitted and adopted budget at the Office of Policy Management site, as well as those for several preceding years.
Finch used the words “cutting back on workers and overtime” in his April 1, 2014 letter but neglected, apparently, to include the listing of employees of both City and Board of Education that has accompanied such letters in years past. An oversight, perhaps? A page missing from the Internet offering only? Perhaps that report was not ready for prime time? What do you think?
I think we need to be able to trust and rely on the numbers and metrics that are used to compare City business from one period to another. How will we understand a “tipping point” if numbers are not to be trusted? Or if we keep looking for numbers that are not presented for review? How about an AMEN to that? Time will tell.
I am very confused by the practicality of what is being said here. JML and Dave Walker seems to be advocating the city surrender control of its finances to the state because they do not have the political will to make the hard choices themselves.
But if that were true and the city can’t or won’t make those decisions, why would the city choose to voluntarily hand this over to the state?
Unless what they are implying but not saying is there should be a mandatory takeover of the city finances by the state. But if that is what they are advocating, what then is the tipping point?
The last FRB we had was created because the city had created such a large operating deficit, they had to seek permission from the state to bond to cover the deficit. But that is not the current situation.
So please tell us what exactly you are advocating and in the process please identify how many other cities and towns in the state would require the same action.
Last night, JML took action and accomplished something while Bob Walsh seems to be in a perpetual state of confusion as he pounds the table like a sitting City Councilman and demands a response.
Please LE, tell me what did Dave Walker accomplish? I must have missed something in his essay.
Speaking of missing something in his essay, he seems to have forgotten to mention how many hundreds of people were at this standing-room-only meeting.
Guess my costume. Here’s your clue:
It’s my funeral but I won’t die!
Happy Halloween
(wink)
Wrong, LE. Ron and I are only seeking the same transparency JML is always asking of the City Council.
Dave Walker will tell this group his opinion as to how to fix the city but he won’t tell them the details and he won’t tell them the negative impact of his plan.
Troll,
You had a chance to be there last night. You knew about the meeting. You understood it was an opportunity to ask questions at whatever level of specificity you wished, didn’t you?
I was a moderator, and in writing today an observer. I was not last night advocating for anything more than OPEN, ACCOUNTABLE and TRANSPARENT process. That is what happened last night. That is what happened in the two previous forums.
OIB is another forum. The City Council meeting is yet another forum in our community, but one that unfortunately only allows the public limited comment and no response. By the way, where did you read any comment from me about a Financial Board? Are you making things up? Perhaps it’s the Halloween spirits getting into you?
One possible idea among many to be considered by City leadership is movement over time from Defined Benefit to Defined Contribution retirement plans. Other communities have considered such planning, advanced this in negotiations with employee representatives and have put such into action. This is the type of plan, as you already know, that has great currency in the plans most taxpayers in the private economy enjoy at work, if they have a retirement plan these days. Union leaders know about them and have approved them for current workers. After all, as I have learned, unions do not represent the interests of retired employees. They are left on their own to find good info, advice and representation wherever they can.
You want details, Bob. Have a one-on-one dialogue, one expert to another. I am guessing Dave Walker would enjoy that. Whether you would or not? Time will tell.
So John,
What are the details? Are you expecting the city to ask the state to take over?
If you are then there is no need, because the city can do it itself.
Are you expecting the state to come in and take over control? Pretty drastic, don’t you think? Are there triggers; if so, what are they? And if there are, how many others cities and towns will the state have to step in and take over their finances?
And did people discuss the negative side of this type of action?
John, if you cannot answer these questions clearly and concisely, then you don’t have a clue as to what you are talking about and supporting.
Bob,
I provided one idea municipalities have used during the past 20 years to limit long-term structural liabilities. The idea has been advanced in union negotiations and accepted as part of deals that are struck. You know that already. You know the specifics of such deals transfer the risks of mortality and investment gains from the shoulders of the taxpayers to the employees. Those are specifics. You do not need to go to the state for that, do you?
The City negotiators can do this all by themselves. Always could, but do we ever hear any ideas like that surfaced in Budget and Appropriations or any other City venue? Bob, you are becoming so “past” it is a tragedy. How does it feel when you have to ask what was covered at a meeting you were able to attend, but chose not to?
In the post below, written earlier in the day, you raise the specter of union busting. I have used the word negotiating throughout. Union members elect leaders. Leaders negotiate contracts at timely intervals that include many items. Union members get to vote on changes. Is that clued-in enough for you, Troll? Time will tell.
Hey Ron,
Let’s not forget privatization. Another form of union busting. Another form of extracting concessions. Another form of taking away benefits earned through collective bargaining.
Bob, that’s really the bottom line of David Walker, “privatization” and union busting.
In some cases, privatization is a good idea. Get rid of the trades who basically do nothing and still collect union wages year ’round unlike their counterparts in construction. Do we need three masons, painters, a load of electricians, pipe fitters and such? Most of these jobs are for the politically connected. Just look at the millions of dollars JML and I found hidden in the last three years of the city budget. Our complaints fell on deaf ears.
The unions of today are clueless, half the unions were quick to give the mayor givebacks and the rest just dragged their feet. The unions who dragged their feet gave nothing and the weak unions PAID UP.
So I take it you were always a supporter of a volunteer Fire Department in the city of B’port?
Bob, stop acting like a moron. If you did any work while you were on the council you would know I am right. Do you think two city plumbers should cost us $175,000 per year not counting benefits? There is nothing wrong with looking into privatization in certain areas. If it works, fine; if it doesn’t, fine but look at least.
Andy Fardy, do we need three deputy chiefs on the fire department and the same for the police?
Ron, of course you don’t need three deputies, in the case of the PD I think they have more than three. These deputies should not be in the union and should serve at the pleasure of the chief. What you have cited is just one example of looking at all departments, and making changes where necessary is not necessarily a bad thing.
Playing devil’s advocate is a traditional way of testing points of view. I sense though, Ron and Bob are not making an effort, or are not capable of understanding what Dave Walker is trying to get across.
The Financial Review Board was included in the special act that was adopted to address Bridgeport’s fiscal and financial management problems as the oversight in guaranteeing the $58 million in bonds to cover accumulated debt. The city was required to adopt Generally Accepted Accounting Principles.
The city also had the Management Advisory Committee, consisting of representatives from local businesses (most of which are now gone) reviewing city operations to address ways to make them more effective and efficient.
What I sense Dave Walker is warning us about is the consequences of forgetting tough lessons that were learned.
I have seen JML become more frustrated with the city council as it has become evident they are not up to the task of overseeing the city’s budget.
I am not convinced an oversight arrangement with powers the Financial Review Board had is in order; but strong, responsible leadership by the mayor and city council can be just as effective. I agree with Dave Walker. This political organization that runs the city has no intent or desire to make the tough decisions to address problems.
Instead, the mayor talks about his green initiatives while the city council attends junkets and finds ways to spend their $9,000 annual stipends.
JML tries to explain to city council members what they need to focus on when he addresses them prior to their meetings. What do they do? Award more citations and truncate council matters into a consent calendar.
Tom White, you said, “The city also had the Management Advisory Committee, consisting of representatives from local businesses (most of which are now gone) reviewing city operations to address ways to make them more effective and efficient,” yes, people like People’s Bank David Carson but also what came out of all of this was a “master plan” of what the City needed to do in different departments. For example, the fire department made a number of big changes like manpower, the size of fire hose, buying better-performing fire engines and ladder trucks. These improvement greatly improved the department. The question now is, has there been any follow-up to see if the master plan did what it was supposed to do and does it have to be updated and what is the process. We don’t have to reinvent the wheel.
Right on, Ron. Follow-up, monitoring, oversight, watchdogging? Did the folks who put the PLAN together forget to stick around to take these actions? Did they see those duties falling to others like Fire Commission members or Department officials themselves? Did they suggest any changes to the Charter to assure more attention to planning and execution? Or did they just leave it to the City Council and other elected leaders as a responsibility? And when others seem to ignore that responsibility or assume it is not their job, what happens when someone like me comes along and reminds them? You know what happens, they resent it, and tell you so you can be a mouthpiece for elected representatives who are at the forefront of current attention to the big picture, to past plans, to best practices, and in the meantime have terminated their only staff, fail to use money in their OTHER SERVICES budget year in and year out to get assistance for them as a body, and become mostly irrelevant as a body purporting to represent the people of the City.
So some fell by the wayside in the last Council election. And some who were elected are absent at many meetings (even when they say here to the meeting chair) as well as truly absent at too many others. And then at least one other has put his future in jeopardy for other reasons that will cause him to lose focus on the broader City issues. Looks like there are plenty of positions coming up one year from now for fresh faces, energy and courage. Time will tell.
Tom,
I understand it completely. I do not think either David Walker or John Marshall Lee understand anything from a practical point of view.
If their solution CANNOT happen (no legal basis) or WILL NOT happen (no political way to make it happen), it is not a solution. Plain and simple.
And why would the city of Bridgeport voluntarily take a course of action that would put it at a competitive disadvantage when compared to other cities and towns in the state?
I get it, Tom. It is DW and JML who don’t.
And to suggest the city finances are the same as the city of Detroit is simply a Republican scare tactic that does not exist.
Bob,
From a practical point of view, what is your solution to any of the problems, issues or concerns facing us in Bridgeport, and more specifically, the ones you attack?
For several years, I have become a student of City structure, rules, processes and practices and find many not observed or correct as to how they came to be or were authorized. I have looked for a sheriff to deal with the issues on more than one occasion. Finding none sufficiently aroused, I have continued to speak to the Council on matters they, as are focused representatives of the people, should be concerned about. There has been a change at the last election and some of the newer members appreciate the connections I make in my addresses to their body. To others on the Council, especially those who are connected by City jobs to following Mayoral wishes on legislative matters, I appear a waste of time, someone to be ignored. However, as the learning becomes more widespread and assuming a Hennessy bill passes in the near future providing a better chance for Bridgeport to learn how unconflicted public service may look, all of us as voters, taxpayers and neighbors concerned about the future may come together in better agreement about how to get to the future.
Some of our fiscal metrics as a City surpass Stockton CA as was mentioned on Thursday evening. We are not yet as stressed as Detroit but what quantitative metrics in the City would you look to, Bob Walsh, to let us know things are improving? The Mayor would have us looking at Color Charts where GREEN trumps all other colors! And you accuse others of scare tactics when you yourself refuse to get specific? Bob, what do you think the latest Vision Government Solutions valuation turned up as a Net Taxable Grand List number? And what would that do to the Mil Rate? More importantly, what does it reflect in the decrease in wealth of homeowners in Bridgeport? What are you doing to inform the public with your broad-based experience and education? Time will tell.
Bob Walsh is losing his political relevancy. Here’s why: one minute he’s “confused” and the next he “understands completely.” He feels strongly both ways. But if he wants transparency, he should grab a box of Saran Wrap.