There’s much doom and gloom in the media over Governor Dannel Malloy’s Plan B budget that eliminates thousands of union workers from government service and rips funding from cities and towns. The Malloy budget approved by the state’s legislative body assumed massive union concessions. State bargaining units have thus far balked. For Mayor Bill Finch the state budget that passed with a mighty contribution toward the city’s education and grant funding is an election-year godsend that allows him to hold the line on taxes.
The city’s budget, like most municipal budgets in the state, is a done deal except for a possible tweak from the mayor before the formality of the City Council setting a final mil rate. But what if the unions really hold firm and Malloy presses on with Plan B? Yikes. The shift would come in the form of municipalities spreading the pain in the combination of layoffs and tax increases.
In the past two years the mayor certainly was successful in scaring unions into significant concessions with regard to health care costs. Can Malloy do the same? My sense is the unions and governor will find a way. But if they don’t and Malloy slashes community funding it could get ugly.
The rank and file must approve any concessions! They will not give up their pay plus get hit with an increase of State taxes on top of the concession. This State is in for a world of hurt along with the Park City. The citizens will soon have to take action into their own hands, because the politicians have shown they are totally incapable of economic common sense!!!
My sense is there will be a compromise. = The unions will meet the governor most of the way but not all the way. The governor will find a way to fill the remaining budget gap just like Tom Sherwood did with the City’s $8m. Life will go on.
Lennie,
Interesting OP-ED in the CT Post today: On to ‘Plan B’ — where we should have started, by Chris Powell, managing editor of the Journal Inquirer in Manchester.
Some other wisdom in that article. Suggest to you it is worth reading. Just think about it. Did Finch go to the wall with our local unions in negotiations? How would we know? Because he says 200 employees have been cut during his term? Permanent cut or temporary cut? Gross or net figure? (When you learn about “Finchspeak,” you look for the detail that is missing.) What about the new F.O.B. group whose competence is frequently questioned? Where are they included? And what about the large number of vacant positions mentioned by tc with benefits that were approved by the Council? Room to maneuver with dollars that won’t be accountable for a long time, if ever!
And see the connection Powell calls to our attention that has the State providing permission to the City to waive at least $25 Million from the minimum actuarial annual funding for Pension Plan A (but not stepping in to pay for it) and then we have to request an FOI to see how the State is supervising City behavior in this regard with missed April 1 deadlines in both 2010 and 2011 and a nine-page essay from Mike Feeney that does not indicate the “Plan” the City has to deal with the oncoming General Fund train wreck!!!
The linkage between the State and the municipalities is critical to understand. And to see Finch had no Plan A to execute last year at budget time. So he created his own Plan B scenario to fund his seeming deficit budget, but never gave us a look at his Plan C, D, or even the F Plan (for failure) that would have been required were the local citizenry (or the B & A Committee) wise enough to question the obligations for retirees, both Pension and healthcare under OPEB.
The actual facts, the trends, the closed-door conversations that have shaped our City policy “to lower property taxes” or maintain them (today, but raise them to higher rates for residents very soon) to gain voter support for 2011 as uncovered will allow people to understand how misrepresentations, half-truths and outright lies damage an administration.
*** Nightmare on Main St.? *** VOTERS WAKE UP ***