As expected Thursday night the City Council overrode Mayor Joe Ganim’s veto of the budget, an exercise to buy time relying on the state to pass a budget that decides the flow of dollars to the city for the spending year that begins July 1. The state still has not passed a budget so now it’s a waiting game for city bean counters to know a clearer dollar amount coming the city’s way.
The only thing certain is taxes will not increase. The council vote was unanimous with two members not attending, Eneida Martinez and Mary McBride Lee who recently suffered a family loss.
The council action means the spending plan that it approved will be enacted for July 1.
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Lennie, what was Councilwoman Eneida Martinez reason for not attending the council meeting for this very important vote?
The only thing certain is taxes will not increase? sure!
Ganim was counting on 10 million from the state in his budget, now what?
Councilwoman Katie Bukovsky of Black Rock said taxpayers must attend budget public hearings.
For me it was a hair raising experience to see the man sitting in Mayor Joe Ganim’s seat. Looked a lot younger with darker color and an aggressive hairline movement…..it made progress, moved forward…..gave the barber more to cut.
Relative to the budget, the CC re-established their budget but took time to take some shots at the BOE members who have had deeper and real financial problems than has the City side of the budget.
Council members should attend a session of the BOE Finance to see how they work with the BOE Finance office to know the facts, understand the overall picture and make the difficult choices. Instead, several of them seemed to want a bow for voting $3 Million of funds when tens of million are in play; seemed to call foul for BOE asking Lighthouse to make a contribution for real estate used of $500,000 like any other program and mentioned how valuable the program is to (2800) youth after school and in the summer while the City Council leaves the BOE to deal with 21000 youth during the school year with no one caring enough on the Council.
Perhaps the fault is in BOE salary levels but aren’t those levels based on what professionals with the right qualifications are paid in the region? Again perhaps the problem is that City Council are not familiar with the broad and transparent financial picture that BOE offers at their site including employee positions, grants information, etc. Those are not things that can be seen by CC and taxpayers routinely for the City side of the budget. And the question is why not? Time will tell.
JML, which City Council members were taking shots at noncopensated BOE members whole they are receiving $9,000 stipends?
Maria,
Talking about BOE salary levels, especially at the top, not BOE member compensation which different from City Council creates no stipend for expenses on behalf of volunteer service, and has no accounting expense category like CC where $90,000 or so is budgeted every year but goes unspent during a year by CC and thus gets spent elsewhere (but where) and fails to be cut by CC in the next budget session. WHY?
Is there a feeling in the public, very specifically the tax paying public that there are too many highly paid positions in administration? Some say so. If it is untrue, how do you fight the attitude? Time will tell.
Our administrator’s are certified educators who must go through an extensive process to become certified. They often have masters or doctorate degrees. In addition, they are responsible for the education of hundreds if not thousands of students.
We have Ganim appointees that are former drug dealers, tax deadbeats, have no formal education or NO education.
We have John Gomes,a high level appointee who highlights a Masters Degree in Business from an online university.
We have Danny Roach who runs a dive bar earning over $120,000 per year in a no-show job in Public Facilities.
We have Acting Chief Perez, whom I like personally, who is putting in for overtime because he is only “acting”, and is clearly over his head. A great person, but clearly not ready to run the show.
These people are making between $65,000 to $125,000 annually.
Look at the debacle of the parking meters which was led in part by Gina Malheiro whose only claim to fame is planning parties.
The nerve to question the salaries of our high-level administrator’s when they have plenty of high-level incompetence within the admimistration.
Maria you wouldn’t put Fran Rabinowitz as one of BOE highly qualified administrators? BAM 🙂
Mayor Ganim and The New York Times:
“Disgraced, Re-elected and eyeing Higher Office”
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/17/nyregion/joseph-ganim-bridgeport-mayor-connecticut-governor.html?_r=0
Say It Ain’t So Joe
https://youtu.be/3HucBdnoiyE
Big Deal> Why are some people wasting hundreds of words when this was a foregone conclusion. This was a decision made early on . No increase(or decrease) in the mill rate.Any other discussion is a waste of breath.Playing abacus with a broken city is giving people false hope. You can’t squeeze anything out of a dried out sponge or whatever analogy one might attempt.
*** Off Topic : A 19yr. Fairfield P.D detective found stealing drugs from the narc. property room for over a year or so. After getting caught then arranging to get help, etc. is when he came out in public to bring awareness about drugs & the affects it has on people from all walks of life, young, old, good or bad! And when it’s not drugs it’s alcohol cause it’s legal and helps take the edge off from the everyday struggle of dealing with your job, people in general @ their worst , your own family & friends, good & evil ! ***
Stephen Rilling, 40, a 19-year veteran of the police force and the son of Norwalk’s mayor, Harry Rilling, surrendered to police Friday after being told there was a warrant for his arrest.
He was charged with third-degree computer crime, second-degree larceny, second-degree forgery, possession of narcotics, false entry by an officer or agent of a public community and tampering with evidence and later released after posting $5,000 bond pending arraignment in Superior Court in Bridgeport on June 2.
Harry Rilling is a great man.