When it comes to city finances, citizen budget reviewer John Marshall Lee proclaims the City Council should embrace a healthy dose of skepticism in what is presented to the body during a compressed budget cycle. It’s a point he made in his Monday night remarks to the council. From Lee:
City Council members. you are in the midst of a difficult task, appraising City services to see whether budget appropriations for City wide services are reasonable and affordable to residents.
You are basically dependent on the City administration to provide you with all info to complete your Charter tasks including passing a Capital Budget and an Operating Budget. Since your fiscal review and monitoring throughout the fiscal year is minimal, it puts pressure on your activity in this 30-40 day period and therefore on the data and reports produced for you by the City.
The taxpaying public is provided with NO useful CAPITAL BUDGET information though your APPROVAL of bonding projects worth $40 Million will commit taxpayers to an increased debt load. What should you be receiving, reviewing in session and sharing with the taxpaying public in a collegial manner before you vote, indeed before last week’s poorly attended Capital Budget hearing? What year round assistance should you calendar so as to receive information from which you can make good decisions? If you feel that you are in a pot that is on the fire once again this year, how will you provide for next year right away? Or will you cut your Legislative budget by 50-90% of your Other Services budget because you do not need it? Or cut your Stipends in a spirit of taxpayer understanding?
Why do you fail to review some City departments? When did such a decision get made and why? This year the budget writers have not wished to change the format for your ease in review. Fair enough. But did any of you note what has been removed that would have been helpful to your operating budget task?
· For years now, there has been a one-page chart that accompanies the Mayor’s Transmittal Letter directly in front of Accounting Policies. No chart with employee totals was included this year yet there have been several significant reformations of department management and supervision, with some employment modifications. Are there more or fewer full time City employees within this year’s proposed budget? Can you tell?
· Aside from BOE flat-funding with which you may have to wrestle as the largest employee numbers are located in that budget. However, when you look at the Police Department (and the ten divisions separately enumerated) the total number showing is 478 Filled and 18 Vacant. You know the listing is not accurate because the CT Post continues to show the Department is down over 100 personnel! And we will not get to this number in FY 2017 either. Why is the Police Administration (Code 01250) missing from page 111 with no title or employment number detail for officers provided?
· Why is all personnel data for the Appropriation Summary on Narcotics and Vice also missing?
· Critically important to you, why was the format provided in the FY 2015-16 presentation that included: FTE 2015, FTE 2016, Vacant, New, and Unfilled not provided for 2017 your understanding when reviewing?
· Did you notice on Page 118, at the top of the page where the Police Administration totals are posted, that City expenses jumped from Actual 2015 $27,455,025 to budgeted 2016 $40,342,055 (where we already have spent almost $32 Million in nine months) and the Mayor is asking for FY 2017 $53,590,904?? Overtime, Pension Plan Normal Cost, and MERS pension amortization plus retirement payouts from City contracts place us here. Did anyone who was on the City Council several years ago realize that the cost of moving Public Safety to MERS would hit the City as it has? Isn’t now the time to review all alternatives or find other dollars to cut?
· On Page 87 Other Personnel Services and Fringe Benefits in the Pensions/Benefits Department with no employees listed shows an increase of $1,160,000 but there is no narrative, no goals and certainly no successes for this department listed.
· What if the State revenues decrease from what was expected two weeks ago? What if you decide additional funds must go to the BOE? Alternatively has anyone asked what would happen to each Department if they had to reduce budgets by 10%? Cost cutting?
· Economic Development to taxpayers is measured by a fair and just Grand List process. I direct your attention to the data in the Tax Assessor report on page 49. Are you prepared to explain the final column for 2015-16 to your constituents with the asterisks and negative increase of $1.08 Billion?We continue in a “red boot era.” Time will tell.
When you look at how the Police Department (and Fire Department) contracts from 2012 or thereabouts were finally settled, the biggest change seems to have been the transfer of City employees–police and fire–to the State of CT for future retirement benefits (which can increase pensions significantly for those who have built up lots of Overtime, in three years to create a factor on which the actual retirement income will be based.
It will be costing us tens of millions to the State for extra benefits, and they are not cutting us any slack on contributions. Finch used to run to the State for “permission” to kick payments further into the future on funding the City B Plans for public safety employees, yet the City plans were in pretty good shape.
Anyone revolted when the truth shows up on our doorstep on the significant increases in Public Safety funding? Police Administration by itself almost doubling from 2015 to proposed 2017. An increased of $26 Million. OPEN, ACCOUNTABLE, TRANSPARENT and HONEST? Time will tell.
I often compare the current situation to a time when there were educated, capable people on the city council who were up to the task JML has described.
Perhaps more of a factor is the loss of lessons learned while Bridgeport’s finances were scrutinized by the State-appointed Financial Review Board.
The FRB influenced more than the finances of Bridgeport city government. It influenced the ability for Bridgeport to assume much of what they did, such as scrutinizing budget details that JML has raised. How? It influenced charter revision of 1993. Minimum qualifications (education, work experience) for members of the city council could not be established, but it did allow for the creation of an ‘Office of Legislative Services’ to gather information and advise the council members on non-legal matters including the budget.
As JML has pointed out, this arrangement was adopted, only to be dismantled by McCarthy, some self-proclaimed budget experts on the city council and the usual assortment of obedient lackeys.
So once again the city council is taking about hiring an expert to assist them to review the city budget. Well, isn’t that special? When was the bid shared on bid sync? Are the results of the bid in? What has the city council done for (as usual) the last several months? Have they been reviewing the monthly reports?
Maybe they should sit down with JML so he can review what he has been sharing with them.