City Attorney Mark Anastasi’s interpretation of the City Charter is always a fascinating study. Mark claims it’s okay for city employees to serve on the City Council in clear violation of the City Charter because a loophole in state law allows the conflict of interest, despite legal rulings communities cannot be permitted to use state law as a pretext to ignore their charters. Tonight (Monday) the Board of Education is scheduled to debate what law firms will be allowed to bid for school board business. School board Chair Sauda Baraka argues reasonably the board wants to avoid conflicts of interest so no lawyers who do business with the city. Hold on a minute, argues Anastasi, the charter gives me full authority for hiring law firms.
“We have to make sure they represent the Board of Education solely and no one else,” Baraka is quoted in a CT Post story.
“You’d be shocked at the number of firms who do work with the city,” Anastasi enlightened, warning “We have a role in this. If the city attorney doesn’t agree, the contract doesn’t get signed.”
The city each year spends millions of dollars in outside legal fees even though Anastasi’s City Attorney’s Office fields a staff of 12 lawyers. Legal work from the school board budget can be worth millions of dollars. The school board recently parted ways with the local firm Durant, Nichols, Houston, Hodgson & Cortese-Costa it had used for decades for a variety of legal matters in favor of securing new bids from firms.
A standoff is in motion. The local school board is contemplating legal action against the state Board of Education’s vote to approve two new charter schools in Bridgeport. Board members who support a legal challenge don’t want a law firm Anastasi could potentially have his hooks into. Anastasi is “city attorney” in name but in actuality he’s the “mayor’s attorney.” It does not matter the mayor, be it Joe Ganim, John Fabrizi or now Bill Finch, Anastasi serves at the pleasure of the mayor and proudly crafts arguments to suit their legal needs.
Finch is at odds with the current school board leadership suspicious of charter schools potentially siphoning money from the school district. Finch supports charter schools. Finch supports school choice. Finch’s critics, particularly those opposed to his support of the state takeover of city schools in 2011 that was overturned by the Connecticut Supreme Court, claim if he had his way schools would be on a path to privatization.
A pro-charter school group, Families for Excellent Schools, will conduct a news conference at 6 p.m. prior to the school board meeting at the Aquaculture School, 60 St. Stephen’s Road to address the potential legal action by the Bridgeport Board of Education, and FES’ request for public documents from the city school board.
The pending request for public documents, according to FES, relates to a new charter school moratorium that the school board approved in March. The FOI request was made by FES parents more than one week ago under the provisions of the Freedom of Information Act.
Both items are on the agenda for the Board of Education that is scheduled to start at 6:30.
School board agenda here.
The Mayor’s 2015 budget appeared to increase the BOE funding by $9.8 Million. Only $1.6 Million of those funds were SUPPORTIVE CONTRIBUTIONS that I assume to be cash contributions. So if the “minimum budget requirement” known and understood by OPM Director Tom Sherwood for many years was looking for cash, the entry of $8.6 Million IN KIND was a known non-starter. However, to new BOE members and a new education professional as Interim Superintendent, this last minute undiscussed and unreviewed presentation by the Mayor was outrageous and certainly not in keeping with any comments about either education or funding of same as important to the Finch administration.
What many still do not remember is Finch and Sherwood did this last year when they failed to fund the MBR. So the State was consulted and a two-year approach was negotiated and supposedly agreed to: $800,000 of Internal Service Fund expense for Worker’s Compensation + $1.2 Million added in cash from the City + $1.2 Million from the State would be forthcoming in the year ending June 30, 2014. That is fast approaching and the funding is not complete because the State required the City to agree in writing to also fund the 2015 MBR.
The City has reneged on that up to this moment and their renege has caused the balancing of 2014 to come into jeopardy. And failure to settle the agreement including adequate MBR for 2015 puts the State in a position of providing some “consequences” to the City (although many say that is unlikely in a gubernatorial election year). If that is what Bill Finch is counting on, then things must be very desperate with City money.
You see, GHOST EXPENSES, that have been revealed by Budget Oversight Bridgeport for several years reveal padding of annual budgets for several years by enough funds to meet the school needs stated above. What’s the problem?? Those surplus funds get spent elsewhere. But where? Well, you will have to look at the June 2013 FINAL AUDITED Monthly Report to see some of those places.
That report is the first time in more than two decades you can get a partial look at the money maze. That report also showed REVENUE anomalies, like the $510,000 DISCOVERED by the Controller’s office during the audit in the MISCELLANEOUS CASH line item. Where did it come from? No one has answered that question, I have asked the City Council on several occasions. In the budget for 2015, the $510,000 is listed in the identical Line Item number, but now it is titled, COPIES. Can you believe it?
The FINAL REPORT FOR JUNE, 2013 also showed the City Council spending over $30,000 for personally directed outlays of taxpayer funds to City non-profit organizations. No referral to a Committee. No Committee discussions in minutes. Raw power exercised with the people’s money, and then not present in the DRAFT JUNE report available on August 9, 2013, but we had to wait for contributions made in June to show up in January 2014. Raw attempt to keep this illegal action by some Council members, in a year with primaries and Council election, SECRET!!! Do you think any of the Council is talking about this publicly? Has the newspaper raised the issue yet? NO. Does anybody have the stomach to protest? Do you think further review of the 2013 expenditures might show activity and behavior with public money that is irresponsible and perhaps illegal?
So returning to our BOE budget this month, the City has more than $6 Million of employment positions open in April 2014. Freeze the current status. At least $6 Million plus benefits becomes available for the schools MBR. Now the City Council can also cut their budget by $150,000 by combining reductions in Stipends and Other Services. And we can check with the real revenue from Grants for Lighthouse/Afterschool to reduce the City share. Where are the numbers that would support one or more departments (like Small Business Employment) in times of financial difficulty or InPlant Printing in terms of reducing expense and therefore the need for tax increases? And listen carefully for the reason we had a $2 Million Attrition number in the current year, but nothing this year. Time will tell.
Great detective work, JML!
So do something other than complain, John.
This should be mandatory reading for both the Budget Committee and every member of the City Council. The lack of fiscal restraint in everything but the education budget is outrageous. The mayor continues to spend on his staff and his agenda while daily reminding us of his children who attend Bridgeport schools, daily insisting education is his top priority (next to making us all green of course), and he won’t even fund the minimum budget requirement for the BOE. Not last year and apparently not this year.
The in-kind sleight-of-hand trick doesn’t work now, it never has. Not to mention it isn’t legal (which of course has never been a bother to the Finch administration). This budget is an affront, a slap in the face to taxpayers and to people who actually do care about educating children. So far the Budget Committee hasn’t shown much depth of interest in really taking this issue on–last year’s tax increase, contrary to what they all said, was not a victory for anyone but Finch. They’ve had a year to hire a consultant and haven’t and so far are dead silent on this year’s budget.
I suppose it is too much to expect this year will be any different. But hope springs eternal and … time will tell.
Amen!
The issue and the biggest roadblock is City Attorney Mark Anastasi’s interpretation of the City Charter and NOBODY is addressing that point.
Ron, when you are right, you are right. Excellent point.
Anastasi needs to go and the entire City Attorney’s office needs to be reorganized. It is either the most political or most incompetent department in the city–or both. Blow it up and start over. Couldn’t cost more than what we’re paying in settlements over Finch administration-induced lawsuits and/or the outside counsel bills.
John Marshall Lee–excellent muckraking and explanation … true to your O.A.T. principles. Thank you.
Mayor Finch in March 2014 to the State Appropriations Committee:
“The worst part about my job is putting my kids on a bus every morning to a failing school … We have a broken system of financing our state. Most of our budgets are incredibly fixed, so the discretionary money we have is extraordinarily small.”
Source: CT Post “Big-city mayors seek more state aid” Mar 19, 2014
www .ctpost.com/news/article/Big-city-mayors-seek-more-state-aid-5331217.php
And yet …
Connecticut’s Education Cost Sharing Formula:
“Three requirements apply to towns receiving state ECS grants. The first is that they spend their entire ECS grant for education. The second is that they not use an increase in their ECS grant in any year to supplant local funding for education (the nonsupplant requirement). The third is the MBR. The MBR requires towns to budget at least a minimum amount for education in each fiscal year.” (Office of Legislative Research)
In a 2013 story in the CT Post, when Mayor Finch met with the Connecticut Post’s editorial board he “criticized the state’s minimum budget requirement” saying:
“Why is there an MBR? The assumption is the only way you can get my kids to have a better education is just keep pouring more money on it … That’s the craziest thing I ever heard.”
Source: jonathanpelto.com/2013/04/26/mayor-bill-finch-asks-wait-what-connecticuts-school-funding-laws-apply-to-us/
Ron, the charter is clear but what Anastasi states is not. In actuality Anastasi and the incompetents (12) should be taken to court over these rulings.
The budget and appropriations committee will maybe make minor cuts to the budget. We must remember the budget co-chairs have a lot riding on making Finch’s budget pass just as Finch wants it to pass.
Brannelly’s sister runs the nutrition center, her brother-in-law works in labor relations at $91K. I believe there is one more relative hiding in the weeds. Marella’s wife works for the lighthouse program, his nephew is council person Paoletto who also works for the city. Marella’s PAL organization gets CBG grants. Marella draws a salary from PAL so how much do you expect these two co-chairs to do that would cut the budget and prevent a tax increase?
Lennie,
Charter schools are not a form of school choice. Charter schools and vouchers are a form of privatization of our public schools. Here is a post from Diane Ravitch, the author’s name is Michael Fiorillo.
dianeravitch.net/2014/04/27/michael-fiorillo-reformers-game-plan/
The Final Solution to the Teacher Question:
– Proclaim austerity for the public schools, while continuing to expand charters.
– Create incentives for non-educators to be in positions of power, from Assistant Principal on up.
– Maintain a climate of scapegoating and witch hunting for “bad teachers,” who are posited as the cause of poverty and student failure, doing everything possible to keep debate from addressing systemic inequities.
– Neutralize and eventually eliminate teacher unions (the first part largely accomplished in the case of the AFT). As part of that process, eliminate tenure, seniority and defined benefit pensions.
– Create and maintain a climate of constant disruption and destabilization, with cascading mandates that are impossible to keep up or comply with.
– Create teacher evaluations based on Common Core-related high stakes tests for which no curriculum has been developed. Arbitrarily impose cut scores on those exams that cast students, teachers and schools as failing, as was done by NYS Education Commissioner John King and Regent Meryl Tisch.
– Get teachers and administrators, whether through extortion (see RttT funding) threats or non-stop propaganda, to accept the premises of “data-driven” everything, even when that data is irrelevant, opaque, contradictory, or just plain wrong.
– Get everyone to internalize the premises and language of so-called education reform:
– Parents are not citizens with rights, but “customers” who are provided “choices” that are in fact restricted to the decisions of those in charge, based on policies developed by an educational industrial complex made up of foundations, McKinsey-type consultants and captive academics.
– Students are “valuable assets” and “products,” whose value is to be enhanced (see the definition of VAM) before being offered to employers.
– Teachers are fungible units of “human capital,” to be deployed as policy-makers and management see fit. Since human capital depreciates over time, it needs to be replaced by fresh capital, branded as “the Best and Brightest.”
– Schools are part of an investment “portfolio,” explicitly including the real estate they inhabit, and are subject to the “demands” of the market and the preferences of policy-makers and management.
– Create an intimidating, punitive environment, where the questions and qualms are either disregarded or responded to with threats.
– Get the university education programs on board under threat of continuing attack. Once they are on board, go after them anyway, and deregulate the teacher licensing process so that it’s easier to hire temps.
– Eliminate instruction that is deemed irrelevant to the most narrowly-cast labor market needs of employers, getting rid of art, music, dance, electives, etc., thereby reducing the focus of education to preparation for passive acceptance of low-wage employment.
– Embed software and electronic gadgets in every facet of the classroom and school, from reading to test-taking, with the intention of automating as much classroom input and output as possible.
– Use the automation of the classroom to enlarge class size – something explicitly promoted by Bill Gates – and transform teachers into overseers of student digital production that is connected to massive databases, so that every keystroke is data to be potentially monetized.
– Cash your bonus checks, exercise your stock options, and declare Excellence and Civil Rights achieved.
Thanks for posting this. It lets people see one of the problems in education. When you are talking about money there is nothing that is impossible. When you are talking about accountability there is nobody you can point to. A true governmental paradox.
‘Austerity for the public schools,’ really? I would be happy if the only thing they did was teach kids to read. Looking at ALL the things schools can do is putting the cart before the horse. How about starting with what they should do. Schools have found so much stuff to do the three Rs are no longer important. Imagine, the garbage man sweeps the walk, mows the grass and shovels the snow. Will anyone notice the garbage isn’t getting picked up?
A good teacher does not a good administrator make.
‘A climate of scapegoating’; didn’t an entire maintenance crew get transferred because the reason the kids were not learning was the school was not clean enough? Isn’t this article about how $10 mil out of $250 mil is going to ruin education? I thought Vallas ruined education. Or, is it charters? Newsflash, organized public education has been really bad for 10-15 years now, and getting worse and more expensive. Isn’t this entire list just scapegoating?
Eliminate tenure, seniority and defined-benefit pensions: no one does this anymore. BTW–tenure (ten year) really only takes four years.
Students are product. The idea of education is to have an educated workforce. School mantras were’if you don’t get a good education you won’t get a good job’ for years. Have we changed that now?
Schools are a part of an investment “portfolio.” How many people do not move to BPT because of the schools? When push comes to shove, teachers are employees. Yes, it is hard when your boss tells you to do stuff but teachers are still employees. Parents/students can have rights and be customers/consumers at the same time.
The rest goes on in the same tone. She lists a lot of things that are going to make education worse. Like you can do that. Excluding the mo’ money argument, she doesn’t give very many ideas on how to improve it. She seems to be against privatizing education. Even though we have had ‘private schools’ for a long time, none of these arguments have come up before. Public education has been slipping for a long time and they had a long time to do something, but they didn’t. Now, someone else is going to do something and they don’t like it. Sorry, but you had your chance.
Ironically, she closes with ‘Cash your bonus checks, exercise your stock options, and declare Excellence and Civil Rights achieved.’ Enjoy your 8% raise.
You guys are all beating the right bedding, but you’re missing the bug.
Law firms are marvelous hires to do things legally while siphoning off all sorts of money for themselves and political supporters of the powers-that-be. The important thing is to have it done legally. It is important to have the legal rep to make all this stuff right. That’s worth zillions. You can’t hire some chump with a shingle on East Main Street. The politicians count on this stuff being done right. The bankers count on it, accountants count on it, other lawyers count on it.
You would think lawyers would go bats over one law firm getting a big contract when they don’t. They do. But if things are handled well, enough crumbs–hell, sometimes whole sides of beef–fall off the table so everybody eats.
Sauda Baraka is messing with one of the primal forces that moves the Bridgeport universe. She must be stopped. She is setting up a separate power center with the funding and legal advice to do it–if she gets the right law firm.
Anyone know what law firm she wants?
Jim Callahan, so the BOE and the City Council should just go along with whatever Mark tells them and that’s it?
I know the firm’s name is Dewey, Cheatham and Howe.
I am putting my money on Attorney Norm Pattis. Remember him?
www .ctpost.com/local/article/Critics-dispute-Vallas-qualifications-4587721.php
BOE SPY, you have said something I agree with.
In that case I should play the lottery today. Something must be wrong with the space/time continuum.
BOE SPY, hey, even a broke clock is right twice a day.
LOL.
I hope it’s not Howe, Dewey, & Cheatham. Just a little OIB humor.
Shipman & Goodwin LLP.
If I were Finch, or the next mayor, I would give the BOE the $250 mil plus $20 mil and all the in-kind services for free. This WILL mean a tax increase but it is what we need for good schools. Time to bite the BOE bullet. Close all the charter schools and force everyone to go to the regular BPT schools. No more BOE excuses. No more scapegoating. Do or die. I would like to see how that works out. I foresee better schools and, correspondingly, higher property values (not).
Ron:
The victory of Sauda’s faction on the Board of Ed is not only a challenge to the control by the PERSONALITIES of the mayor and Democratic Party.
It is not just: “Aha! We beat Mayor Finch’s people. We beat Mario Testa’s people.”
By winning, they get to set POLICIES.
This can mean more than just what school books the district buys and picking administrators to manage education of students.
This gives them influence over choosing legal counsel. It spreads out from there into a bunch of activities under the budget of the school district.
The city attorney’s directives have weight. The city attorney is the mayor’s representative. The mayor is the chief executive of the city.
But the Board of Ed can push back. They can say no. They have weight as well. How far? Dunno.
I’m curious to see if the Board of Ed knows how to use their authority within the political system. They wanted to upset the status quo of the school district’s educational policies as much as they mayor did. Everyone agrees the outcomes–an education–fails for many students.
The Finch administration and new Board of Ed have a conflict on how they should go about those changes.
The legal counsel issue unscrews the lid on a host of relationships involving the city and professional communities that have contracts on a bunch of other stuff that has nothing to do with test scores.
This dog is usually left sleeping.
Jim Callahan, what about the separation of power, the mayor is the Executive Branch and the City Council is the Legislative Branch and the BOE is a kingdom unto itself, so what gives the mayor’s attorney the right to tell the Legislative Branch and the BOE what they can and cannot do?
The judicial branch (supreme court) often tells the executive and the legislative branches what they can and cannot do. Lest we forget: separate but equal, women’s suffrage, Roe vs Wade.
www .youtube.com/watch?v=YMY6lOVjQgs
Notice: We have a ringmaster like Barnum, a bunch of clowns and the animal trainers. That is how government works.
BOE SPY, but the Executive Branch does not tell the Judicial Branch what to do like Mark does as the mayor’s attorney. In Bridgeport you really don’t need the City Council the way things work here, they are just an extension of the mayor’s office.
From my observation, maybe the Board of Ed is gonna have to lawyer up to fight the mayor. The BoE is fighting the establishment. It will not cede power in Bridgeport. Never has.