General Lee’s White Paper On City Council Stipends

Most City Council members grimace when they see John Marshall Lee, and his bow tie, step up during legislative sessions. To them, he’s a major pain in the ass addicted to asking tough questions. God forbid council members be subjected to questions about the half-billion dollar budget they will vote on as a full body Monday night. Lee, who has attended nearly all sessions of the Budget and Appropriations Committee, weighs in with his latest commentary that includes insight about Tom White, a council legislative staffer, who’d like to reform the way the council conducts business.

Reconciling Budget Numbers, a Concern?

Wednesday evening May 3 saw a quorum of B&A reviewing the Registrar of Voters budget as well as the Legislative department budget that is their own budget. Getting the 6:00 PM meeting started around 6:30 PM (with no transcriber present as in most budget deliberations), the ROV budget was thoroughly poked and prodded. Registrar Santa Ayala provided good and satisfactory answers to the many questions and then she and her Republican counterpart, Linda Grace, left.

Thomas White, a Bridgeport resident, former Common Council member and in recent years a Bridgeport employee serving as Legislative Assistant to the Council, presented a special report along with his comments on the submitted Legislative budget itself. B.O.B. observed neither the Department goals nor objectives report for the current year nor goals for the coming year were included in this year’s report. Inasmuch as the Legislative group reviews all department budgets, that omission seems unusual at best. The fact the Legislative budget contains a vacant position, stipend allocations go unspent, and Other Expense line item generally is unspent was covered. (These “ghost items” could be Council-initiated cuts amounting to $200,000 without blinking. What is the practical justification for not cutting in difficult times? That subject was not discussed.)

Much of the review centered on the subject of Council stipends. A City ordinance authorizes whatever sum is placed in the Council Stipend budget line item ($180,000 in recent years) is divided into 20 shares for quarterly reimbursement to Council persons for expenses incurred in their legislative duties. White was disturbed in that his access to certain reports is limited so when he assists a Council person in applying for direct payment of an upcoming expense (counter to ordinance procedure) he gets no report the request is being handled as requested and placed in the correct Council account. To be ignoring the specific language of an ordinance while being responsible to a Council person request, but unable to determine whether it is handled appropriately seemed to be a major concern.

Several Council persons seemed as frustrated as White was in getting the real concerns out on the table and discussed. I raised my hand but was not recognized (because of Council and Committee rules) as I had something material to add to the discussion. I shall report the information below and probably heighten the concern of all Council members and the public as well.

The Legislative budget indicates the actual expense of stipends in 2011 was $114,000. Stipends are not salaries so they are not paid in the City payroll system. The alternative method of providing City funds is through a purchase order with correct authorizations. I referred to the list of Purchasing Orders for 2011 and found that General Stipends-City Council (Code 967) was listed in three departments: Finance ($15,564) Tax Assessor ($11,141) and Legislative ($13,828) for a total of $40,633. I raise a first problem in that the total of purchase orders is significantly different from the $114,000 2011 Actual Expense recorded in the Mayor’s budget. How can that be? What is the explanation? There is room for concern and prompt research.

Perhaps there is some miscoding going on? And indeed there probably is because the Assessor’s office was using the Council Stipend line item to make payments to Richard DeParle, Robert Half International, John Mariani, Jr., Conn Newspaper, Universal Business, and John Olson (previous to his election as a Council person). Perhaps these payments are an example of incorrect coding? But if they are, and belong elsewhere as 2011 expenses, the total to or for Council members is even less than the $40,633 reported above.

The Legislative purchase orders show only three entries for the year and they do not appear as “reimbursements” to specific Council persons: National League $3,650, MVP Denver $9,188, and Village Initiative $1,000, perhaps reinforcing the concern expressed by Thomas White. How do these purchase orders reconcile with specific Council person records? I guess I am confused in that money budgeted is from Legislative budget but the spending is recorded with other departments. Isn’t that confusing? The Finance Department entries indicate payments to specific Council persons for a total of $15,664.02.

Something appears amiss in the reporting of Council Stipends and that should be researched promptly for future reference. If Council members wish to be seen as practicing OPEN, ACCOUNTABLE and TRANSPARENT governance, shouldn’t they start with their own financial reporting? The Ordinance about purchase orders passed nine years ago (but practically ignored since then) needs to be carried out as a part of internal control with an annual report of all purchase orders. It is a worthy source of information to be studied by the Council in its deliberations and available to the public in the City Clerk office.

And while I salute Councilman Curwen, who has been looking for additional revenues to assist the City in paying for budget items and avoiding tax increases, the most important action for B&A is to cut, in the claimed fashion of Mayor Finch, those items like “ghost positions” and “ghost expenses.” They can start with their own budget and reduce it by $200,000. That would certainly show they are paying attention by starting at home. Time will tell.