The City Council at Monday night’s meeting is scheduled to vote on a $250,000 budget transfer for a 2016 Summer Youth Initiative that had been denied by the Budget and Appropriations Committee. Also on the agenda is a Contracts Committee report for a professional services agreement with LAZ Parking to modernize the city’s parking meter system and a proposed budget transfer of $50,000 to commence a “Second Chance Initiative.” The latter will be referred to the Budget and Appropriations Committee.
Also on the agenda is a “Budget and Appropriations Committee Report re: Approval of Tax Anticipation Notes (TANS) To Pay Current Expenses and Obligations of the City.” It has been a common practice of the city to borrow near the end of the budget year to pay operating expenses and pay off the notes as tax revenue comes in at the beginning of the new budget year starting July 1.
Full council agenda here.
It has also been a common practice to borrow more in TANS than the previous year because cash reserves keep on shrinking.
Any clue as to what we will be borrowing this year versus the previous two years?
If Ganim is correct on Finch’s budget deficit then the number should be significantly higher. If we are just cooking the books to make it look worse, then the number will be about the same. JML will tell.
Bob, thank you for your faith in my observations, but to TOTALLY understand a financial issue such as you describe, you require someone providing the numbers with which to perform the addition, or the comparison, right?
Well, matters that appear on the CC Agenda rarely provide a PRICE TAG or PRICE RANGE, and therein is a problem. The Council does not get a signal as to the fiscal meaning of each item and no one attends all the Committee meetings (not even President McCarthy though he has a prodigious appetite for those sessions, or the pizza that sometimes accompany them). So on any of the two Monday CC meetings per month, you can imagine a Council person coming in unprepared for the vote or the $$$ to be committed by their agreement. That is unfortunate, because that is not the way most Council persons live their personal lives. Careful study of the cost, and of the benefit, and of the variety of pros and cons for each item might be appropriately provided by each Council Committee when recommending a resolution, especially when there is a UNANIMOUS vote. (For instance a UNANIMOUS vote might occur because some one or two persons may not know what to do and decide to go along to get along. That is a sad state of affairs when using funds earned and paid in as taxes by fellow citizens. It is a low standard.)
Bob, there is a lot going on currently but the latest released monthly report for April show that expenses are projected to be over budget by $2.1 Million and that revenue is projected to be $4.5 Million short of budgeted. Is that the full picture? I cannot tell for sure. Under appropriations, there are so many projections shown to equal 100% of budget for spending you know will not occur. And on the summarized report it is difficult to tell where the Pension MERS and MERF payments to the State originally were shown in a line item display relative to the summarized display. Of note is Police, Fire and Emergency Operations Center continue to surpass overtime projections by $8.8 Million annually. Unfilled full time positions show surplus of $3.5 Million. It costs the City more, looking at those numbers and the pension increases to the State, to continue using OVERTIME planning, though the report is not targeted enough to tell us the problem regarding internal OT and external OT (where the City budgeted nearly $5 Million Outside Overtime Reimbursement but is now projecting 10%, or $500,000 less for the year. More study of these issues is necessary, specifically. And then, time will tell.
So John, in short we be FLUCKED!!!
Mr. John Marshall Lee, you do yeoman’s work on behalf of the people of Bridgeport. If only more could read your cogent analysis of our city’s finances. I believe you know more than anyone in the administration because you care more. THAT is the crucial difference. That YOU STILL CARE. God Bless You, JML!!!
And now we can look at youth programs in the City of Bridgeport for the summer of 2016 and ask someone to tell us what the Mayor has in mind. It is clear he wishes to spend $250,000 which sum was not in his budget, nor according to those present was not sketched out at recent budget time discussions.
I am sure dollars can be found but how will they be spent? If that seems a funny question, it is not. Normally the City Council is presented with agenda items with lots of detail (or not) but no PRICE TAG. Here’s an unusual example of a price tag presented without knowing WHO, will be working HOW LONG, at WHAT LOCATIONS, with WHAT YOUTH POPULATIONS, supplementing EXISTING PROGRAMS IN PLACE. Doesn’t this seem last-minute and weak? Since January I have been asking where are Mayor Ganim’s priorities or TO DO list. It is only when you have such and observe and support good initiatives that you can see whether TRANSPARENCY and ACCOUNTABILITY are in operation. And continue to look for OPEN and HONEST governance where the Mayor can speak to issues rather than formal and often delayed media responses.
Thank you to those who appreciate some of what I dig up and write. I am not the CT Post with the formal responsibility of reporting City news, “good, bad and ugly.” Nor am I Channel 12 who provides you with up to the minute news in the County in visual bites without connection of the people, the basic stories and how money colors the scene. I am a Bridgeport booster, looking to connect limited resources to the needs of all of the people. Likely there will not be enough to meet all needs at a given moment, but the distribution can get a lot fairer, more honest and just, for those receiving services as well as those providing the funds. What do you think? Time will tell.
JML, the City was fortunate when we had council members with the financial expertise to ask the right questions, and understand if the answers didn’t make sense. i.e., Bob Walsh, John Stafstrom, Chris Caruso and others. I was lucky to serve with Bob and John, so I had a heads-up even though I didn’t have their expertise. We have not had interest from citizens willing to serve, who are cut from their cloth. I wonder why? The worth of Tom White as the Council liaison goes beyond what words can describe. In the absence of quality and experienced members, Tom was critical. We all know what happened there. That’s another story, and I’ll tell it as I know it at the right time. For now, we are gifted with JML and others who take the time, with knowledge and experience to delve into the mysteries of the budget, but unfortunately they are limited by what will be revealed to them, and they don’t have the sway a council member had and has. The residents and taxpayers will never know what they passed up when JML was willing to do the work in an official capacity on the CC. This is not a criticism of the two individuals representing the 130th. Burns was pretty ballsy breaking that tie. Let’s see what happens at Monday’s council meeting.
There are no funds budgeted for either a ‘summer youth initiative’ or a ‘second chance initiative.’ Nor are there any details of how the money would be used. No problem, simply transfer funds from the contingency account. Is this fiscally responsible? Does not matter, the votes are there.
Then, the city must borrow money to “pay current expenses and obligations of the City.”
All in favor? Aye.
Motion to adjourn? Aye.
Hey, everybody have their debit cards? Let’s go have dinner.
Here’s the rub, Tom. Hit them where it’s hard to say no. At least that’s what the members will say. Second chances, how do you legislate that, and Youth Initiatives, why wasn’t this made a priority sooner? I’m in favor of both, but I would never agree to give carte blanche to any Mayor without clear specifics. If this is approved, how much of the money will go to hire administrators to oversee the programs? This is a case of delayed patronage, “Wait until after July.” That’s the mantra.
This is simply wrong and the worst part is we do not know how and who is going to get this money to help kids in “summer programs.” The second-chance initiative is money being thrown at a Ganim PR facade.
JML. What you wrote, hope you are going to bring it up Monday night. Joe keeps saying we have no money we have to cut, where is he getting the money from?
Mike, I will discuss this subject on Monday evening, and PLANNING and MONITORING of PRIORITY City issues in general. I will also provide an example of how FINANCE DEPARTMENT presentations limit the comprehension and imagination of the City Council (assuming they wished to use current tools and their own hearts and minds) to deal with issues as they appear.
When someone makes out a “check” to the City of Bridgeport for a service, a product, a program, it has always been my assumption that this will show up in the monthly financial reports (somewhere) and in the audit. But I am discovering multiple issues where this may not be true. So where does the money go? Where is it reported, reviewed and monitored by a check and balance system? Who benefits from the secrecy? Time will tell.