Kelly Marshall, at Ives on Friday: If the libraries were open on Sundays, "I would be here."
City Librarian Maria Bernhey: Access to library services has grown, even if all five remain closed on Sundays.
Mayor Elicker: "We’re doing the best we can with the resources we have.”
Three years after Mayor Justin Elicker announced that the city’s public libraries would be open on Sundays, all five branches remain closed on that weekend day — with no plan in place to make that previously promised change a reality.
Jorell Alford, Mell Savage, and other U-ACT organizers listen to Elicker's budget presentation.
Unhoused activists took their proposed “People’s Budget” directly to Mayor Justin Elicker Wednesday evening — bringing signs, printed copies of their proposal, tents, and calls for more money for homelessness services to the latest city budget town hall meeting.
Elicker: "I have a bald spot because I’m losing my hair over trying to get these projects done."
“I’m paying more in taxes, but the services that I’m receiving as a resident are not going up,” Yoland Highsmith told Mayor Justin Elicker at a city budget-focused town hall.
Gloria Bellacicco agreed, criticizing the Tweed Airport expansion for taking too long and disrupting quality of life. “To be honest, I haven’t seen New Haven finish one project that it starts,” said Bellacicco. “So if you’re going to raise our taxes, finish the projects, please.”
More than $56 million in assessed real estate value has disappeared from New Haven’s tax rolls more than a year after Yale purchased the med-tech complex at 300 George St.
It will take 13 years for the city to feel that revenue hit — even if the university stands to reap the full benefits of the property’s partial tax exemption in the long run.
Teachers union prez Blatteau (right): "The proposed 2.4% increase is not enough to maintain current staffing levels, in an already understaffed system."
Mayor Justin Elicker has proposed a $5 million increase in municipal education funding for the coming fiscal year — covering less than a quarter of the $23.2 million boost requested by schools Supt. Madeline Negrón.
With “tremendous uncertainty,” funding-freeze threats, and anticipated “draconian” cuts coming out of Washington, D.C., Mayor Justin Elicker proposed on Friday a “primarily status quo” city budget — which would see the general fund grow by 3.63 percent and the local tax rate rise by 2.3 percent.
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Laura Glesby, Dereen Shirnekhi, Thomas Breen and Paul Bass |
Jan 28, 2025 5:55 pm
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DeLauro: "This is nothing less than highway robbery."
Thomas Breen photo
Mayor Elicker (right), with Acting CAO McCarthy Wednesday, after the Trump administration rescinded the funding-freeze memo: "What a waste of time and energy."
(Updated) Elected officials and grassroots nonprofit leaders scrambled to figure out how to keep government and social services running at home amid a frenzied nationwide battle over a Trump administration plan to freeze federal spending.
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Thomas Breen |
Aug 20, 2024 3:10 pm
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Thomas Breen file photo
Mike Gormany: Working on the weekends to help new city budget director transition into the role.
The Elicker administration has contracted with the city’s former budget director to help the city’s new budget director transition into her role, with an indefinite agreement that pays $55 an hour for up to 19 hours a week.
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Laura Glesby |
May 29, 2024 5:49 pm
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Laura Glesby photo
Morris Cove Alder Sal DeCola introduces the ammo-storage amendment.
In a last-minute federal funding reallocation on Tuesday evening, alders unanimously voted to spend $250,000 in Covid-recovery aid on a new police ammunition storage unit.
Finance Chair Marchand, second from right, led committee in approving some — but not all — new city positions.
A key committee of alders endorsed a city budget with standalone housing code enforcement and parks departments, though with fewer positions than the mayor had wanted.
They also advanced a 3.49 percent rise in the mill rate, rather than the 3.98 percent increase the mayor had proposed.
LCI's Javier Ortiz investigates conditions in a Vernon St. apartment.
Liam Brennan, hired by city to review LCI.
A former mayoral candidate has been tapped to guide future reforms to enhance housing code and blight enforcement at the Livable City Initiative (LCI), as the Board of Alders reviews a mayoral proposal to remove affordable housing development from that city agency’s work.
NHFD Paramedic Keith Kerr treats man who overdosed on heroin.
The number of paramedics employed by the city’s fire department has plummeted from around 40 a few years ago to just 15 today — hiking mandatory overtime and prompting the city to recruit workers from out of town and state.
Only one kind of grass allowed for public mower job hopefuls.
City of New Haven job posting
Pre-employment drug test required for seasonal parks caretaker job.
If you want to make $18 an hour cutting grass in the city’s parks this summer, then you better not smoke grass before applying for the job.
Because New Haven requires prospective seasonal parks workers to pass a drug test, including for marijuana, even though recreational cannabis is now legal statewide.
Chief Jacobson: "We see what happens if our officers aren't well."
Sometimes police respond over and over again to the same address for mental health calls that would best be served by an agency like Clifford Beers or COMPASS or the Veterans Affairs medical center.
So the city’s police department wants to add a new lieutenant position focused on making sure those connections take place — for the betterment of community and officer “health and wellness” alike.
The Elicker administration plans to use $2 million in soon-to-expire federal pandemic-relief funds to cover the entirety of a proposed increase to the police department’s overtime budget.
And what will happen when those one-time Covid dollars from D.C. run out next fiscal year? The city plans to lean on unspent salary from a recurring abundance of unfilled police officer positions to help close the extra-duty-expenditures gap.
FY25 general fund, mill rate proposals in comparison to previous four years.
Taxes would rise — and city government would reshuffle its approach to inspecting housing and caring for parks — in a new city budget Mayor Justin Elicker proposed Friday.
Gormany and Matteson at Thursday's Finance meeting.
The Elicker administration won a key initial vote of support for its plan to increase pay for department heads, coordinators, and other non-unionized managers, as an aldermanic committee endorsed salary range bumps and cost of living adjustments in an effort to ward off even more City Hall vacancies.
Acting Controller Mike Gormany and Mayor Elicker: "Remarkable progress" on city's financial front.
Higher than expected property tax collections, building inspection revenue, interest rates, and city employee vacancies helped New Haven’s budget end last fiscal year more than $22 million in the black.
After the city sends roughly $15 million of that surplus towards a record police-misconduct settlement, that means the city can bank another $7 million-plus for a rainy day.
Clockwise from top left: Mayoral candidates Shafiq Abdussabur, Liam Brennan, Wendy Hamilton, and Tom Goldenberg at Tuesday's debate.
A network of green spaces linking every public park in New Haven. A larger role for people of color and women in building the city’s physical landscape. A pedestrian walkway connecting Union Station to Downtown. A ban on new parking lots and garages in favor of playgrounds.
Finance Committee Chair and Westville Alder Adam Marchand, rising in support of the new $662.7M FY24 budget.
City of New Haven data
Assessor's office estimates of FY24 tax bill bumps.
Tax bills are heading up next fiscal year — even as the tax rate drops — thanks to the Board of Alders’ unanimous approval of a final budget that preserves the mayor’s top-line expenditure, revenue, and mill rate numbers.
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Thomas Breen |
May 10, 2023 3:04 pm
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Nora Grace-Flood photo
Rick Woods contributing to city coffers outside Affinity.
City government picked up extra cash for cleaner streets and other state-allowed public service programs as local sales rack up for legal pot and mini-liquor-bottle “nips.”
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Thomas Breen |
Apr 24, 2023 2:44 pm
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On the job at a Chapel Street construction site.
A city plumbing inspector is rising the ranks to become New Haven’s next top building official — as the department he’ll run continues to struggle to hire enough inspectors to meet the demands of the city’s construction boom for sub-suburban pay.
