Paul Bass Photo
Mayor Toni Harp is proposing that New Haven trim its budget this coming year and keep taxes at their current rate.
Harp (pictured) made that announcement Wednesday at a 3 p.m. City Hall press conference.
By law her administration has to submit a proposed budget for the upcoming fiscal year (which begins July 1) by Sunday.
Administration officials said by Friday they will release the final details of their proposal. They said it will keep the mill rate at 41.55 and come in at about $506 million, about a $2 million drop from the current year.
“The fact that we can do this is a testament to the hard work of department heads” and city budgeters, Harp said.
Upon receiving the mayor’s proposal, the Board of Alders holds hearings on it, amends it, then votes on a final version.
That process has sparked controversy in recent years. A shift in personnel at the board adds uncertainty to this year’s mix: Alder President Jorge Perez, a 27-year board veteran who has guided the budget process with a firm behind-the-scenes hand, is expected to resign from his post in coming weeks upon confirmation as the state’s new banking commissioner. A second-term alder, Tyisha Walker of West River, would then ascend to the board president post.
On the other hand, much (not all) of the opposition in previous years concerned proposed tax hikes, so this year’s proposal could potentially generate less heat.
How They Got There
Harp, who is expected to seek a second two-year term this year, had instructed her staff to produce a no-tax-increase budget. They had to do so in the face of a $2.27 million revenue shortfall, according to budget chief Joe Clerkin. Officials expect to pick up less money in building permits this year (around $8.5 million) than over the past fiscal year (around $10 million budgeted, as much as $13 million projected), when some large Yale projects came online. Meanwhile, the grand list has not grown over the past year; it slightly dipped.
Clerkin and Controller Daryl Jones (pictured) said the administration closed the gap, and found some overall savings, largely through:
• Improved tax collection rates, which rose from 97.7 to 98.2 percent hits year.
• Hiring dozens of new cops and firefighters. Officials expect that to slash overtime from $4.5 million to $3 million in the police department, from $4 million to $2.3 million in the fire department. Both departments have had costly overruns in recent years.
• Restructuring city debt payments this past year. Jones said the city obtained a lower interest rate and also spread payments evenly over the years, avoiding “balloon” years.
Clerkin (pictured) said the proposed budget would create some new positions, including:
• Small-business director and assistant jobs that this year were created and paid for out of special funds.
• Two librarians and two library assistants.
• A city Information Techology (IT) director.
• Two “Project Fresh Start” positions currently paid through grant money.
• A bilingual specialist in elderly services.
• Four public-health nurses and a sanitarian (aka inspector).
• An electrical inspector in the building department.
The Board of Education is seeking a $10.5 million increase in the amount it receives from the city; Harp’s budget recommends $3.3 million.
About That Malloy Blunder …
Looming over the projections is the threat of uncertain state aid. New Haven faces that problem every year. It needs by law to draw up and begin holding hearings on a proposed budget before the state legislature finishes approving its own. And much of the city’s revenue comes from the state.
That problem is especially acute this year — because Gov. Dannel P. Malloy’s administration just discovered it had made a $54.5 million math error in putting together its proposed budget. It has to cut another $54.5 million out of the proposal it submitted last week, the original document on which cities base their own budget proposals.
Asked about that Wednesday, Harp, who co-chaired the state legislature’s Appropriations Committee before becoming New Haven’s mayor, said the problem probably won’t affect New Haven’s bottom line. That’s because Malloy has to cut that $54.5 million to meet a constitutionally mandated spending cap. Most of the money New Haven receives from the state — such as through the Payments in Lieu of Taxes (PILOT) and Educational Cost-Sharing (ECS) programs — don’t count toward that spending-cap formula. So Malloy wouldn’t get closer to meeting that cap by cutting those dollars.
Ghost Of Stratton
A relatively small item in Harp’s budget proposal grew out of criticisms raised during the stormy 2014 budget season by then-Prospect Hill Alder Michael Stratton.
Stratton (who left his post last June) had called for the Board of Alders to develop more expertise in order to be able to scrutinize the administration’s budget proposals and performance more effectively and independently.
Board of Alders President Jorge Perez said that Stratton’s suggestion inspired board leaders to seek $150,000 a year to train alders on budget matters and to hire experts to analyze city department heads’ budget requests and subsequently to measure how the departments ended up spending the money.
Also inspired by that debate, in which Stratton In video) criticized the opacity of school-budget reporting, the alders succeeded in getting the city to break down its spending on workers compensation and health care for Board of Education employees, Perez said. The city used to lump those costs into overall city government line items. Now budget officials have separated those costs in monthly reports distributed to the alders’ Finance Committee.