Just Say … Yes?

Other cities have laid off over 100 cops. Or stopped paying pensions. Or stopped shoveling snow. Or filed for bankruptcy. New Haven’s mayor declared that New Haven can avoid those fates in 2011 by avoiding a simple two-letter word.

That word is ​“no.” Former First Lady Nancy Reagan called on the nation to utter that word when offered drugs. Mayor John DeStefano Monday called on the city to resist the temptation to use the same word as New Haven considers painful budget cuts and benefits changes in order to avoid ​“massive” layoffs.

While the campaigns are different, DeStefano, like Nancy Reagan, is calling for breaking an addiction of sorts, to what he calls a generation’s worth of costly or outdated ways of doing government business, which are now taking a deadly toll on municipal and state budgets across the country.

New Haven needs to plug an $8 million hole in its current year budget — and a $57 million projected gap in its 2011-12 budget.

It can’t do so, DeStefano said Monday, without changing the rules governing when public employees retire, how much they get, how much they pay for health insurance while employed; when citizens go to the library; or what the state allows the city to levy fines or fees for.

“This is going to be a year of choices,” DeStefano said at a City Hall press conference. ​“People just can’t say no. Saying no often means that nothing gets done.”

Cities ran out of ​“easy” choices over the past years, he said: Balancing budgets through federal stimulus dollars funneled through state governments, tax increases, spent-down reserves, one-time revenues, quick-fix small changes in government operations.

Those measures will no longer plug holes like New Haven’s, he said. Now come the ​“hard” choices.

DeStefano cited four examples of what happened when cities failed to make those hard choices: New York City failed to clear streets after last week’s blizzard; Newark laid off 163 cops, only to see them rehired on overtime to deal with a subsequent shooting spree; Prichard, Alabama, filed for bankruptcy and stopped sending retirees checks; Pittsburgh now faces a state takeover of its pension system.

“That’s what you’re going to see in 2011 in American cities that don’t make choices, that just have people who say no,” DeStefano said.

Without going into specifics, DeStefano previewed some of the hard choices he plans to propose on March 1 when his administration submits a first draft of the next city budget. They mirrored themes contained in similar speeches he has given in recent months:

• Pensions. DeStefano released a chart with data on the 22 police and fire employees who retired in 2010. The average age of the retirees: 52. Cops can retire after 20 years; many then take new jobs elsewhere while collecting police pensions. With military service and sick time figured in, some can retire after as few as 15 years, according to DeStefano. Meanwhile, cops and firefighters’ pensions are based on how much money they were paid at the end of their career, including sometimes loads of overtime; not based on their salaries. As a result, 2010’s retirees are collecting $1.6 million combined in annual pensions this year — 95 percent of their combined salaries.

Click here to view the PowerPoint; the pensions chart is slide number 7.

Without changes, the police and fire retirement funds would run out of money in 15 years, while other city employees’ fund would run out in 16, according to the mayor.

To start, DeStefano wants to base pensions on salaries, not salaries combined with overtime. He wants to raise the number of years served required for retirement. And he wants to lower annual cost of living increases.

The savings from the non-fire and non-police employee’s fund would amount to $9 million a year by 2015, according to DeStefano. (He didn’t have an estimate year for police and fire.)

To get there, his administration must either convince unions to accept such changes, or win them through binding arbitration. That process will take a total of two years to include all city workers, he said.

• Health care. The same process holds for health care changes. DeStefano is seeking higher deductibles in city workers’ insurance plans to bring them more in line with private-sector plans. Overall he’s seeking changes that would save an estimated $26 million by 2015.

• Fees. Like other cities, New Haven is looking to charge citizens and especially not-for-profits for services now covered under the general budget. The biggest example so far is the proposed creation of a stormwater authority to pay for runoff. The system would enable the city to charge, say, Yale for the cost of handling storm water from its parking lots.

• State authority. DeStefano wants to the state to give the city permission to charge downtown club owners an entertainment district tax to cover the $12,000 in extra weekly policing costs the city endures. He also wants permission to attach cameras to traffic signals to be used to fine red-light runners and keep some of the dough; and to collect hotel fees. ​“The state needs to untie our hands,” the mayor said.

• Service cuts. DeStefano said he plans to trim library hours and the number of neighborhood police districts as part of a series of painful cuts in ​“good” services.

• Privatization. He also wants to privatize school custodians’ jobs in order to save $7 million a year. Part of the savings would come from a private contractor eliminating rigid union work rules requiring too much staffing at certain times, he said. He acknowledged that some custodians would lose jobs in the shift; New Haven would be choosing between keeping on more teachers or more custodians, he said, just the kind of ​“hard choice” he was referring to.

All of these proposals and more will encounter loud opposition, DeStefano warned. ​“There will be a group that will oppose everything going forward … The Board of Aldermen’s going to be hammered. This will swing elections.”

He noted that two unions — the teachers and school administrators —agreed to new contracts that changed work rules and held the line on spending, saving jobs in the process. Other municipal unions are girding for a fight. Click on the play arrow and here to watch and read about that.

Larry Dorman, spokesman for AFSCME Council 4, took exception to DeStefano’s depiction of the issue Monday afternoon. Dorman’s council includes five city unions representing over 1,500 workers.

“We’re well aware of the crisis. We’re trying our best to pitch in and be reasonable,” Dorman said.

City school custodians ​“haven’t said no to anything,” he said. ​“The city is so hell-bent on destroying on good family-supporting jobs in the school system, that the only thing they wanted to talk about in arbitration was privatization. Our members are trying as hard as they can to provide top-notch services. It would be nice to see the mayor sit down and try to have a reasoned dialogue about how we can protect services.”

DeStefano argued Monday that New Haven will emerge stronger — with its central mission intact, its services performed better, and ​“hundreds” of layoffs avoided — if aldermen can resist saying ​“no” when budget season starts in earnest and union members and others lobby them to stop proposed changes.

Just Say ​“Maybe”

The mayor didn’t name any of the ​“no” sayers. The most persistent opponent of his plans this past year, West Rock Alderman Darnell Goldson, said Monday afternoon that he doesn’t see himself as a ​“no” sayer.

“I don’t intend to say no,” Goldson said. ​“I try to change proposals so I can yes to them.”

In fact, Goldson claimed, he’s ready to say yes to two of DeStefano’s biggest-ticket proposals: the pension and health care changes.

“Tell the mayor I’m a yes man on that,” Goldson said. ​“It’s about time.”

On some other proposals, Goldson avoided ​“no.” He said ​“maybe.” For instance, he said, he supports the concept of a stormwater authority that would spread costs to not-for-profits as well as businesses: Not-for-profits don’t pay real estate property taxes, so the stormwater tax would be a way to get them to share costs. But first he’d have to be convinced that homeowners’ tax bills would drop by the same amount of money of their current bills that now goes toward handling runoff.

The same with red-light cameras. ​“I could see saying yes” because of the potential to for curbing out-of-control light-runners, he said. But first he needs convincing the cameras ​“won’t be misused” to generate revenue.

The entertainment district levy also earns a qualified Goldson thumbs-up: ​“I could say yes. My concern is anytime you add additional taxes, businesses may leave. Again, I don’t want it to be abused. But yes I think they should pay their own way.”

Goldson did say no once — to the idea of curtailing library hours.

“I would prefer to have layoffs than have less library hours; 65 percent of the employees that work in the city of New Haven don’t live here anyhow,” he said. ​“Those libraries are used by people who don’t have access to the internet, people who want to expand their horizons.”

Whom specifically would he have the city lay off instead?

“I haven’t dug that deep. I probably would start with the mayor’s office. I would lead by example. I would cut my own staff before I cut anybody else’s staff.”