Melissa Bailey Photo
City government workers like Shirley Dixon may still be typing into their HP computers if a mayoral candidate wins office, but they may have to start “renting” the machines.
The “rental agency” would be a new entity inside City Hall, created in effort to trim the budget.
That’s one of the proposals Jeffrey Kerekes made Tuesday. Kerekes, who’s best known as a citizen budget watchdog, is one of four men seeking to run against Mayor John DeStefano in a Democratic primary on Sept. 13.
In his second straight press conference attended by only one reporter, this one held under a 50-foot-tall oak tree near the intersection of Whalley Avenue and Ella Grasso Boulevard, he unveiled a list of ideas on how he would stick to a pledge to balance the budget without raising taxes in his first term in office.
Rent-a-PC
Kerekes
Kerekes pitched two ideas for City Hall to save money by setting up rental agencies within City Hall.
Take Shirley Dixon’s HP Compaq, which she was using to work on an aldermanic citation Tuesday afternoon. (Dixon works as a legislative transcriber for the Board of Aldermen.)
When the mayor does the city budget, a computer like Dixon’s isn’t factored into the budget for that department. So, Kerekes reasoned, when DeStefano orders departments to cut expenses, they wouldn’t consider giving up the machines.
The current thinking, Kerekes reasoned, is that “if you give it up, you wouldn’t get it back.” He proposes making all departments “rent” their computers from an agency within the city. That way, when it comes time to look for places to save money in departmental budgets, departments “may be willing to give up” a computer or two.
The new system would save $150,000, Kerekes said. That’s based on an estimate from the Management Partners consulting firm, which came up with the idea. The firm was hired by the Financial Review and Audit Commission, a budget-scrutinizing panel which Kerekes took part in. It’s one of many ideas released in a September FRAC report. (Read it here.)
Kerekes said the consultants came up with a lot of good ideas, which the mayor has failed to implement.
Along the same lines, Kerekes proposed having departments “rent” city vehicles from a central agency to encourage them to give up unnecessary cars. The city is already phasing out its 25 shared city cars, and moving to use Zipcars instead. That switch would save the city another $150,000, according to the firm’s estimate.
Kerekes said overall, he’d use a more thorough budgeting process and reconsider whether the city should be providing all of the services it does. He said he’d use a “three-tiered” approach, dividing city expenditures into three pots: critical services, important services, and ones the city can give up.
For example, he said, Livable City Initiative has shrunk from 70 to 30 workers, yet the size of management has not diminished accordingly. For example, one deputy director, Cathy Schroeter, supervises only three people. Kerekes said that’s an example of a position that, as mayor, he’d consider cutting.
“Mayor DeStefano has already taken the lead on using metrics to not only cut fat from the city budget but also produce better results. The mayor knows we need innovative idea to prevent raises taxes,” replied DeStefano campaign manager Danny Kedem. “Mr. Kerekes’ proposal just doesn’t match up. For example, the mayor already implemented a plan which utilizes an intermittent car service that only pays to use vehicles when the city needs them, thus already eliminating dozens of unnecessary cars from the fleet. His visionary school reform contract with the teachers union allows extended after-school hours and unprecedented oversight without having to pay teachers extra.”
Kerekes said the new process would be a “transformative” way for the city to re-set its priorities.
“We as taxpayers and residents are tired of lurching from one financial train wreck to another and in the process, spending massive amounts of manpower and money on bail-out scams and schemes. This has been going on for years. We have to transform our entire budgeting into a
process that works for the people of this city and not for the comfort of those that run it,” Kerekes wrote in a statement.
To limit payments on debt service, Kerekes called on the city to abort its plans to build a permanent home for the Engineering & Science University Magnet School (ESUMS) in West Haven, near the University of New Haven campus. The city has gotten approval to sell bonds to finance a $66.5 million school, with a state reimbursement rate of 95 percent.
“We shouldn’t be building a school in West Haven,” Kerekes declared.
He also called for the city & Board of Ed to reopen all city contracts and ask for a 20 percent “giveback” from all contractors.
He held the event outside the Carriage Hill condominiums, where the city recently foreclosed on two condos. The city foreclosed on 429 people last fiscal year, Kerekes calculated. While he didn’t ask the condo owners the reason for their foreclosures, he framed the development as a sign that the mayor’s spending policy is driving people out of their homes.
“Taxes are becoming unaffordable,” he said. “People are considering living elsewhere.”