by | Aug 12, 2020 3:15 pm | Comments (17)
FRAC Chair Mohit Agrawal at Tuesday night’s meeting.
City finance staff is once again considering a controversial idea for how to address hundreds of millions of dollars in unfunded city pension liabilities: Borrowing in bulk with pension obligation bonds (POBs).
by | Jul 30, 2020 3:41 pm | Comments (2)
City of New Haven
The city anticipates ending the last fiscal year with a $7.8 million deficit — a projected budget hole nearly half as large as that predicted last month, thanks in part to pandemic-induced revenue shortfalls coming in better than expected.
by | Jul 6, 2020 6:21 pm | Comments (11)
Ko Lyn Cheang photo
New police recruits sworn in at the academy.
The mayor has cut over $521,000 from the city’s police department budget as part of a Board of Alders-mandated quest to reduce city spending by over $2 million.
Continue reading ‘Elicker Fills In The Blanks On $2M In Cuts’
by | Jun 30, 2020 3:10 pm | Comments (13)
City of New Haven
The city plans to dip into its $15.7 million rainy day fund to cover the cost of this fiscal year’s pandemic-exacerbated deficit, which is currently projected to be over $13 million.
by | Jun 17, 2020 12:13 pm | Comments (12)
Christopher Peak File Photo
NHFD Paramedic Keith Kerr treats man who overdosed on heroin.
Weeks after approving a budget that would outsource paramedic services to a private company, alders voted on Tuesday night to create a working group that would revisit the issue.
by | Jun 9, 2020 8:23 pm | Comments (39)
Thomas Breen photo
Protesters call for the defunding of the police.
City of New Haven budget data
“Defund the police” has become the new rallying cry for local and nationwide uprisings against police brutality.
For New Haven, that demand prompts an obvious question: What’s in the local police budget, anyway?
by | Jun 2, 2020 12:57 pm | Comments (1)
Thomas Breen file photo
Firefighters at work on Grand Avenue.
Alders voted unanimously to move $1 million debt service to the fire department to help cover the cost of over-budget overtime.
by | May 28, 2020 1:54 pm | Comments (4)
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City Budget Director / Acting Controller Michael Gormany at hearing.
New Haven property owners who have lost at least 20 percent of their income due to Covid-19 can pay their taxes three months late this coming fiscal year without incurring any penalties.
Before receiving such a benefit, they first must apply to the city by June 30, and they must promise — if not necessarily prove — that they really have suffered such a pandemic-induced economic hardship.
Continue reading ‘Pandemic Property Tax Relief A Click Away’
by | May 26, 2020 10:46 pm | Comments (21)
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Tuesday night’s full board meeting.
Alders voted 27 – 1 to pass a new fiscal year budget that includes a 2.09 percent tax increase, a non-binding hope that Yale will increase its voluntary payments to the city by $2.5 million, and over $2 million in non-Board of Education operational cuts that City Hall must make wherever it can.
Continue reading ‘Alders Pass Budget: Taxes Rise 2.09%; $2M In Cuts; $2.5M Revenue Prayer Remains’
by | May 26, 2020 10:20 am | Comments (15)
Tom Breen Photo
(Opinion) Note: Battalion Chief Frank Ricci (pictured), president of New Haven Fire Fighters union, wrote the following article about Tuesday night’s scheduled vote by the Board of Alders on the coming fiscal year’s budget.
New Haven Fire Department has great medics. Unfortunately, we don’t have enough of them.
by | May 24, 2020 10:52 am | Comments (12)
Paul Bass Photo
Entrance to the new Orange Trail at Edgewood Park.
(Opinion) I was troubled when the mayor proposed killing our Department of Parks, Recreation & Trees by merging its functions into two other city departments back in March –- and am even more troubled now as we struggle to make our way through the COVID-19 pandemic. Our parks are our greatest opportunity for healthy, public space that supports social distancing. At a time when we should be lifting up our parks as places to recreate, recover, and simply breathe, I’m worried that we are squandering both their immediate and long-term promise.
Continue reading ‘Pandemic’s Wrong Time To Kill Parks Department’
by | May 22, 2020 9:48 am | Comments (0)
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Wednesday night’s City Plan Commission virtual meeting.
New Haven has landed over $3.5 million in federal emergency relief to cover a variety of Covid-19 related costs — including for homelessness prevention services, testing site construction and maintenance, and the delivery of meals to individuals in need.
by | May 19, 2020 4:28 pm | Comments (1)
Interim Superintendent Iline Tracey: Buying laptops would be first priority.
Laptops are a yes, teacher salaries likely a no.
These are some of the early guidelines for which gaps $8.5 million in federal Covid-19 relief dollars can fill, New Haven Public Schools administrators explained to the Board of Education Finance and Operations (F&O) Committee on Monday.
by | May 14, 2020 2:32 pm | Comments (10)
Mayor Justin Elicker appearing Thursday on WNHH FM’s “Dateline New Haven.”
Mayor Justin Elicker warned that proposed changes to his city budget for the coming fiscal year would mean a “very high” number of furlough days for city workers, public-safety layoffs, and a reliance on unreliable new revenues.
Continue reading ‘Elicker: Budget Changes Would Lead To Layoffs’
by | May 14, 2020 10:38 am | Comments (19)
Westville Alder Adam Marchand at Wednesday night’s hearing.
Committee votes to halve tax hike, slash $7.1 million in spending — and demand $2.5 million in voluntary payments from Yale.
by | May 12, 2020 9:47 am | Comments (25)
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Alders listen in on Monday’s Finance Committee virtual hearing.
Over 50 New Haveners packed the latest city budget hearing and turned it into a nearly four-hour referendum on Yale’s local response to the Covid-19 crisis so far.
Their assessment? Not good enough.
by | Apr 30, 2020 2:26 pm | Comments (4)
City of New Haven
Anticipated multi-million-dollar drops in property tax collection, building permits, parking tickets, and parking meter revenue make up the lion’s share of the projected $15.3 million deficit the city expects to face come the end of this fiscal year.
by | Apr 30, 2020 12:10 pm | Comments (2)
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NHPS CFO Phillip Penn. Below: Next year’s projected deficit.
The public school system plans to cut 30 certified positions through attrition, shift elementary school bell times, move instructional coaches back into the classrooms, and pursue nearly a dozen other budget mitigation strategies in an effort to close next fiscal year’s projected $8.3 million deficit.
As for what in-person classes might look like later this spring or next fall during a sustained Covid-19 crisis? That future — and its potential budget implications — remain uncertain.
by | Apr 25, 2020 3:43 pm | Comments (25)
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Mayor Justin Elicker at Saturday’s virtual presser.
The city is staring down a projected $15 million deficit thanks to steep pandemic-induced drops in delinquent property tax collections, building permits, and parking meter and ticket revenue.
Continue reading ‘Covid Updates: $15M Deficit Projected; English, Farnam Drives Closing To Cars’
by | Apr 20, 2020 11:31 pm | Comments (10)
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Monday night’s virtual Board of Alders meeting.
City residents who have been hard hit financially by the Covid-19 pandemic will receive an extra 90 days to pay their next set of property taxes.
And all city taxpayers, regardless of whether or not they’re hurting financially during this public health crisis, will benefit from a lower interest rate on overdue tax payments than the state usually allows the city to levy.
by | Apr 14, 2020 9:57 am | Comments (9)
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Monday night’s budget workshop.
The Covid-19 pandemic has delayed at least one police academy class from starting, leading the chief to consider setting up an online academy.
It put on hold all new bulk trash pick-up appointments, along with a study on how many cops and firefighters the city needs.
by | Apr 2, 2020 5:35 pm | Comments (3)
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Tuesday night’s budget hearing.
City lead paint inspectors and restaurant inspectors are still doing their public health work amidst the Covid-19 crisis — primarily over the phone, not in person.
The Livable City Initiative continues to send housing code inspectors out into the field, but primarily to vacant buildings and, if for occupied residences, only on emergency calls.
And the city’s Transportation, Traffic & Parking Department has cut back on parking tickets and stopped monitoring meters, even as it continues responding to SeeClickFix complaints and issuing right-of-way permits in collaboration with the building and public works departments.
Continue reading ‘Health Inspectors Take To Phones; Housing Inspectors Still Hit The Streets’
by | Apr 1, 2020 12:01 pm | Comments (0)
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City social services chief Mehul Dalal at Tuesday night’s budget hearing.
The city’s plans for protecting and supporting New Haveners most in need during the Covid-19 crisis involve not just moving homeless residents from shelters into hotel rooms, but also distributing food to the hungry, coordinating direct financial assistance for those suddenly without a paycheck, and making existing financial empowerment services accessible by phone to eliminate the need to meet up in person.
Continue reading ‘Social Services Chief Details Covid-19 Support Plan For Neediest’
by | Mar 31, 2020 3:07 pm | Comments (5)
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Monday night’s Finance Committee budget hearing.
Will the Covid-19 pandemic tank the city’s pension funds? Will it cause municipal employee healthcare costs to skyrocket?
And how will it change the process of voting during this year’s presidential election? Or the means by which the city conducts its once-a-decade revaluation of all New Haven properties?
The department heads responsible for those areas of city government assured alders that the magnitude of the pandemic’s impact on all aspects of city government will be large, even if the details of that impact are, for now, largely uncertain.
Continue reading ‘Covid’s City Budget Pricetag “Unknowable”’
by | Mar 31, 2020 10:05 am | Comments (44)
Zoom photos
A full house at Monday night’s virtual budget hearing.
Dozens of local high school students, teachers, and labor advocates packed into an at-capacity virtual budget hearing to call on city government to step up pressure on Yale University to help balance the gross economic inequality laid bare by the Covid-19 pandemic.