City Budget

No Quick Fix Seen For Looming Schools Deficit

by | Mar 14, 2019 11:49 am | Comments (3)

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Acting City Budget Director Michael Gormany and City Controller Daryl Jones field questions.

How will the school system close a potential $30 million deficit this coming fiscal year?

Not with the help of a bailout from the city or the state, according to city financial staff and the mayor’s proposed budget.

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2-Year Capital Borrowing Plan Pitched

by | Mar 12, 2019 7:48 am | Comments (4)

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Acting City Budget Director Michael Gormany and Finance Committee Vice-Chair Adam Marchand at Monday night’s budget workshop.

The city plans to borrow money every two years, rather than every single year, to pay for cop cars, tree trimming, computer upgrades, and other long-term capital improvement projects.

According to the city’s finance staff, that every-other-year borrowing model could save the city hundreds of thousands of dollars and hundreds of staff work hours every biennium.

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Grand List Shrinks By $15M

by | Mar 1, 2019 6:05 pm | Comments (16)

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Acting City Budget Director Michael Gormany at Thursday’s budget presser.

The city’s net taxable grand list shrank by $15 million, or .23 percent, despite the city’s current building boom.

That grand list detail emerged in the mayor’s proposed $556.6 million new fiscal year operating budget, which was published in full on Friday afternoon.

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Harp Budget: $9.5M Increase, No Tax Hike

by | Feb 28, 2019 4:01 pm | Comments (18)

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Mayor Harp with department heads at Thursday’s budget presser.

No tax increase. A marginal bump, not a new $30 million, for the Board of Ed. Bigger pension investments.

And a 1.75 percent overall increase in spending, to be covered by debt savings and a host of small new sources of revenue.

Those are a few of the highlights from the mayor’s proposed $556.6 million operating budget for the next fiscal year.

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Alders Sign Off On $3M Debt-To-OT Budget Transfer

by | Feb 12, 2019 9:03 am | Comments (28)

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Asst. Police Chief Otoniel Reyes, Chief Anthony Campbell, Payroll/Benefit Auditor Alissa Ebbson, and Asst. Chief Luis Casanova (far right) face the alders.

With a mixture of resignation, frustration, and cautionary instruction, alders unanimously signed off on spending over $3 million reserved for debt service on shoring up the police and fire overtime budgets instead.

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“People’s Budget” Targets Empty Lots

by | Feb 4, 2019 2:02 pm | Comments (11)

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LCI’s Jeff Moreno at neglected government-owned Rosette Street lot.

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Controller Daryl Jones at brainstorming session.

Nobody likes vacant lots. But publish an online map identifying city-owned lots, and maybe more residents will come forward to buy, build, and return them to tax rolls.

That and other land management recommendations arose during a conversation with city staff about boosting revenue and cutting costs.

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Pitch Promises Paperless Problem-Solving

by | Jan 15, 2019 8:55 am | Comments (4)

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Housing Code Inspector Rick Mazzadra on old-school Hill inspection.

City GIS guy Alfredo Herrera pitches alders Monday night on new-school plan.

A code inspector notices a leaky roof, or a contractor working without a permit. Instead of reaching for a pen and a pad of paper, she uses a tablet and internet-assisted camera to document the problem — which then shows up on a map shared with otherproblem-solvers.

City officials laid out that tech-assisted utopia as they convinced alders to advance two Information Technology contracts.

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State Sending City $10M For New DPW HQ

by | Jan 7, 2019 8:29 am | Comments (5)

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Retrieving salt at DPW headquarters during a snowstorm last year.

The city will likely spend $5 million less than anticipated on a rebuild of the Department of Public Works (DPW) headquarters, even though the projected cost of the project is now $5 million more than originally budgeted.

That’s thanks to $10 million in state bond money for a demolition and construction project.

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Task Force Eyes $700M Pension Hole

by | Dec 4, 2018 1:13 pm | Comments (5)

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BOA President Tyisha Walker-Myers, CERF Trustee Cathy Graves, and city Controller Daryl Jones at the first meeting of the Pension Task Force at City Hall.

The two city pensions are each currently funded at around 40 percent, leaving roughly $700 million in unfunded liabilities.

A new task force consisting of alders, city staff, and pension fund trustees aims to try to figure out how that happened, as well as how to get those funding levels up.

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Budget Roadshow Pivots In Newhallville

by | Nov 28, 2018 2:25 pm | Comments (28)

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Mayor Harp at the Newhallville Community Management Team meeting.

In a twist on her current budget roadshow, a Harp administration official asked neighbors for ideas about how to address the city’s fiscal challenges.

A hand went right up, and a suggestion followed: Stop budgeting state money the city doesn’t have and isn’t going to get.

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Harp: State Must Let City Raise More Revenue

by | Nov 21, 2018 8:48 am | Comments (20)

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Mayor Toni Harp at Tuesday night’s Downtown-Wooster Square community management team meeting.

The city has a revenue problem.

And if New Haven residents don’t want to bear that burden through higher property taxes, then they need to lobby the state legislature for increased tax-exempt-property reimbursements, fair education funding, a slice of the state’s sales tax receipts, and other state-enabled means for cities to raise more money.

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Steak Dinners, Trips Go Unreported

by | Oct 1, 2018 7:22 am | Comments (78)

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Controller Daryl Jones and Mayor Harp announce new credit-card monitoring procedures this month.

The Harp administration told lawmakers that a trip to Washington, D.C., for the U.S. Mayors Conference this January cost roughly $2,500. The real cost ended up at least $7,225.

The Harp administration reported that a trip to Boston for another U.S. Mayors Conference this June cost roughly $4,500. The real cost ended up at $10,450.

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