by | Jul 3, 2018 8:17 am | Comments (16)
Even after a $2 million infusion from the Parking Authority, New Haven is still looking at a $15 million projected deficit for the fiscal year that ended June 30, according to the budget office’s latest monthly report.
by | Jun 28, 2018 2:19 pm | Comments (84)
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Residents fill the Whalley substation for tax meeting.
Organizer Jacob Newell.
Some expressed helpless frustration. Some shouted at alders. Others called for government transparency and more money from Yale.
After an hour, everyone agreed the city’s 11 percent tax increase is an outrage. Few specific ideas emerged on how to cut government instead.
by | Jun 26, 2018 8:42 am | Comments (14)
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Board President Walker-Myers: Grant money not affected.
Alders voted unanimously to override the mayor’s veto of a tax increase reduction order, thereby requiring any “additional revenue” that the city receives for next year’s budget to go towards mitigating the new 11 percent tax hike.
by | Jun 26, 2018 7:52 am | Comments (6)
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City spokesperson Laurnce Grotheer at a March budget workshop.
The city has deposited in full its actuarially recommended pension contributions for the year, backtracking on a previous proposal to pull money from the pension budget and use it to cover a projected multi-million-dollar deficit for the fiscal year that ends this week.
But now that the pension raid is off the table, city officials are scrambling to find upwards of $10 million to balance the city’s budget.
Continue reading ‘City Fully Funds Pension Contributions; Budget Deficit Looms’
by | Jun 22, 2018 8:21 am | Comments (17)
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Mohit Agrawal and Allan Hadelman at WNHH FM.
Taxpayers are hopping mad about a 11 percent hike in the bills they began receiving this week; some have begun organizing community meetings to explore possible actions against it.
But based on a look at the government’s structural financial woes, the city would have had to raise taxes almost twice as much to truly balance the annual budget taking effect July 1 — or figure out how to cut another $30 million.
by | Jun 21, 2018 1:18 pm | Comments (27)
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Mayor Toni Harp at City Hall on Thursday: “Unenforceable.”
Alder Anna Festa: “Unconscionable.”
Mayor Toni Harp vetoed a Board of Alders order that requires any “additional revenue” received by the city for the next fiscal year to go towards reducing the city’s new 11 percent tax increase.
That veto comes just a few days after the city’s Parking Authority agreed to send over an additional $2 million to the city to help shore up its struggling finances.
by | Jun 15, 2018 3:44 pm | Comments (28)
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Patrick Cannon confronts Daryl Jones about his department’s spending at a tense pension meeting.
Showdown at City Hall.
• “You don’t have the money!”
• “You’re out of order!”
by | Jun 15, 2018 2:40 pm | Comments (37)
Daryl Jones, John Rose Jr.
Mayor Toni Harp gave raises to top non-union managers and confidential employees, in some cases their first raises in four years. The move prompted outraged alders to launch an investigation.
by | Jun 12, 2018 7:57 am | Comments (38)
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Controller Daryl Jones delivers the news Monday evening.
• Helps close $14M hole in this fiscal year’s city budget.
• Also, Yale University ups annual contribution by $2.5M.
• Jones: Pension switch aimed at avoiding bigger downgrade.
• Festa: “We have a spending problem.”
by | May 30, 2018 8:08 am | Comments (68)
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Abby Roth (right), one of the amendment-firing 3 Musketeers, with Legislative Services Director Albert Lucas at the budget vote.
The Board of Alders voted overwhelmingly Tuesday night to approve a final new city budget with an 11 percent tax increase after beating back three determined alders’ last-ditch attempts to cut expenditures.
by | May 18, 2018 8:08 am | Comments (29)
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Alders Ernie Santiago and Tyisha Walker-Myers check out the numbers.
In a first pass at amending next year’s budget, alders recommended shifting $5 million from the schools to help cover public employee medical benefits, and they signed off on a proposed double-digit tax increase … for now.
by | May 16, 2018 12:12 pm | Comments (8)
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City Controller Daryl Jones (left) and FRAC chair Mohit Agrawal.
Cut the accounting gimmicks. Don’t backload pension payments. And watch out for money lost to active investment fees.
by | May 10, 2018 1:51 pm | Comments (9)
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Finance Committee Alders Adam Marchand and Evette Hamilton at Wednesday night’s hearing.
Fifty New Haveners seized on their last public chance to influence next year’s budget by offering a litany of concerns with a proposed double-digit tax increase and the riskiness of borrowing a quarter of a billion dollars to fund city pensions.
Continue reading ‘Budget Watchdogs: No To Borrowing $250M For Pensions’
by | May 8, 2018 8:38 am | Comments (23)
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Ed board’s Ed Joyner, Joe Rodriguez, Darnell Goldson Monday.
A small high school that can’t attract required white suburbanites and two alternative schools that can’t keep traumatized students in class should be shuttered this year, a school board committee suggested.
by | Apr 26, 2018 1:07 pm | Comments (5)
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Esperina Stubblefield and Julie Johnson.
The city’s proposed new family justice center will not only make it easier for domestic violence victims to access legal help, housing assistance, childcare, and clinical and sexual assault services. It will also minimize the number of times victims have to share their stories and relive their traumatic experiences as they seek help.
Continue reading ‘Planned Domestic Violence Center Aims To Avoiding “Re-Victimization”’
by | Apr 20, 2018 8:00 am | Comments (30)
Controller Jones pushes proposed pension fix Thursday night.
Walker-Myers: Back it up.
The city’s pension funds should have over $1 billion in the bank.
They have under $500 million.
That’s a problem. How to fix it?
by | Apr 16, 2018 8:03 am | Comments (22)
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The city plans to increase the fine for the most common type of parking ticket by $5, with the hope of raising at least $300,000 in additional annual revenue for strapped municipal coffers.
by | Apr 13, 2018 8:15 am | Comments (4)
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Local 3144 members vote Thursday at Fire Training Academy.
The contract-less city’s management and professional employee union voted to approve a new five-year pact by a nearly two-to-one margin — following a labor trend of trading increased medical costs and added health care responsibilities in exchange for raises.
Continue reading ‘City Union Votes 175-93 To Trade Health Givebacks For Raises In New 5-Year Pact’
by | Apr 10, 2018 8:01 am | Comments (14)
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Retrieving salt at DPW headquarters during recent snowstorm.
Pescosolido testifies Monday.
The Middletown Avenue building that houses the city’s snow plows, street sweeping trucks and most public works staffers is crumbling under years of sustained exposure to salt, propped up by an “aluminum forest” of temporary support beams, and desperately in need of a $10 million comprehensive redesign and rehabilitation.
by | Apr 5, 2018 8:45 am | Comments (39)
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Alders hear public budget testimony Wednesday night.
Doyens slashes away.
Opposed to a tax increase, Gary Doyens slashed New Haven’s proposed city budget Wednesday night. He zapped a new social media expert. Canceled the “Escape” teen center’s lease. Killed a health clinic expansion. Took an axe to the police force.
by | Mar 29, 2018 12:31 pm | Comments (14)
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54 Meadow St., the home of the city health department.
City Public Health Director Byron Kennedy pitches alders for extended hours and operations for public health clinic.
Does the city need to run its own public health and urgent care clinic for 12 hours a day, seven days a week, at a time when area providers are already working to consolidate their own primary care services independent of city involvement?
by | Mar 28, 2018 8:01 am | Comments (36)
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Daryl Jones (left) and Mohit Agrawal at Tuesday FRAC-down.
An independent review board blasted the financial assumptions in the Harp adminsitration’s proposed new city budget, saying it would need a 22 percent tax hike to balance — and provoking a heated response at a City Hall square-off.
by | Mar 27, 2018 3:04 pm | Comments (4)
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Clerk Michael Smart (with deputy May Gardner-Reed) sounds alarm. Top: Voters waiting hours at polls in 2016.
Budget cuts will cause no problems at election time this year — or else they’ll prove “catastrophic.”
It depends whom you ask.
by | Mar 26, 2018 2:01 pm | Comments (8)
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Police Chief Campbell (right) testifies before the Finance Committee during a budget workshop on Thursday night.
Festa: “What happened?”
What started as a “mind-blowing” year in police overtime is ending up as somewhat less extreme, as the department has implemented new cost-saving protocols that should lower the bill for the coming fiscal year, the police chief told weary alders.
Continue reading ‘Cop OT Less “Mind-Blowing” Than Projected’
by | Mar 23, 2018 1:36 pm | Comments (30)
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Youth Services Director Jason Bartlett at Thursday night’s budget workshop.
Two years after the city planned to open a youth activity center and homeless shelter on Orchard Street, the director of the project said that the new open date is just three months away.
Well, three months away from a date in the near future.
If the project receives some new cash in this coming year’s capital budget.