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.
(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.
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.
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Thomas Breen |
May 22, 2020 9:48 am
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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.
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.
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.
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.
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Thomas Breen |
Apr 30, 2020 2:26 pm
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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.
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Thomas Breen |
Apr 30, 2020 12:10 pm
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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.
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.
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.
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Thomas Breen |
Apr 2, 2020 5:35 pm
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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.
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Thomas Breen |
Apr 1, 2020 12:01 pm
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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.
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Thomas Breen |
Mar 31, 2020 3:07 pm
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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.
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.
Acting Assessor Pullen: Broke news at budget hearing.
Nearly 60 percent of city real estate value is currently off the tax rolls, now that New Haven’s tax-exempt grand list has climbed by another nearly $200 million last year to reach a new peak of $8.47 billion, the city’s top property-monitor revealed Wednesday night..
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Thomas Breen |
Mar 12, 2020 8:03 am
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Thomas Breen file photo
City firefighters on the job: Should Yale have to pay more for their services?
Should city leaders argue for greater financial contributions from Yale University and Yale New Haven Hospital by focusing on those institutions’ sheer wealth and the relative poverty of the city they reside in?
Or should they promote the many services that the city already provides — from fire suppression to street lights to 9 – 1‑1 emergency support — that those growing institutions inevitably benefit from?
Two city residents pushed those different rhetorical tacks during the aldermanic Finance Committee’s first hearing of the budget season.
(Opinion) “New Haven has been Yale University’s home for over 300 years and mine for nearly 40. As a longtime Yale employee and New Haven resident, I know that the university and its city love and need each other — and that there come moments when our leaders have special reason to work closely together for the good of our community.
“… I do not believe that New Haven’s current financial problems are the result of a lack of generosity from Yale.”
Fire Chief Alston (center) with other department heads and staff at Monday’s budget press conference.
New Haven’s police and fire chiefs Monday said they have plans to adjust to deep public-safety cuts Mayor Justin Elicker is proposing in his new city budget.
The mayor, meanwhile, laid into Yale University and Yale New Haven Hospital for not living up to an “ethical responsibility” to contribute more financially to the city in which those private institutions thrive. Yale’s president fired back.
Mayor Justin Elicker has proposed a 3.56 percent tax increase, dozens of cuts to currently vacant city police and firefighter positions, and a restructuring of three city departments in his newly submitted $569.1 million recommended general fund budget.
Saying he’s following through on a promise to make tough decisions to restore fiscal order, Mayor Justin Elicker plans to propose a tax increase along with spending cuts in his first city budget.
He revealed that plan as he took a shot as his alma mater for not helping the city more with its financial woes.
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Christopher Peak |
Feb 20, 2020 9:17 am
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Christopher Peak Photo
Mayor Elicker (at right, with Yesenia Rivera): “Hens are coming home to roost” after years of irresponsible city budgeting.
Almost certain to be flat-funded once again, the city’s public schools are facing another year of drastic budget reductions.
The latest round of cost-cutting could reduce the number of high-school electives, trim the length of the school year and pack school buses — to get only halfway through the budget shortfall the district will likely have to close next school year.
