by | Sep 14, 2018 8:10 am | Comments (28)
Paul Bass Photo
Workers building Audubon Square, symbol of the boom.
Thomas Breen photo
Steve Fontana, Clay Williams, Matthew Nemerson make the case.
The Harp administration pitched a plan to harness the city’s building boom to tackle its yawning structural deficit: Change the terms of tax deals offered to builders.
by | Sep 11, 2018 2:46 pm | Comments (24)
Paul Bass Photo
Officials break ground on Audubon Sq.: Will cranes save city’s finances?
As New Haven reckons with two recent credit downgrades, a substantial structural deficit, and a double-digit tax increase, city officials are banking on a bright light at the end of the tunnel to guide the Elm City towards future financial health.
That light? New construction.
by | Sep 5, 2018 8:14 am | Comments (11)
Markeshia Ricks Photo
Alder Evette Hamilton reads the measure aloud before Tuesday night’s vote.
Top Harp administration employees will get to keep their raises, but it will cost some city departments thousands in operating dollars.
by | Aug 20, 2018 8:04 am | Comments (18)
Thomas Breen photo
Alder prez Tyisha Walker-Myers: “not a fan” of state takeovers.
One in a series.
It sounded like a magic solution to New Haven’ long-term fiscal mess: Surrender control to the state in return for one of those big bailouts.
In real life, that option may not be on the table.
by | Aug 14, 2018 12:12 pm | Comments (17)
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Police Chief Anthony Campbell, CAO Mike Carter, and Fire Chief John Alston on Monday night.
Five weeks into the current fiscal year, the police department’s actual weekly overtime is double what’s in the budget. The fire department’s weekly overtime is one and a half times over budget.
Continue reading ‘Police, Fire Chiefs: Overtime Budgets “Unrealistic”’
by | Aug 8, 2018 7:56 am | Comments (12)
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The full Board of Alders on Monday night.
Just two weeks after the city was downgraded by two different credit rating agencies in part for using restructured debt to fund normal operating expenses, alders voted to use $10 million in restructured debt to fund shortfalls in the past fiscal year’s normal operating expenses.
by | Aug 2, 2018 11:07 pm | Comments (54)
Underwriter Carlos Desmara: City loses 10 million — or 83 million.
Christopher Peak Photos
Alders Richard Furlow, Tyisha Walker-Myers at Thursday night’s vote.
New Haven went ahead Thursday night with a $160 million restructuring of the city’s debt, after three key players — alders who had to vote to approve it — won a commitment from the Harp administration to develop strict spending controls aimed at avoiding fiscal ruin.
by | Jul 31, 2018 4:31 pm | Comments (19)
Christopher Peak Photo
City Controller Daryl Jones.
A city’s stark choices: One in a series.
Governments use a practice known as “scoop and toss” when they’re desperate for cash. But it brought Hartford to near-bankruptcy.
Now, financial analysts say, New Haven is resorting to the practice — while the mayor promises she has a plan to guard against fiscal blowback.
Continue reading ‘Like Hartford, New Haven “Scoops & Tosses”’
by | Jul 30, 2018 1:21 pm | Comments (2)
City of New Haven
Expenditure changes from May 2018 to June 2018.
The city is now looking at an $11.5 million projected deficit for the fiscal year that ended June 30 — $3.5 million less than projected a month earlier.
The city credits the 23 percent reduction to the projected deficit in comparison to last month’s projections in part to unexpected savings in the police and fire department budget salary lines.
by | Jul 27, 2018 4:59 pm | Comments (25)
Christopher Peak photo
NHFD’s Keith Kerr treats man who overdosed on heroin.
A city’s stark choices: One in a series.
Cutting four firefighter positions and merging medical and fire response units could save New Haven over $1.7 million each year.
In the view of the fire union, it could also mean fewer firefighters available to respond to the next serious blaze.
by | Jul 25, 2018 10:13 pm | Comments (20)
Thomas Breen photo
Controller Daryl Jones and fiscal watchdog Mohit Agrawal: 2 takes on city’s direction.
One of the nation’s big three credit rating agencies downgraded its long-term rating of the city’s new and existing debt Wednesday in a report that the chair of a local independent financial review board called “sobering.”
by and | Jul 18, 2018 2:07 pm | Comments (14)
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Harp: Alders can’t cut. Walker-Myers: We respectfully disagree.
Mayor Toni Harp vowed to fight the Board of Alders — “perhaps” even taking it to court — if it proceeds with plans to strip $483,172 from city departments to reduce the new 11 percent tax increase.
by | Jul 17, 2018 8:02 am | Comments (2)
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Acting City Budget Director Michael Gormany: stop loss policy pays off this year.
The city expects to collect at least $1.6 million in reimbursements for a sorely depleted medical fund from an insurance policy that hasn’t paid out in a decade.
by | Jul 16, 2018 10:45 pm | Comments (18)
New Haven has decided that rather than seek a Hartford-style state bailout to balance its books, it will refinance its debt again.
Continue reading ‘City Will Refinance Debt To Avoid Takeover’
by | Jul 12, 2018 1:29 pm | Comments (6)
Downsizing New Haven’s police patrols isn’t on the agenda, but cutting the number of assistant chiefs might be.
by | Jul 10, 2018 8:19 am | Comments (34)
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Alders Charles Decker, Dolores Colon, Adam Marchand, Evette Hamilton at Monday night hearing.
City department heads, executive management, and “confidential employees” observe the heated debate.
The average city homeowner will save around $10 on his or her new property tax bill if alders follow through on plans to strip city department budgets by nearly half of a million dollars and put that money instead towards reducing the new 11 percent tax increase.
by | Jul 6, 2018 12:34 pm | Comments (37)
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Controller Daryl Evans, Mohit Agrawal square off at a FRAC session.
Thomas Breen Photo
Recent tax-venting meeting: Outrage galore, solutions scant.
Eliminating 106 police positions could save New Haven over $4 million a year.
It could also, in the view of some people, cost us more in lost lives and a more dangerous city.
We could save hundreds of thousands of dollars eliminating or combining a bunch of higher-level management positions — if we believe we won’t lose out in the long run.
New Haven is now wrestling with those choices. Choices that can produce savings or cuts in the millions, not thousands. Choices that force the city to rethink what tasks city government can continue to perform in an era of finite help from the tottering state government.
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)
Thomas Breen photo
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)
Thomas Breen photo
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)
Thomas Breen photo
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)
Paul Bass Photo
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)
Thomas Breen photo
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)
Christopher Peak Photo
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.