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.
Those public testimonies came Monday night during the first half of the Board of Alders Finance Committee’s nearly six-hour public hearing and departmental workshop on Mayor Justin Elicker’s proposed $569.1 million general fund budget for Fiscal Year 2020 – 2021 (FY21).
The public hearing took place not in its originally scheduled location of Hill Regional Career High School, but instead online through the Zoom tele-conferencing app — the virtual space in which nearly all public functionings of municipal government seem to take place these days since the mayor closed City Hall indefinitely to the public earlier this month when he declared a state of emergency around the novel coronavirus outbreak.
Click here to watch a video recording of the full meeting.
Westville Alder and Finance Committee Vice-Chair Adam Marchand (pictured) pointed out at the top of Monday’s meeting what he described as “a good problem to have”: that so many virtual attendees had crowded into the Zoom budget hearing that the city had hit the 100 person cap for its Zoom account.
He asked members of the public to leave the meeting if possible after sharing their three minutes of testimony so as to make room for others interested in participating.
“Obviously we’re living in very unusual times,” he said. “But something that’s very characteristic of New Haven is that people participate very vigorously in public processes.”
Which is exactly how the next nearly three hours played out, as 41 different members of the public took their turns addressing the local legislative body from the comfort of their own desks, couches, and kitchen tables.
Only a handful of the more than three dozen people who testified Monday spoke directly to any specific provisions in the mayor’s proposed budget, which includes a 3.56 percent tax increase, the elimination or defunding of roughly 80 currently vacant city positions, and the restructuring of the current Youth Services, Parks, and Public Works departments into two consolidated new departments.
Instead, a vast majority of those who participated focused their attention — and outrage — on the local entity they said held a disproportionate sway over city government’s finances, largely through its near absence in the city budget book. That is: Yale University.
Members of the public who testified accused Yale of not doing its fair share to support the city it calls home because of the many property tax exemptions it benefits from as a legal nonprofit and as a beneficiary of centuries-old protections written into the state Constitution. They called on the university to increase its annual voluntary financial contributions to the city to well above the $13 million included in this year’s proposed budget, an expense they said should be possible considering the university’s $30 billion-plus endowment.
And they argued that the current Covid-19 pandemic has only underscored just how unequal the distribution of wealth is in this city — with many who live just just outside of Yale’s downtown campus facing the prospect of massive unemployment, housing insecurity, and debilitating medical bills.
In addition to the calls for increased funding, speakers insisted that Yale open up its dormitories and other empty buildings on campus to provide emergency housing for New Haveners in need.
“The current pandemic will only further the divide between the haves and the have nots,” said Yale University junior and undergraduate student body president Kahlil Greene (pictured). “I ask Yale to reassess how it uses its surplus. I demand that Yale stand by this city that it claims to call its home.”
“Yale needs to do more for the City of New Haven,” said city Board of Education President Yesenia Rivera (pictured). “Covid-19 has further exposed the unequal access to educational resources. … Now is the time to bring this disparity into balance.”
“We are tired of the inequality,” said Newhallville resident and city public school paraprofessional Kimberly Smart (pictured). “It is time for a new relationship built on actual respect and partnership.”
University spokesperson Karen Peart pointed to Yale President Peter Salovey’s recent commitment that the university will make available 300 beds for local emergency responders during the crisis. She also pointed to Yale’s contribution of $1 million to a new $5 million fundraising goal for money that will directly benefit needy New Haveners. And she described a host of financial and non-financial initiatives that the university has taken in recent years to benefit city residents (which can be read about at the bottom of this article), as well as other immediate actions taken by Yale to help New Haven during the Covid-19 pandemic (which can be read about here).
“Yale proudly commits significant resources to supporting New Haven public-school students,” she wrote. “As co-founder and primary funder of New Haven Promise, Yale contributed $4 million this year to cover full tuition at any public university in Connecticut for eligible New Haven public-school students. Since 2014, this program has awarded scholarships to 1,900 students and has placed 400 paid interns at Yale. Yale hosts thousands of New Haven public high school students in Yale-sponsored academic and social development programs each year.”
“Yale, Willing To Share?”
Many who testified Monday acknowledged the benefit that all of these initiatives and existing financial contributions to the city have for New Haveners — and insisted that, considering Yale’s $30 billion endowment and the relative poverty of the city it resides in, the university should be giving more.
“The city needs its richest private residents to kick in their fair share,” said local teacher and bookstore co-owner Lauren Anderson (pictured). “I’m appalled at Yale’s continued disrespect for New Haven,” particularly the university’s initial refusal to make beds available for emergency responders during this public health crisis.
“Yale could instantly improve the health and wellbeing of our community by simply putting their money where their mouth is and fully funding our school budget,” said local public school teacher Jessica Light (pictured). “If Yale values education, they should fund it.”
Elm City Montessori magnet resource teacher David Weinreb (pictured) agreed. Yale should help fund librarians and media specialists at every public school. It should make sure that public school students have access to school-based health clinics and quality, nutritious meals. He said that the university must stop “washing its hands of their responsibility to their neighbors” and stop “social distancing from those who surround its ivory towers.”
“Yale, what are you willing to share with the New Haven community?”
Former New Haven Board of Education student representative and current Yale junior Coral Ortiz (pictured) said that she has witnessed firsthand the stark divide in educational resources and opportunities available between town and gown.
“Yale can do more and should be doing more, especially in this time of crisis,” she said. “I ask for Yale to act on what everyone knows is the right thing to do.”
Hedge Fund U.
Westville resident Tim Holahan (pictured) pointed out that Yale’s endowment when he graduated from the university in 1992 was around $1.5 billion. It’s now well over $30 billion.
“Yale has, from a financial analysis and balance sheet perspective, become a hedge fund,” he said. “It’s still a great university, but from a financial point of view, it’s become a hedge fund.” The university must share some of the wealth that it’s accumulated thanks to decades of federal tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans, he said.
Varick Memorial AME Zion Church Pastor Kelcy Steele agreed, and stressed how critical a role Yale can and must play in the city’s survival during this pandemic.
“This unique crisis, unprecedented in our lifetimes, should remind all of us that we are all in this together and our fates are fundamentally linked,” he said. “A spiritual trial is upon us and now is the time for all of us to do our part. Workers wake up on a daily basis, set aside their fear, and push forward for the sake of our community. Powerful institutions, like Yale University, and our region’s largest employers must now also rise to the occasion and put forward solutions that are appropriate for the scale of the crisis we find ourselves in.”
Career high school student and East Haven resident Syed Ardhi (pictured) said that the Legion Avenue public school lacked soap in the student bathrooms for much of the year, even as the pandemic drew near and public health officials urged everyone to wash their hands frequently with soap and water to mitigate the spread of the virus.
“If we hold institutions like Yale responsible,” Ardhi said, “our educational system will heavily benefit and finally be able to provide students” with the basic resources they need.
Woodbridge Hall? Or State Capitol?
Budget watchdog and Finance Committee regular Gary Doyens (pictured) questioned the value of people testifying at a city budget hearing about how much money Yale should or should not give to New Haven.
Activists should take that concern to Hartford, he said, and lobby state legislators to amend the state Constitution to allow for Yale to be taxed.
“Every year we talk about it, and every year nothing changes,” he said. He criticized the mayor’s proposed budget as a “spending increase budget,” and said that people concerned with city finances would be better served advocating for municipal budget cuts than lobbying for Yale to direct additional money to local government.
He did appear to agree with many of his fellow testifiers on at least one point, however: Yale is a uniquely wealthy institution.
“We all know that Yale University has more money than God,” he said.