Zoom
Monday night’s budget workshop.
The Covid-19 pandemic has delayed at least one police academy class from starting, leading the chief to consider setting up an online academy.
It put on hold all new bulk trash pick-up appointments, along with a study on how many cops and firefighters the city needs.
City department heads gave those updates Monday night during the latest workshop before the Board of Alders Finance Committee regarding Mayor Justin Elicker’s proposed $569.1 million general fund budget for Fiscal Year 2020 – 2021 (FY21).
The four-hour meeting took place online via the Zoom teleconferencing app.
As at the previous two workshops this municipal budget-making season, the top city officials who testified on Monday offered insights on how the novel coronavirus outbreak has disrupted their departments’ day-to-day operations and on how their staff have adapted to the indefinite closure of City Hall and the various social distancing mandates associated with the public health emergency.
They also reiterated just how uncertain the short, mid, and long-term impacts of the pandemic might be on this fiscal year’s budget and next fiscal year’s budget.
The proposed budget for the fiscal year starting July 1 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. Click here to read the full document.
Cop Class Sidelined
Chief Reyes testifies at Monday night’s virtual hearing.
• Police Chief Otoniel Reyes (pictured) said that the police department was planning on seating a new class of roughly 30 recruits at the local police academy at the end of this month. Then the pandemic landed in New Haven last month, bringing to a halt the polygraph services and medical exam services the department uses to conduct background checks on applicants.
Reyes said the department has an active list of 175 people interested in joining the department. “We’ve been able to glean several dozen people who are good prospects for the academy class.”
If the public health emergency ends sometimes soon, he said, the department will hold in-person classes as soon as late spring or early summer. If it continues, he said, the department will likely have to set up a virtual academy.
“The continuity of our operations has to continue,” Reyes said. “We are looking right now at ways to begin a police academy, if we have to, online.”
“One of the positives that’s going to come out of this Covid-19 epidemic is that it shows us we can be unconventional in how we do things.”
Reyes said his department has 340 people currently on its staff and roughly 90 vacancies. That number of vacancies is slated to drop to 49 if the budget passes — not because of a wave of new hires, but because of the proposed budget’s significant cuts to currently vacant police officer positions.
“I’m not comfortable with that number, but I also realize that it’s realistic under the circumstances,” Reyes said about his department’s proposed budgeted strength of 389 employees. “In the short term, in this budget cycle, I think it’s a realistic goal and a fair thing to shoot for.”
Fire OT Projections “Out The Window”
Fire Chief John Alston (pictured) walked the alders through a slide show detailing a steady decline in overtime expenditures during his three years in office (pictured).
“This Covid thing is going to throw all this out the window,” he cautioned, because of how much his department of 331 is working during this crisis. “We anticipate it will throw our overtime numbers for a loop.”
He said 12 city firefighters have tested positive for the novel coronavirus so far and are currently off duty.
“We have to look at potentially a second wave of this disease” in the fall, he said. “We’re looking at forecasting models in terms of what our responses are going to be.”
He said that, when he first learned about the novel coronavirus two months ago, he and top officials in his department did a tabletop exercise in which they forecasted what might happen if four percent, or 10 percent, or 20 percent of city firefighters got infected and had to take off work.
Would that trigger renegotiating the contract? he asked. Eliminating certain responses? Identifying essential personnel?
“It is taxing,” he said. “It is arduous. But we are making the grade. I’m very proud of the work our team is doing.” He said that he is confident that, with current staffing levels and “our current delivery system,” the fire department will be able to weather the storm of this pandemic as is.
Library Remains Busy, Online
City Librarian John Jessen (pictured) said the library has had to move all of its services online as the four neighborhood branches and downtown hub remain closed during the public health emergency.
City residents can still access a wealth of e‑books and audiobooks and other digital resources, include free tax preparation through VITA, on the city library’s website.
Jessen said the library is building out a live chat service for its website, so that residents can ask questions and communicate by text with staff in real time. Staff are currently answering resident queries by phone and email.
“I think we’ve done a great job pivoting,” he said. “This really ups the game about what’s available. I think we’re going to come out of it and be way stronger. We’re going to have a great suite of online services, and a great suite of in-person services.”
He pointed out that the proposed budget does include a $100,000 cut to its acquisitions budget, from $300,000 this fiscal year to a proposed $200,000 for next fiscal year. That means the city library system will be able to buy fewer books, magazine subscriptions, and electronic database licenses for residents to use.
“It’s not going to be an easy $100,000,” he said. “It will be tight, but I do think it’s doable.” He recognized that nearly every city department has been asked by the mayor to make some cuts. He tried to focus his recommended cuts away from staff, so as not to reduce programming or operational hours at the library.
Jessen said the one complaint he consistently hears from residents about the library is that its branches are not open frequently enough. Cutting staff instead of collection acquisitions would only exacerbate that problem, he said.
Staffing Study On Hold
City Chief Administrative Officer Scott Jackson (pictured) said that one of his top priorities upon assuming his position at the start of the year was to make sure that the city commissioned deployment studies for the police and fire department to better understand how many police officers and firefighters New Haven truly needs for residents’ expected levels of service.
The proposed budget includes $60,000 for those studies — which have been put on hold for now, because of the more pressing concerns of Covid.
“We’ve been taken off track a little bit by everything that’s going on,” he said. “It is our absolute intention to push those forward at the earliest opportunity.”
He said he wanted to conduct a series of community conversations about what community policing looks like in New Haven in 2020 before putting out the RFPs and hiring companies to conduct the studies.
“Because of everything that’s happened, we haven’t been able to have that conversation, which would have informed the RFP,” he said. “We’re still trying to figure out how to do that in this new form and this new time that we live in.”
Bulk Trash Backlog
City Department of Public Works Director Jeff Pescosolido said that all bulk trash pick up appointments have been suspended because of Covid-19.
He said the department is running a “skeleton crew” to pick up bulk trash illegally dumped on curbs throughout the city.
Anyone who wants to make an appointment for a legal pick up will have to wait three months after bulk pick up resumes because of the department’s back log, he said.
However, he added, the residential drop off of bulk trash at 34 Middletown Ave. “has noticed a major increase.” That service is open six days a week, he said. And department personnel on site are maintaining social distancing of at least six feet from each other and from people who come by to drop off their bulk trash.