Markeshia Ricks Photo
Mayor Harp at the Newhallville Community Management Team meeting.
In a twist on her current budget roadshow, a Harp administration official asked neighbors for ideas about how to address the city’s fiscal challenges.
A hand went right up, and a suggestion followed: Stop budgeting state money the city doesn’t have and isn’t going to get.
Citizen budget watchdog Ken Joyner delivered that answer to city Controller Daryl Jones during the latest stop in the Harp administration’s traveling budget presentation, which pulled into the Newhallville Community Management Team’s regular monthly meeting at Lincoln Bassett Tuesday night. (Read about recent presentations in Westville and Downtown.)
That exchange took place after Mayor Toni Harp talked about the positive changes that have come to Newhallville under her administration, including the fact that violent crime is down in Newhallville and the very school they were meeting in Monday has seen a significant turnaround in student success. She said all of that is attributable to the community coming together to make those things happen.
“What’s happening here in Newhallville not only gives you hope, it gives the rest of the city hope,” she said.
As he had done in previous presentations Jones made the case that the city has managed its finances well despite flat and decreased funding from the state in the form of Payment in Lieu of Taxes (PILOT) and Education Cost Sharing (ECS) money. The state is supposed to pay up to 77 percent of lost tax revenue to municipalities through PILOT. In fact, it has been paying between 30 and 40 percent.
“The state should be giving us more,” Jones said, “We have the largest amount of tax-exempt property in the state. Or it should provide us with other tools to raise revenue.”
Thomas Breen Photo
City budget critic and Newhallville neighbor Ken Joyner.
When asked what those other tools might be, acting Budget Director Michael Gormany said that currently, tax revenue on amenities like hotels and dining out go to the state’s coffers. Giving cities some access to those funds or allowing them to levy an additional local tax would take an act of the legislature, he said.
Harp argued, as she has in other stops on the neighborhood budget tour, that her administration needed to raise property taxes by 11 percent this year because the state didn’t come through on promised funding. The state shortchanged New Haven $9 million in promised money mid-fiscal year, she said. (She has also argued that over her five years in office taxes have gone up only 1.5 percent, not 11 percent, and the mill rate is higher in surrounding communities like Hamden and West Haven.)
Critics have argued that other communities, like Branford and Seymour, saw state cuts coming and budgeted accordingly in advance. (Click here to read about the contrast in how ratings agencies viewed Brnaford’s and New Haven’s approaches.)
At the Newhallville meeting, Ken Joyner pushed back against the narrative of raising more revenue or wringing more out of the state. Instead, he said the Harp administration has crafted budgets over the last five years that aren’t based in reality.
“Your budgets set the city up to receive 77 percent which you’re never going to get,” he said. “The state is not going to pay the money for [full-funding] PILOT or education. We should not spend money we’re not going to receive.”
Joyner went on to say that instead of blaming the state and raising taxes or borrowing to cover spending, the administration should take the advice of the city’s independent Financial Review and Audit Commission (FRAC). FRAC is an independent commission of citizen financial experts appointed by the mayor to routinely review the city’s budget. He also panned the administration’s efforts to put together a five-year budget plan
“I think I’m representing the view of the taxpayers here and across the city,” Joyner said. “New Haven has to do a better job of planning and spending.”
His comments drew applause from the roughly 40 people gathered for the meeting.
Jones responded by saying he disagrees with some of what Joyner said. He said he’d be willing to talk about that — in private. He pointed out that good things have happened in the city such as the decrease in crime and the increase in graduation rates. He also noted that the administration is looking at ways to realign city services to find more efficiencies. Gormany said that expenditures have gone up only 1.5 percent.
City Controller Daryl Jones and Budget Director Michael Gormany.
Jones drew the line, however, at the suggestion that the city should take FRAC’s advice.
“I openly disagree with FRAC because FRAC wants to raise your taxes by a lot,” he said. “I don’t want to raise your taxes.”
Put-Ups Sought
The request for suggestions was one addition to some of Mayor Harp’s previous visits to neighborhood management teams on this budget tour. A second addition in Newhallville: Jones asked people in the room to name some of the other positive things that have happened in the neighborhood in the last five years.
One neighbor noted that the streets of Newhallville look a lot cleaner.
Jones said that was because of the “Clean City” sweeps, which launched first in Newhallville last year, where officials from departments throughout government blitz a neighborhood looking for problems that need to be addressed.
Alder Clyburn.
Jones said had hoped neighbors would point out how quiet things were in Newhallville. So he mentioned it. Things are quiet not just because gun violence is down but because the police department’s new indoor firing range is finally completed.
Newhallville Alder Delphine Clyburn wasn’t content to dwell on the good. She said there is still more that needs to be done.
“We know a lot has happened for us,” she said. “But we want Newhallville to be a place that is desirable. We see these changes but we want more changes.”