(Updated with Stratton response) Mayor Toni Harp responded Tuesday to Alder Michael Stratton’s accusations that the city’s schools spending is “illegal.”
You’re wrong, she said. And don’t try to “balance our budget at the expense of our children.”
Harp’s response came in the form of a letter to Alder Stratton, who represents Newhallville and Prospect Hill.
Last Wednesday, Stratton hand-delivered a letter to the city controller, alleging that the city has been illegally paying Board of Ed health care expenses. The city never approved these payments, or had a public debate about them, Stratton claimed.
On Tuesday, Stratton received a three-fold response from the city. The mayor and city Corporation Counsel Victor Bolden both sent letters to Stratton, rebutting his claims. And city spokesman Laurence Grotheer issued a press release refuting Stratton’s argument, quoting two other city officials.
Click here to read the mayor and corporation counsel responses.
Click here to read a lengthy subsequent response to the letters from Stratton. He threatened to sue the city and recoup millions of dollars.
“I am appalled by the angry and unproductive missives that were launched at me today,” he wrote. “Whether this is illegal or not, the people have been badly hurt by this subterfuge. No budget looks like this, and no town spends 90m more than it is aware. This is the big issue, not what a court will do, or how much the Mayor and her staff will pay the city once the court rules as it surely will that they must pay the city back millions in losses.”
The competing letters appear in the midst of what has become a testy budget season. City alders are currently considering the mayor’s proposed $511 million budget for the fiscal year beginning July 1. The budget includes a 3.8 percent property tax increase.
As the Board of Alders Finance Committee considers the budget, two hearings have devolved into shouting, with Alders Stratton and Andrea Jackson-Brooks involved in that shouting both times.
Stratton has emerged as a strident critic of the mayor’s budget. Along with other members of the Board of Alders’ breakaway People’s Caucus, he has proposed across-the-board cuts in nearly every city department, including cutting the finance department in half and slashing millions of dollars from education spending.
In her letter to Stratton, Harp said she appreciates his “passion and energy” but “I would encourage you to spend time learning the details of the budget and asking questions before making criminal accusations through your law firm.”
“I remain concerned with both the direction and tone of your recent accusations, which sensationalize serious discussions and play fast and loose with key budget details,” Harp wrote.
Harp said that Stratton’s “glee” at cutting tens of millions of dollars out of the schools “seems callous to the needs of New Haven’s children and families.”
Bolden’s letter to Stratton cites the city charter to justify city spending on Board of Ed health care costs. The Board of Ed is a city department, Bolden said. Health care, pension and schools debt service payments are all accounted for in the city budget and are thus “permissible expenditures,” Bolden said.
The city has not only the legal authority, but the legal obligation to pay those Board of Ed expenses, Bolden said.
Controller Daryl Jones offered the most stinging rebuttal of Stratton’s accusations.
“Alder Stratton is new to the process and seems to have gotten himself turned around and confused,” Jones said in a release from the city. “His proposals for budget cuts change every week – one day he supports more library workers, the next he wants to cut half a million dollars from city libraries. He publicizes his apocalyptic rhetoric before he knows what’s going on and it’s hurting the process.
“He could just come in and ask me or anyone in my department, but he seems more interested in the show.”
In his letter Tuesday night, Stratton wrote: “Here we were for years and years raising taxes on residents, laying off employees, and cutting city services and all the time it was nothing more than a sick ruse on city residents. The solution lay hidden and commingled and misidentified as ‘non education’ in the city budget and completely omitted from the ‘city contribution’ line in the BOE budget,
“How many kids didn’t have summer camp, how many people lost jobs or didnt get to become police or fire personnel, how many more crimes occurred, teens killed, neighborhoods left blighted, festivals never held, people forced to move out as taxes rose, or jobs lost because new businesses were afraid of the cities financial stability?”