When Mayor DeStefano brought his toughest budget in years to tax-weary neighbors, even the watchdogs agreed the numbers largely added up.
The mayor’s $464 million proposed FY09-10 budget would slash 154 full-time jobs, close senior centers, and, as he told a gathering in Westville Wednesday night, result “in your potholes getting filled more slowly and the public lawns not being cut as fast as they should be.”
Click here and here for previous stories on the budget.
Some 30 budget-watching citizens showed up for the latest edition of the mayor’s budget road show, at Edgewood Magnet School. Also in attendance were Westville Aldermen Sergio Rodriguez and Ina Silverman, Fire Chief Michael Grant, school construction coordinator Sue Weisselberg, and State Rep. Pat Dillon.
“Look, we’re basically sound as a city,” DeStefano (pictured) told the gathering. “People want to live here. That said, times do suck [economically], and we need to be brave, and get on with it.”
As the mayor crunched his way through PowerPoint presentation, soberly and without defensiveness, his audience asked more for clarifications than for justifications. In tough economic times, the critics — who in past years blasted tax increases — did not contest mayoral budget assumptions or decisions.
When DeStefano concluded by saying the budget was a fair attempt to share the burden of cuts, one could even detect a murmur of assent.
This was the second of three public community meetings on the budget. The first meeting, in Morris Cove, featured seniors righteously angry about cuts in their services and center locations. Westville’s losing its senior center. But Wednesday the issue was brought up briefly and far more quietly.
When questioned about the cuts in elderly services, the mayor answered, “Only three of 14 unions have come through with concessions we sought. Had more done so, maybe the senior centers would not have to be closed.”
When a questioner pressed the mayor politely that perhaps the unions should not be blamed, he responded, “It could have been done. We all need to share the burden.”
State Rep. Dillon asked why the senior closings were largely on the west side. (The West River center is closing, too.) The mayor said the decision was based on low usage of those centers. Next question.
The Pension “Sleeper”
Long-time budget watchdogs such as Jeffrey Kerekes (left in photo at the top of this story) and Harry David quibbled with the mayor about some of his numbers, especially the risks in the ongoing if diminished support of Tweed-New Haven Airport, which is receiving a mid-year bailout from the DeStefano administration. But the pair largely agreed with the mayor that the core problem to be tackled in the future is pension costs and health benefits.
“Sixty-five percent of the expenses in the general fund,” Kerekes said, “are related to labor.”
According to the mayor’s PowerPoint presentation, pension expenditures have grown from $21 million in 2005 to $32.8 projected for 2010. In the same period health benefits expenditures have leaped from $36.5 to $51.6 million. He called the challenge of funding pensions not only in New Haven but throughout the country “a sleeping dog,” and pledged to work on remedies in upcoming contract negotiations.
“I went to the police academy for the new class that’s graduating,” the mayor quipped, “and I asked them why they wanted to be cops. I expected them to raise their hands and say to serve the public! But they said it was for the pensions!”
“These are not sustainable rates of growth for us,” he said.
How To Avoid A Tax Hike
On the eve of the unveiling of the Democrats’ state budget proposal Thursday, Dillon (right in photo) joined DeStefano in expressing cautious optimism that the freezing of the property revaluation for one year would receive needed permission from legislators in Hartford. This is the budgetary assumption behind the freezing of city property taxes in the FY09-10 city proposed budget. Without the freeze, there would need to be a 5.4 percent tax hike to balance the budget.
The mayor also pledged new cost-saving initiatives forthcoming out of the Board of Ed in April, as well as more progress on a prison re-entry initiative in collaboration with the state’s Judicial Department.
Could he provide a guarantee the state will definitely come through for the city on reval and other critical issues?
“Of course not. What the Democrats propose this month will not be what we end up with in June.”
The full PowerPoint presentation on the budget, spokesperson Jessica Mayorga said, will be on the municipal website Thursday. The full 416-plus-page budget document is here.
The third and final community budget meaning is scheduled for April 29 at the Wexler/Grant School.