Chiefs Roll With Cuts; Yale Strikes Back

New Haven’s police and fire chiefs Monday said they have plans to adjust to deep public-safety cuts Mayor Justin Elicker is proposing in his new city budget.

The mayor, meanwhile, laid into Yale University and Yale New Haven Hospital for not living up to an ​“ethical responsibility” to contribute more financially to the city in which those private institutions thrive. Yale’s president fired back.

Elicker made that remark and revealed the public-safety cuts Monday morning during a 20-minute press conference held on the second floor of City Hall to release his proposed $569.1 million city operating budget for the fiscal year starting July 1. The budget now goes to the Board of Alders for review and potential amendation. (Click here to read a full story about Elicker’s budget proposal.)

The leaders of the city’s police department and fire department agreed to back the mayor up — recognizing the cuts as stemming from tough but good-faith decision-making regarding how to continue to provide city services while also resolving long-term local deficits.

Meanwhile, Yale University President Peter Salovey rejected Elicker’s calls for Yale to help close the structural budget gap by increasing voluntary contributions.

“I do not believe that New Haven’s books should be balanced largely by Yale University writing dramatically bigger checks,” Salovey wrote in a statement issued Monday afternoon. (It appears in full at the bottom of this article.)

“I do not believe that New Haven’s current financial problems are the result of a lack of generosity from Yale. We will continue to increase our voluntary payment over time, but not at the rate the mayor has suggested.”

Standing alone before a podium flanked by posterboards describing a roughly $45 million structural city deficit and the relative annual monetary contributions to the city made by Yale University and Yale New Haven Hospital, Mayor Elicker called his proposal an ​“honest budget. An accurate budget.”

One that doesn’t use one-time large asset sales or scoop-and-toss debt refinancing or revenue initiative ​“budget gimmicks” to close the gap between city revenue and expenditures.

Why He Needed Cuts

The proposed budget instead 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 mayor’s full proposed budget.

“The main driver is debt services,” he said about why the proposed budget is slated to increase city expenditures by a total of $12.5 million over the current fiscal year’s even after the vacant position cuts and tax increase.

He said that the city’s annual required debt service increased from roughly $30 million two years ago, in the immediate aftermath of the city’s refinancing of $160 million in existing debt, to roughly $44 million this fiscal year. That number is slated to jump to roughly $57 million for the coming fiscal year, which begins July 1.

In addition to that scheduled $13 million increase in the city’s annual debt service payments, Elicker said that raises included in recently signed new police and fire union contracts added $5 million to next year’s budget.

He added that actuarily recommended increases to the city’s pension payments bumped that part of the city’s budget up by another $1.4 million.

And, while his proposed budget does not include the full $10.8 million increase asked for by the Board of Education, it does bump up the city’s funding of local public schools by $3.5 million.

NHPD Takes Hit

Elicker said that the majority of the proposed vacant position cuts would fall on the police department and the fire department, if the budget is adopted as is by the Board of Alders.

The total number of budgeted police department positions would drop from 434 to 406. That includes a drop in the number of budgeted patrol officer positions from 289 to 266.

Elicker said that the police department currently has around 344 filled sworn positions, and that no current employees will be laid off as part of this budget.

He said the proposed budget would result in $3.5 million in salary savings in the police department, which will also see an increase to its total overtime budget by $1.2 million.

“This budget allows us to bring on and train new police officers to rebuild our force,” Elicker said. ​“But it does lower the overall expectation of just how large our police force will be in the future.”

“We Can’t Abandon Community Policing”

After the press conference, Police Chief Otoniel Reyes (pictured) pledged to support Elicker in his proposed budget cuts, even if that means fewer resources to his department.

“Am I happy about it? No, I’m not,” Reyes said about the proposed budget. ​“Do I understand it? Absolutely, I do. And I’m going to support it, because that’s what we have to do.”

He said that he and Elicker had many conversations in the lead-up to Monday’s proposed budget presentation. ​“I appreciate his engagement with it and I appreciate his desire to create some balance,” he said. ​“Our job is to try to make do with what we have under the financial constraints.”

The department currently has 183 sworn patrol officers actually working for the city at this moment, Reyes said. That’s well below Elicker’s proposed 266 number of budgeted police officer positions. He said that this budget provides room for the department to continue to build up its current, actual force.

“We can’t abandon community policing,” Reyes warned. ​“I think it’s important that we understand that, when we reduce the force, that is impacted to some degree. But it doesn’t have to be.” He said these proposed budget cuts represents a call from City Hall to his department to step up its partnerships with state and federal agencies and other community partners.

He said that residents expect the police department to be ​“omnipresent,” and pointed to the department’s recent significant increases in motor vehicle and traffic safety enforcement. With a smaller budget and fewer budgeted positions, he said, his current officers will have to stretch themselves even more thin than before to enforce the law all over the city.

He said he is still feeling positive about his working relationship with the new mayor.

“As a department head, all you can ask for is a mayor who is engaging, who seeks to understand, and who is a listener. He does all three of those things.”

Outsourcing Paramedics

As for proposed cuts to the fire department, Elicker said that his newly submitted budget would reduce 12 sworn firefighter positions to $1 worth of funding each — on practice removing them from this year’s budget but leaving the possibility for those positions to be refunded and refilled in stronger financial times.

The more substantive proposed change lies not necessarily in personnel, but in changes to the department’s provision of medical services. Elicker said that the fire department under his budget would move away from providing advanced life support through city-staffed paramedics and focus instead on its core services on fire suppression and basic life support as provided by city firefighters who are also all trained as emergency medical technicians (EMT).

The city would in turn outsource all of its ambulance, ALS, and paramedic needs to a private partner. The city currently contracts with American Medical Response (AMR) to do most of those high-needs medical services.

Elicker said this move would allow the city to take advantage of a provision included in last year’s union agreement that allows the city to drop the department’s minimum staffing requirement from 72 firefighters to 69 firefighters per shift — which is all contingent upon the chief scrapping all three of the city’s current ambulance units.

Budget reformers have long looked to the department’s minimum staffing requirement as a place to significantly reduce heretofore contract-mandated budget expenditures.

“ALS Right Now Is Broken”

After the press conference, Fire Chief Alston and Fire Union President Frank Ricci said that it’s still ​“too early” to tell exactly what impact on city services this proposed shift might have.

Neither vociferously opposed the proposal. Both recognized how unusual New Haven is among comparable Connecticut cities in providing such advanced medical services in-house. Ricci in particular underscored how much the move would save the city if implemented.

“It’s too early to tell whether there’s going to be a severe impact,” Alston said. Currently, the department has three ambulance units with a total of six people working those units per shift. If the mayor’s plans move forward, the ambulance unit staffers would be reassigned to fire engines and trucks. No one would be laid off.

Of the city’s roughly 350 sworn fire department personnel currently working, Alston said, roughly 40 are paramedics.

Ricci also cautioned that he and his fellow union leaders have not yet read the fire department details referenced in Elicker’s proposed budget. He was more vocal as to the inadequacies of the current fire department ALS system — as well as about the potential savings of reducing the minimum staffing from 72 to 69.

“The department has failed to support the ALS program for the last 20 years if not longer,” Ricci said. He said the union and the city at one time agreed to make hire between 7 to 10 paramedics in every firefighter class.

“That never came to fruition,” he said. ​“The program’s been largely unsupported.”

Even if the city contracts entirely with a third party to provide ambulances, he said, the fire department will still arrive at residents’ houses within four minutes to initiate emergency care.

“We’re still a fire-EMS-all hazards service available to provide the best possible care to our citizens,” he said.

With that said, he continued, if the city shifts entirely away from ALS and in-house ambulance units, ​“There will be millions saved.”

“Ideally you would like to put a paramedic on every engine company,” he said. The city hasn’t done that. And no other city in Connecticut does that either.

“The way we run ALS right now is broken,” he said. ​“And either you need to fix it 100 percent and put paramedics on every engine company, or you need to go away from it.”

“Ethical Responsibility”

The mayor also took aim at Yale University and Yale New Haven Hospital during the press conference for failing to live up to their ​“ethical responsibility” to contribute more dollars each year to the city in which both largely tax-exempt private institutions thrive.

“We have cut so much from our budget,” Elicker said. ​“We continue to raise taxes. We’ve done our part.”

He said its now time for the city’s partners — the state, the university, and the hospital — to step up.

He said he’s working with the city’s state delegation to petition the state legislature and Gov. Ned Lamont for increased state funding for public education, affordable housing and payment in lieu of taxes (PILOT) reimbursements for tax-exempt local property.

“I wanted in particular to call out our local partners, Yale University and Yale New Haven Hospital,” Elicker continued.

Executive Assistant Ana Garcia joined Elicker to reveal two charts showing how much revenue each institution brings in every year alongside how much each contributes to the city in voluntary annual payments.

The mayor said that the hospital has an annual revenue of $3.1 billion, and only contributes $2.8 million to the city. He said the university has a total annual revenue of $4.1 billion, and is slated to contribute only $13 million to the city in the coming fiscal year.

“There’s not a mistake on the graphs,” Elicker said. He said the hospital’s contribution to the city is so low it couldn’t fit on the graph alongside its annual revenue.

“This is your home,” he said. ​“This is the town hat you’re succeeding in. This is the town that Yale University and Yale New Haven Hospital have an ethical responsibility to contribute to to ensure that our residents continue to have the resources that they need.”

He said that both the university and the hospital are ostensibly committed to public health and public education. He said many at both institutions talk about supporting ​“economic and social justice.”

“This is the question of our time,” he said. ​“And it is time that you step up and make sure that you contribute to this city so that everyone in New Haven has an opportunity to thrive.”

Spokespeople from the university and the hospital did not respond to requests for comment by the publication time of this article.

Board of Alders President Tyisha Walker-Myers and Majority Leader Richard Furlow declined to offer any first impressions on the mayor’s proposed budget.

“Now that the Mayor has submitted the proposed budget for FY2020-2021, it will go through the aldermanic public process where we look forward to receiving more details from City Departments and hear community input before our final vote,” they stated in a written release.

The proposed budget now advances to the aldermanic Finance Committee for two months’ worth of public hearings and discussions before final deliberations and a vote by the full Board of Alders at the end of May or the beginning of June.

Salovey Fires Back

Following is a written response to Elicker’s statements about Yale, released by Yale President Peter Salovey:

New Haven has been Yale University’s home for over 300 years and mine for nearly 40. As a longtime Yale employee and New Haven resident, I know that the university and its city love and need each other — and that there come moments when our leaders have special reason to work closely together for the good of our community.

In presenting his first budget to the city today, Mayor Elicker called for Yale to increase greatly its voluntary annual payment to the city. I respect the mayor, and I offer here my thoughts on his request, which I have shared with him in meetings we have had since he took office.

While I applaud his desire to address the city’s budget deficit head-on, I do not believe that New Haven’s books should be balanced largely by Yale University writing dramatically bigger checks. The truth is that our $12 million voluntary payment in the most recent fiscal year was the highest from a university to a host city anywhere in the United States, and represented a 44 percent increase from the payment we made just three years earlier. And that is only one part of what Yale gives directly to the city.

In that same year, we paid $5 million in property taxes on our non-academic properties (making us the city’s third-highest taxpayer), and every year we pay about $5 million in permitting fees. When Yale builds, it does so primarily on its existing land, and the city benefits immediately not just through these permitting fees, but through increased demand for construction and other local labor. And of course, new jobs usually follow.

Furthermore, Yale proudly commits significant resources to supporting New Haven public-school students. 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. These and other Yale offerings benefit 10,000 children in New Haven public schools each year.

Last year, Yale departments and employees made $3.5 million in charitable donations to New Haven nonprofits and the United Way Campaign, to the direct benefit of New Haven residents.

Yale further contributed $1.5 million to the Yale Homebuyer Program, which offers Yale employees $30,000 to purchase homes in certain parts of New Haven. Since 1994, thanks to this funding, over 1,200 Yale employees have been able to put down roots in many city neighborhoods — directly benefiting New Haven through increased property tax.

And of course, Yale is New Haven’s largest employer, with nearly 14,000 faculty and staff, all of them contributing immensely to the local economy. Through its New Haven Hiring Initiative, Yale has recently hired more than 1,000 New Haven residents into full-time positions (bringing the total to 4,000), and Yale partners with city and community groups such as New Haven Works to further expand local hiring.

Additionally, the university invests in parks, pedestrian and bike paths, and sidewalk gardens throughout the city. The Dixwell-Yale Community Learning Center, built and run by Yale, hosts programming for the community, and Yale recently made a significant contribution to support the new Stetson Library in the Dixwell Avenue neighborhood.

All in, these direct contributions totaled more than $30 million last year, and they do not count our significant in-kind contributions. Our medical school sponsors free clinics; our law school offers pro-bono legal advice; and our architecture school designs and builds homes for the economically disadvantaged. Yale students volunteer throughout the city, providing tutoring, mentoring, tax preparation, ESL classes, and food pantry services to their neighbors.

Beyond making direct and indirect contributions to New Haven, we invite residents to immerse themselves in our cultural institutions. The Yale University Art Gallery and the Yale Center for British Art are both free to the public, and the Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History is free for anyone under 18 and for all students. Yale also hosts free breakfasts featuring university speakers, and members of the community are invited to take free, semester-long classes alongside Yale students through the DeVane Lecture series.

In short, I do not believe that New Haven’s current financial problems are the result of a lack of generosity from Yale. We will continue to increase our voluntary payment over time, but not at the rate the mayor has suggested.

I do, however, believe that Yale can and must contribute in new ways to what I think is the only viable way forward: a concerted effort to stimulate vibrant economic growth in our city. Toward this end I offer the mayor the full support of this university, and I would be very eager to explore novel, bold measures that the city, the business community, and Yale could take together.

We would be building from a position of strength. Increasingly, Yale spurs economic development, as seen through the creation of New Haven companies such as Arvinas, Quantum Circuits, and BioHaven. In all, some sixty New Haven biotech startups based on Yale faculty inventions have raised over $12 billion in funding, fueling the growth of high-paying jobs. New Haven startups with ties to Yale employ over 1,000 people in the city.

Meanwhile, Yale has helped pave the way for properties to be developed and join the city’s tax rolls. For example, working in partnership with New Haven, the State of Connecticut, and others, Yale was a major catalyst for, and contributor to, the redevelopment of Science Park, which at the time featured vacant and non-commercially-viable buildings.

What more could we do — all of us in New Haven — if we were to consider these successes as just the beginnings of something transformative for our city? And how could New Haven grow in such a way that all residents benefited?

Yale can offer expertise useful to addressing those questions — and a rapidly developing entrepreneurial ecosystem poised to give expression to their answers. Our mayor has the power to bring all of us together in a new effort, one that would feature Yale as an earnest and enthusiastic partner.

More Money From YNHH To City ​“Is Not The Answer”

Following is a written response to Elicker’s statements about Yale New Haven Health, released by Vin Petrini, YNHH’s senior vice president, chief policy and communications officer:

“We respect Mayor Elicker and understand that the budget pressures he is facing are real. However, today Yale New Haven Health is the largest taxpayer in Connecticut, paying more than $300 million a year. At the same time, we have provided $30 million in voluntary payments to New Haven over the last decade. In addition, we pay nearly $6 million in property taxes to the city annually, contribute to critical community programs like New Haven Promise and we are working collaboratively to drive down employee healthcare costs. While imposing additional voluntary payments is not the answer, we remain open to working on creative approaches with the city.”