Mayor Justin Elicker has proposed a 3.56 percent tax increase, dozens of cuts to currently vacant city police and firefighter positions, and a restructuring of three city departments in his newly submitted $569.1 million recommended general fund budget.
City staff published the mayor’s proposed Fiscal Year 2020 – 2021 (FY21) budget on the city website Sunday night. Click here to read the full document.
City of New Haven
Elicker’s budget slashes 23 police officer pushes, ends “green” meter-parking exemption.
The proposed general fund budget represents one of the more ambitious recommended restructurings of city government in recent years.
It includes not just a tax increase and the elimination or defunding of approximately 80 currently vacant city positions.
If adopted by the Board of Alders, the budget would also merge the Youth Services department and one part of the Parks, Recreation & Trees department into a new Youth & Recreation Department. It would also merge the rest of the existing parks department with the current Department of Public Works, to create a new Parks & Public Works department.
“The budget is a reflection of tough financial decisions precipitated by the City’s increasing financial obligations,” Elicker wrote in his proposed budget’s introductory letter, addressed to city residents and the Board of Alders.
He wrote later in the budget that his administration encountered a “$45 million gap between expenses and revenues” when they started preparing the budget for the coming fiscal year, which begins on July 1.
He blamed “short-term” city financial decision-making for exacerbating that gap.
“What is important is how this budget starts to set us on the right path to rectifying some of the long-term problems that we have avoided addressing for many, many years,” he continued.
“There are no big one-time revenues, like large property sales to close a budget hole; there is no debt refinancing that pushes payments into future years, and there are no hopeful “revenue initiative” line items. For decades, we have passed our debt along to future generations — we can no longer afford, nor rightly choose, to do so. But this means that this budget is a tough one.”
The proposed general fund budget in total is 2.24 percent larger than the current fiscal year’s, representing an increase of roughly $12.5 million.
The mayor has scheduled a press conference about the proposed budget for 10:30 a.m. Monday on the second floor of City Hall.
Tax Increase; Cop Slots Slashed
The proposed tax increase would raise the city’s mill rate from 42.98 to 44.51, with the goal of bumping up the city’s total property tax revenue collections by $11.6 million.The mill rate represents $1 in taxes paid for every $1,000 in assessed property value.
Elicker framed the proposed tax increase as a modest but necessary measure precipitated by his administration’s attempts to account for a roughly $45 – 50 million structural deficit left behind by his predecessors. While campaigning for mayor, he often criticized former Mayor Toni Harp for masking that deficit in part by refinancing $160 million in existing debt, pushing tens of millions of dollars in higher debt service costs onto future generations.
This fiscal year (during a mayoral election season), Harp and the Board of Alders passed a budget with no tax increase. Two years ago, Harp’s administration proposed and the alders passed a budget that increased taxes by 11 percent.
Elicker’s proposed budget also proposes slashing or defunding roughly 80 city positions — all of which are currently vacant. The mayor has not proposed laying off any currently employed staff.
Most of the proposed vacant position cuts are concentrated in the police department.
The proposed budget would drop the total number of sworn positions in the department from 434 to 406, with the number of fully funded police officer positions dropping from 289 to 266.
Elicker said that the cuts in the police department alone should result in $3.5 million in salary savings. He has also proposed increasing the police department’s total overtime budget by $1.2 million.
“It’s important to note that, while we reduced the overall number of funded positions in the Police Department, our team left enough funded positions to ensure that we can bring in new officers this year to help rebuild the size of our depleted force,” the mayor wrote.
Outsourcing Paramedic Services
In the fire department, Elicker has proposed eliminating 12 firefighter positions and adding three captains and one lieutenant.
“The City will pivot away from providing paramedic services through the New Haven Fire Department and will instead partner with a local paramedic service,” Elicker wrote about those fire department cuts.
“This will allow the City to reduce minimum manning requirements in the Fire Department and therefore significantly reduce overtime, training costs, and future pension costs without impacting the quality of service.”
The proposed budget would eliminate a total of 48 city staff positions from the general fund. The remaining personnel cuts would come in the form of reducing existing positions to a $1 line item funding.
“Had we not made these significant cuts, we could be facing a 13% tax increase to cover the nearly $50 million budget gap that we faced this year,” Elicker wrote.
Youth Services, Parks, Public Works Restructured
Perhaps the most significant proposals in the mayor’s budget pertain to the restructuring of the city’s Youth Services, Parks, Recreation and Trees, and Public Works departments.
“Parks & Public Works will come together to create operational efficiencies and improve customer service,” Elicker wrote.
“Youth & Recreation will merge to ensure the coordination of services and minimize the duplication of efforts to improve youth outcomes.
“Through this realignment we will be able to establish some financial savings, and with a portion of those savings, establish a new volunteer coordinator position to help connect residents with volunteer opportunities, improve the impact of service, and better coordinate efforts citywide.”
The proposed department reshuffling comes less than two weeks after Elicker fired Youth Services Director Jason Bartlett, who had been on paid administrative leave since last June.
$1.4M More From Yale & Hospital;
No More “Green” Parking
On the revenue side, the city has budgeted for the parking authority to increase its voluntary annual payment to the city from $2.6 million to $4 million.
It has increased the budgeted building permit revenue line item from $17.5 million to $19 million.
It includes a $1.4 million bump in Yale University and Yale New Haven Hospital’s annual voluntary contributions to the city, reaching a combined total of $12.5 million.
And it has eliminated the long-standing parking meter exemption for hybrid vehicles.
“The City has followed a policy of providing free parking for hybrid vehicles for many years,” the mayor wrote. “While the spirit of the policy to incentivize the purchase of hybrid cars was a good one, for equity, financial and environmental reasons, our team has decided it is the right policy decision to no longer provide free parking for hybrid vehicles.”
$3.5M Board of Ed Bump
While Elicker’s proposed budget is defined primarily by its cuts and consolidations, it does include several department budget increases as well as several new line items.
And the city has proposed increasing the city’s contribution to the Board of Education budget by $3.5 million—significantly less than the $10.8 million increase the school board was hoping for.
“While we know this increase to our Schools is not as much as requested, we feel this is the best we can do given the lack of funding from partner organizations and constraints on our finances,” the mayor wrote.
The budget proposing transferring $550,000 from the existing two-year capital budget that passed last year to a Climate Emergency Fund.
“By dedicating one-tenth of one percent of the annual budget, City officials in consultation with the Climate Taskforce will have funding to address the goal of eliminating all greenhouse gas emissions in New Haven by 2030,” he wrote.
The city has added a $50,000 line item to the general fund to support the operations of the Canal Dock Boat House.
It has added another new $50,000 line item to the general fund to support the New Haven Boys and Girls Club.
And it has added a new $100,000 line item to the general fund to support the Q House.
“Challenging Times”
“We worked to strike the right balance between a government that can function effectively and reflects our core values, with as small a tax increase as possible to encourage growth and support our residents,” Elicker wrote.
“While this budget points us in the right direction, our systemic financial challenges will continue to burden us in the coming years. We will not be able to cut or tax our way out of this problem. Our partners must contribute in a meaningful way.
“You elected me to make difficult decisions in challenging times, and with this budget, I believe I have done just that. While our financial outlook may be challenging, we will not let these challenges define us. New Haven is more and more a place where great opportunity is on the horizon.”
The proposed budget now goes to the Board of Alders for two months of public hearings, discussions, likely amendments, and a final vote by the first week of June.
The proposed budget does not include any new dollars for the city’s capital fund budget, since the city moved last year to a two-year capital budgeting schedule.
The city’s proposed FY21 Special Fund budget, which derives its funding from outside grants and not city taxpayers, is $25,407,699.