Discussions Get Ugly On Milford's 2011 Budget

Budget season has to be the most challenging and stressful time of year for everyone in Milford. Some in town just do not understand why the budget cannot be the same every year. One would think that the cost of goods and services in a depressed economy would not fluctuate much. Unfortunately that is not the case.

The onset of budget season has begun with our Mayor Jim Richetelli being concerned that the year is "starting off with many unanswered questions." Former RTC Member, and insurance Guru, Tom Byrne has been in contact with Aldematic Chairman Greg Smith. The nature of their discussion is marked by disagreement from the onset regarding the creation of an efficiency committee as suggested by Hartford.

Every year the austerity measures aimed at city services and municipal employees are of serious concern, especially to those individuals whose jobs are on the cutting block. None have decried the protection of city jobs more than James Whittaker who is frequently seen at City Hall protesting cuts that affect his staff.

The balance of services, and responsible government rests in the hands of our leaders and Tom Byrne feels our leaders have fell short of their responsibility. He points out in several local newspapers that city spending has increased in tandem with the Bond Debt. Such a combination without a meaningful or serious approach in the coming budget year is a recipe for disaster.

The increase in our public debt raises our debt service payments, these are also going up with health insurance costs, building and maintenance costs, and  routine contractual raises that virtually every local labor union expects to get. Last budget season many concessions were made by some labor unions including reductions in COLA's and reductions in infrastructure.

This year is marked by a 1.5 Million reduction in Federal education funding. This reduction was one Rep. Rosa Delauro failed to fight for. The propensity for balancing our budget is further complicated by the fact that nearly 20% of all homes listed for sale in Milford are in foreclosure. Driving up taxes to pay our bills will be an exercise in futility and will not work. This hard lesson was demonstrated in Hartford, Bridgeport, and many other cities who, in my opinion mismanaged their budgets in favor of tax exempt 501C3's and inefficient government jobs.

It's my opinion that Milford cannot tax its way out of this problem come 2011. Attempting to tax our way out of this problem will not work, especially if inflation is low, local unemployment is high, COLA's are suspended by pension recipients and Local Real Estate continues to stagnate.

The showdown is going to be between the Paid elected city leaders and City Union employees who have been funding and supporting local elections with entitlement motives. Crossing the city unions, who have doled out Tens of Thousands of dollars to local municipal races could mean significant losses of votes come the 2012 election.

Placating the Labor Unions in Milford will be a very delicate issue that has to be gingerly handled by the Mayor himself during the upcoming contract negotiations. Bad contracts will reflect poorly on the value of every one's real estate and create further pressure to force those individuals living "paycheck to paycheck" to seek out government assistance and sustenance to avoid going into default on their homes and their new taxes.

Every person out there this budget season, especially those who cannot afford to pay an additional $500.00 to $1,500.00 every year should speak out at city hall when the time comes. Without your voice being heard this year, the Mayor and his staff may end up going along with the proposed demands of the towns labor unions instead of looking out for you. Greg Smith and the board of Alderman also needs to hear your thoughts, because they finalize and approve the budget in conjunction with the Board of Finance.

The year 2011 may seem a long way off, but assure you the time goes fast. Start thinking about you and your families financial needs now before your new tax bill arrives and you are in a bind you cannot get out of. Best of luck this Holiday season and wishing all my friends, readers and supporters a very happy holiday.

Jobless Teachers, Political Recalls, and Frustrated Students and Parents

The times are upon us again, only this year many assumed that the layoff threat would be as it was last year just a threat. Over the last few weeks that proved to be a dangerous assumption and an abject failure of a miscalculation on the part of Milford's teachers union.

This year one school Simon Lake is officially closed and 25 Milford teachers are looking for jobs while seeking unemployment compensation. The city did promise "recall" rights to these teachers, but only if a vacancy occurs whereby a tenured teacher retires. This was already seen when Ms. Elmo retired, because in her words "she wanted to save the job of a younger teacher who needed it more."

For several weeks and months following the educational debates that filled the Jonathan Law auditorium not once but twice supporters of the Simon Lake school pleaded to keep it open just one more year, and the Milford Board of Education was unable to convince the the Board of Finance and the Board of Alderman to restore the funding to the school.

The Libertarian leaning Chairman of the board of Alderman Greg Smith, supported the schools closing citing that the "city could no longer afford it." However some parents disagreed and started a recall process this week against Republican school board member Robert White R3, who said he was unconcerned and a "recall effort is their right" but few are convinced the recall will resolve anything since Milford has never had a successful recall of a board member.

Several parents are out collecting signatures from voters and people who agree with their view that Mr. White did not listen to his constituents and callously disregarded them when they asked for a remedy to the injury of closing a school in his district. The parents of those kids are now trying to collect 675 signatures that Republican Town Clerk Linda Stock will have to verify as legitimate. Once the signature threshold is reached a recall procedure can be initiated and early reports indicate the parents are 3/4 of the way there.

Acting Superintendent of schools, Cummings gave several elaborate presentations to the public defending his plan to reorganize Milford's schools. He promised all the affected parents of the closed school that despite a commuter inconvenience and having their kids go to multiple schools that "their kids education would not suffer."

Several Republican board members in town were satisfied that the closing of Simon Lake School is a "win win" situation whereby kids still get a "Good education" and taxpayers get a "minor" tax increase.

As a former candidate for the school board myself, it is my opinion that the very notion of change during hard economic times, is unpalatable to some parents who will be forced to redo and rethink how they get their kids off to school in the morning. Some are concerned about commuting, class sizes and of course are upset with their child's teacher being let go.

As the tumultuous nature of the Education Outrage Machine goes into full swing in the coming months and years none are less prepared for the nasty changes that will arrive in 2011 than the city government. In 2011 the Milford Board of Education is expected to lose 1.5 Million in Federal funding plus take on an additional routine increase of 3.5 Million in Cost of Living adjustments, health care costs, and contractual raises.

The 2011 Educational budget spells "DISASTER" in 2011 for all parties involved. The alternatives may require additional school closings or large increases in property taxes that may be as high as 5%. Some argued that the solution to this problem will be the construction of a new Green High School that merges Jonathan Law and Foran into a single "Green" energy efficient modern facility.

The construction of a new High School has not been pursued in many decades and most of this work will be funded by the state of Connecticut and the sale of Milford's most energy inefficient crumbling schools. As it stands Mark Stapleton the current Chairman of the Milford Board of Education said "Milford's Schools need $100,000,000.00 in repairs at the moment the current method of implementing this has been a triage system."

Educations Future In Milford And Connecticut

We have all heard of the bailout for the auto industry, $4,500 credits, government stock buyouts and sweetheart loans that the average Joe could only dream to get. The big banks then labeled themselves as "too big to fail" and AIG, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and all its crones were bailed out. Today the taxpayers own 80% of AIG alone and another massive amount of GM stock who could have ever imagined thing would get so out of hand.

The bailouts in the last few years were numerous, $8,500.00 first time home buyer credits, extended unemployment benefits for months beyond what is normally allowed, 40 Million Americans on food stamps and stimulus package after stimulus package packed with shovel ready pork.

Sadly, when we think of "No child left behind" and local education we are continually reminded of unfunded mandates and what a burden to the taxpayers those mandates have become. Instead of the Federal Government valuing our children we are told yet again this year that the city of Milford will be denied 1.5M of Federal funds to our schools placing an operational deficit in 2011 that could be as high as 5 Million.

Every effort is being made to streamline and contain education costs, teachers are retiring early, raises skipped, schools are being closed and local Milford residents are living more conservatively than ever. After attending several Board of education meetings it became clear that all our energy at city hall is being focused on our little patch of land we call Milford, and few remember that our patch of land is contained within the boundaries of the worst economic global downturn since the Great Depression.

My high school New York Military Academy in Cornwall NY was established in 1882 and it survived the Great Depression, WWI, WWII, Vietnam, Korea and the energy crisis of the 1970's but this year its operational budget losses are so high, and its Alumni so impoverished that the school is expected to fail within the next year or so.

And these problems are symptomatic across the entire state of Connecticut where teachers from all communities are living with no job security, and are afraid of what they will do next if they join the growing ranks of the unemployed.

The reason we are in the situation that we are in is because of years of the Federal Reserve's "ponzi" style monetary policy whereby money can be printed at the whims of congress and the banks to fund the next popular war/invasion against an invisible tactic fear mongered as "TERRORISM."

While we all surrender our rights for our security and sit an awe over some person who lit his underwear on fire with a failed bomb, or the times Square Frizzler, our President, Obama makes jokes about the terror on the U.S. Arizona/Mexico border that has landed 17,000 people dead and murdered. Americans get kidnapped by Mexican drug dealers, they threaten and kill our nations police officers, and poison our people with the very drugs the U.S. troops protect for Karzai in Afghanistan and no one in the BS media covers it as terrorism.

The sooner we realize that Washington D.C. is no longer America's friend but rather it's enemy our mission will become clear. Our mission is to establish state sovereignty under the 9, 10Th Amendment dissolve all illegal treaties, break ties with all World Governments and start indicting U.S. Senators and Congressmen who willfully violated the Logan act and defied the U.S. Constitution. In other words Connecticut needs to start doing the Job the Federal Government is ignoring.

For those of you who still do not get it, you should be aware by now that Washington D.C. has been waging a war on the Middle Class while making the rich richer and you poorer. As we rebel against the Tyranny of Washington D.C. they have launched a police state against us whereby "lists" are being used to circumvent the Constitution and punish anyone who dare preach their inaliable rights in America.

All these problems are rapidly coming home to roost, right here in our state and our town. The message from Washington DC is clear we have trillions for war, now billions to bail out Greece but little to nothing to help educate America's kids. This message, by virtue of its priorities should beckon you to rise up and join Tea Parties everywhere.

Moving forward the structural deficits now being exaggerated by the federal government and the inevitable climbs in interest rates due to inflation in the next 24 months is expected to destabilize every grand list in America let alone Milford. Hartford is going to have a challenging time managing the take over of cities like Bridgeport, Hartford and Waterbury who have had structural deficits that bankrupted them long ago. Those problems are going to spread beyond the normal areas that they normally occupy.

Taxes alone will not solve our problems in education because equilibrium will be reached relative to tax collection and the maximum attainable mill rate. There comes a point under the immutable laws of the Bell shaped Laffer curve that dictate a collection threshold. Once equilibrium is reached less taxes are collected, and sadly that threshold is also under assault as the Federal and state government also add to the tax burden of ordinary CT citizens.

The best course of action we can take to alleviate the pressure of these problems is to rebuild our school district under the principles of the New Urbanization Initiative, and Smart Growth while interest rates are low. Once those rates rise our window of opportunity will be closed and Hartford will have to beg the Federal Government to fund our schools. The alternative is over taxation and the fostering of one of the largest underground economies America has ever seen.