Some background. Last week’s North Haven Citizen ran a letter by Republican Board of Finance member Michael J. Freda attacking Janet McCarty essentially for not making clear why she opposed the budget. At the same time I wrote a North Haven Post column, which is also up on this blog, entitled "We Deserve an Honest Budget," in which I argued that the Board of Finance had presented us with a dishonest budget once again, because it once again severely cuts capital expenditures; underfunds energy costs, repair and maintenance, and overtime; underestimates revenue; and accepts the cost of no-bid contracts when it could have insisted on less expensive competitively bid contracts.
In this week’s North Haven Citizen, I respond to Freda’s letter and he responds to mine in both the Post and the Citizen.
Let’s start with his response to my letter. I will include his attack on Janet McCarty and my response to that letter in a separate blog entry.
Read my blog entry, and then read his response below, with my responses inserted into it. I have also bolded Mr. Freda’s name-calling. His letter is in a different font from my comments, and is indented.
Freda’s April 27 Letter to the EditorMr. Freda makes no effort to try to understand my logic.
I continue to be concerned with the level of distorted views that are being presented to each of you regarding this year's budget.
I would like to comment on an article that I read last week by Mr. Robert Wechsler entitled "Residents Deserve an Honest Budget." I had to read this article twice in an effort to make sense out of the unbelievably absurd nature of his comments.
Ladies and gentlemen, lets try to understand his logic.
Mr. Wechsler writes that the Board of Finance "employs games and ruses" and tells you that for 2007-08 budget, the Board has cut back our first selectman's request for capital expenses from $4.5 million to $600 thousand, for appearance purposes, so we can then fund raises for all of the selectmen and department heads. Very interesting logic from Mr. Wechsler considering that we have cut back $3.9M in capital requests to help keep your taxes from going up any further. To then suggest that we did this to fund raises, which total less than $30,000, for all selectmen and department heads defies any type of logical thinking at all.I did not make this cause-and-effect connection between the capital expenditures cut and raises. Freda is inserting this false logic and then criticizing me for it. But it was wrong of me to juxtapose these unrelated, but both dishonest acts on the part of the Board of Finance. What I believe is that it should be the First Selectman who asks for raises for his department heads, since he is their boss.
Mr. Wechsler also writes that there is an "intentional underfunding of budget items" such as energy costs, repairs and maintenance. I also find this very interesting because Mr. Wechsler apparently knows what our town energy costs are going to be at year end despite the ever rising energy costs that all of us are faced with.Here’s an example of what I meant by energy cost underfunding. These are the budget numbers for Sanitation gas and oil. Energy costs are underfunded in many more areas, including fire, transfer station, streets & roads, parks, senior center, and police:
2003-4 Actual - $20K; 2004-5 Budgeted - $11K;
2004-5 Actual - $28K; 2005-6 Budgeted - $11K;
2005-6 Actual - $35K; 2006-7 Budgeted - $11K;
2006-7 Est. - $36K; 2007-8 Budget Request - $11K
Yes, gas and oil prices have gone up, from $20K back in 2003-4 to $36K this past year. But has the Board of Finance’s budgeting recognized this – not predicted, but recognized what we all know has happened? No, it still budgets the same tiny figure of $11,000. No one needs a crystal ball to see that this is not an honest guess.
As far as repairs and maintenance being "intentionally underfunded," it appears that Mr. Wechsler also knows when a boiler at the middle school is going to break down or when a roof is going to start leaking at one of the other schools. I guess that Mr. Wechsler also knows when a police officer is going out on disability which leads to increased overtime. I offer you the above assessment because I can offer no other explanation to his convoluted thought process when he states that we are "intentionally underfunding" these line items.The basis for my criticism of the Board of Finance’s underfunding of energy costs, repairs and maintenance, and overtime is not based on a crystal ball in my possession, but the fact that year in and year out the Board of Finance underfunds these items (I say this in my blog entry, although Freda ignores this important fact). I have been criticizing this practice for years, as have many others, none of whom has yet been called "unbelievably absurd" for doing so. Here are some numbers to back up my argument, with respect to maintenance costs and Freda’s choice of overtime, police overtime (I would follow Freda on school maintenance, too, but I said nothing in my letter about the education budget, nor have I ever written or spoken about the education budget).
Sanitation Maintenance of Equipment
2003-4 Actual - $44K; 2004-5 Budgeted - $23K;
2004-5 Actual - $44.5K; 2005-6 Budgeted - $23K;
2005-6 Actual - $78K; 2006-7 Budgeted - $23K;
2006-7 Est. - $80K; 2007-8 Budget Request - $23K
Yes, the maintenance costs vary greatly year to year: from a low of $44K to a high of $80K last year. But the amount budgeted never varies, even as the actual costs have nearly doubled. The underfunding has become a more serious problem, not something to be proud of. There is also underfunding of maintenance in such areas as central facilities/buildings, fire/buildings, water pollution control/sewers, streets & roads/equipment.
Police Overtime
2003-4 Actual - $371K; 2004-5 Budgeted - $335K;
2004-5 Actual - $515K; 2005-6 Budgeted - $325K;
2005-6 Actual - $471K; 2006-7 Budgeted - $325K;
2006-7 Est. - $485K; 2007-8 Budget Request - $325K
Police overtime does vary year to year, from an actual cost of only $371 back in 2003-4 to as high as $515K the following year. But the Board of Finance’s figure has been at least 50% lower than actual costs three years in a row. It’s not about a single officer on disability, but an ongoing pattern of underfunding. The Republicans used to say that the reason for this was to keep overtime down, that if the Board of Finance put in a higher figure, the police department would take advantage of it. But the lower figure hasn’t had any effect. It’s a policy that doesn’t work, except to make the budget look lower than it should.
Overtime is underfunded in such other areas as streets & roads, maintenance, assessor's office, and sanitation. Overtime has been well funded in community services, where it was allegedly taken illegally.
Mr. Wechsler also states that we intentionally underestimate revenue collections.
Let's take a look at the real facts. We currently plug in a collection rate of 97.5 percent for taxes being collected in North Haven. Mr. Wechsler apparently thinks that we are purposely assigning a low rate to underestimate revenue.
In the past seven years, North Haven has averaged a tax collection rate of 97.21 percent. Go back another three years, lets now use a 10-year period of tax collections, and North Haven has averaged 97 percent of all taxes being collected. This compares to the 97.5 percent that we forecast. This is certainly not "underestimating" revenue collection. It seems to me that Mr. Wechsler has no idea of these facts. The problem here is that people with political agendas tend to ignore some key facts because all they care about is their own political game plan.
Mr. Freda, I take my facts from director of finance Mr. Palmeri. Here’s what he said the last three years, quoted from the Board of Finance minutes:
Minutes of the April 6, 2005 Board of Finance meeting: "Mr. Palmeri ... stated that tax collections were at 98.6%."
Minutes of the April 5, 2006 Board of Finance meeting: "Mr. Palmeri ... stated that tax collections were at 99.6%."
Minutes of the March 14, 2007 Board of Finance meeting (not updated in the April minutes, but surely higher): "Mr. Palmeri referred to these reports, stating that tax collections at the end of February were at 98.9%."
That’s a three-year average of 99%. That’s a good bit higher than the 97.5% forecast by the Board of Finance. What key facts did I ignore, Mr. Freda? How far back do I have to go in history to not be pushing a political agenda? Your Board of Finance did not make its minutes available to the public (in the library or online) until I put them up (from 2005 on) on the northhaveninfo.org website, so I only went back as far as I had access to the information.
In addition, if revenues haven't been underestimated the last few years, where have the huge surpluses come from? From the state, which everyone says gives us too little money?
Let me cut through all of his nonsensical claims and accusations and tell you exactly how I view his article. His article is the most irresponsible piece of sensationalistic propaganda that I have ever seen on any level. There is one thing that I do agree with Mr. Wechsler on and that is the games and ruses must stop. His political games and ruses.What is my political agenda? It’s interesting that Freda mentions it again and again, but never identifies it. I am an Independent with absolutely no support from the Democratic Town Committee. Among the people I consider allies are right-wing Republicans and left-wing Democrats. What brings us together is that we all want the town government to open up, we want everyone to have a voice, we want transparency, respect, professionalism, and ethics in this town.He should apologize to each and every one of you for taking his supercharged political agenda and inserting it into this year's budget process. His dizzying display of dubious claims, combined with his total inability to offer constructive solutions, concerns me a great deal. I find it unbelievably ironic that a man who presents himself as a director of City Ethics would write an article of such an irresponsible nature.
Unfortunately, a political agenda will sometimes lead to a distortion of the facts for personal or partisan party political gain.
And me, I want to change the form of government so that our town is run by a trained, professional, nonpartisan town manager. Someone like our School Superintendent.
Is that nonsensical, sensationalistic, propagandistic? No, it’s a reasonable, good government position, and has been for a hundred years. I won’t apologize for it. And I won’t ask Mr. Freda to apologize for questioning my professional and political ethics, or for ignoring the many "constructive solutions" I have proposed.
What is the personal or partisan party political gain I am seeking? I have absolutely nothing personal or financial to gain from anything I’ve said. I am not a member of any party and, in fact, I helped get a Republican mayor elected in the New Jersey town where I lived before moving here fourteen years ago. The only office I have run for, as an Independent without any partisan support, is Town Meeting moderator, for the principal purpose of allowing town residents to ask town officials questions. Since we got a moderator who allows this, I have not run again.
No, Mr. Freda, you can’t get me on the partisan politics accusation, and it’s clear from my responses above that I have not said anything irresponsible. You can disagree with me. I welcome open debate. But you do not. When Board of Finance member Michael Hallahan suggested it, you did not support discussion of the most serious financial problem in our town: no-bid contracts. The Register keeps writing editorials about it, the Post has written about it, too. These are not irresponsible newspapers. And it is not irresponsible for me to demand that the Board of Finance consider the issue.
It is worth noting that nowhere in Freda's letter does he mention no-bid contracts. I would call that the most irresponsible omission I’ve ever seen, but then I would sound like Freda. He is not an honest debater, and he has approved what is not an honest budget.
The other reason that might tie into why he wrote this article could revolve around the actual analogy that he referenced when he referred to the first selectman and the board as "Charley Brown" and "Lucy." Mr. Wechsler seems to have become a caricature of the very analogy that he has presented to each of you. He has now become the "Charley Brown" of his own analogy. The question now is: "Who is the real Lucy?"
Ah, a veiled comment for a change. If I read this correctly, it is a reference to that Mata Hari of North Haven, Janet McCarty. For the record, let me tell you that I disagree with McCarty more than with everyone else in this town put together. That's because she talks to me, she seeks my advice, she asks for my opinion. I never tell her what she wants to hear, and she never tells me what to do. To suggest otherwise, based on absolutely no evidence at all, is ... well, we won't go to that whatever-I-say-bounces-off-me childish place.
Mr. Freda, I invite you to respond either in a comment or, if you would like to have blogging rights in this blog, send me an email and I will send you an invitation (that’s the way Google does it).
12 comments:
Mr Freda's attack on you can be viewed as "circling the wagons"--desperation time! His only possible defense is a groundless offense. Sooner or later, this disingenuous form of argument will be exposed as part of the Republican noise machine. Hopefully sooner rather than later.
-Dudley
I had not paid any attention to the North Haven budget because I didn't have enough interest in it to make a trek to the Town Hall or the Library to look it over. However, when I saw a couple of weeks ago that a copy of it is posted on the northhaveninfo.org website, I clicked on the budget and began to look through it.
I immediately saw the disparity between estimated costs and actual costs, particularly in maintainence, and was truly shocked. I am happy that Rob Wechsler has taken them on in questioning this policy. The North Haven Republican Financiers can't figure out that next year's costs are likely to mirror last year's costs in a manner somewhat akin to the White House Budget office not being able to figure out that the costs of the war are likely to be at least as great as last year. They take the money out of a supplemental defense bill and we take it out of some unmonitored slush fund, I suppose. Where does that extra money come from, anyway? Is it easier to use no bid contractors if it isn't scrutinized by the town budget process? Are those extra costs carefully looked at by the town auditors? [I am not accusing anybody of doing that but I see no other reasonable reason to handle it that way.]
In response to Sigrid's comment, the extra money comes from a fund that, in large part, comes from the difference in estimated and real revenue (they predict a 97.5% collection rate when they know they'll get over 99%; that difference means adding a lot of money to the fund). The Town Meeting doesn't have to approve the transfers out of this fund (but the BoF does), so few people know about them.
As for no-bid contracts, I and many others feel that the Board of Finance, in order to spend our tax money responsibly, should have banned them long ago. But the Republicans on the BoF refuse to even discuss the issue, refuse to provide oversight.
Auditors deal with numbers adding up, I don't think they deal with whether contracts follow the rule stated in the Town Charter. Perhaps some auditors would look at that, but I don't think it's required.
The only relevant facts are these. 1)The Town finished the last two years with a surplus of $5-7 million. Obviously, revenues were underestimated and we were subsequently overtaxed.
2) Despite claims by the Board of Finance, there is absolutely no evidence the zero based budgeting process is being utilized.
3) There is widespread evidence that the BOF and the First Selectman do not require competitive bidding. As a result, our expenditures may be substantially overestimated.
Dear Mr, Wechsler,
Thank you very much for inviting me to comment on your web site. I am going to view your invitation as perhaps a first step for you and I to attempt to understand our different points of view regarding this year's budget process.
There is much to discuss between us regarding how we individually view items like zero based budgeting, establishing line item expenses, the competitive bid process,revenue collection percentages and the unappropriated fund balance.
I am going to suggest that sometime in the near future, we get together to discuss these issues. I would be willing to meet with you, perhaps over a cup of coffee, to review with you my opinions and to listen to yours.
There are two things that I would like to comment on here. The first is my so called "attack" on Janet.Let me start off by saying that I have nothing personally against Janet.I think that she is a nice person and has a wonderful family, including two fine sons.
My letter was in response to two things that occurred, her consistent criticism regarding the budget process and the events that occurred at the Board of Finance meeting on April 5th.
Those events that I wrote about are very factual, including her telling Mr.Feinberg and Mr. Halloran not to answer my question regarding the education budget. I am not going to elaborate here
any further on this because my letter stated all of the facts.
The main thing that I would like you to consider, now that I have learned that you are an independent, is that when you use the vitriolic words that you do in your articles, people like me are going to respond.
The words that I am referring to are words like "intentional underfunding", "dishonest",
"should apologize", "Charley Brown", "games and ruses".
These are indeed "incendiary" words that people do not appreciate.These are words that break down any chance of individuals having a constructive discussion or debate.
The other thing that I would request that you consider is that every action causes a reaction.
I wrote those two letters as a reaction to Janet's article and her actions at the Board of Finance Meeting and your article entitled "Residents Deserve and Honest Budget"
If you can accept what I am saying as constructive criticism and work to tone down the inflammatory nature of some of your articles and comments, I would look at that as another step forward to develop a platform to discuss our differences in person regarding this year's budget.
Sincerely,
Michael J. Freda
Board of Finance
In response to Michael Freda's comment:
I am only interested in an open, public discussion of the budget process. My op-ed piece set forth problems and suggested solutions. Your letters to the editor did neither of these.
If you want a dialogue about the budget process, rather than about your baseless views of my motivations, this is a good place to do it.
Mr Freda,
You might be interested to know that I am a lifetime registered Republican.
I got into this fray after attending a BOF meeting and being treated with utter disrespect by both Mr Palmieri and Mr Peterson. Then I started looking into the mess in North Haven and was shocked at the level of favoritism, incompetence and now fraud. I told Kevin that the lack of competitive bids was going to be a big election year issue, that was before the arrests were made.
The BOF needs to stand up and accept accountability for their lack of financial oversight, instead of trying to attack those who are simply trying to make North Haven a better place to live.
Michael J. Freda Wrote:
Mr. Leahy,
I understand your point of view and am sorry for the way you feel that you were treated. I have listened to you a few times and came away with the impression that you are intelligent, articulate and seem to come from a solid business background with an understanding of finance.
I would ask you to consider that my letters were RESPONSES to what I viewed to be ATTACKS in the press and certain issues that took place at the last Board of Finance Meeting regarding the budget for education being voted down.
Like most people, I do not take too kindly to a point of view being expressed with a high level of inflammatory words and language used to denigrate people. Every action of this kind will cause a reaction from me.
I totally support anyone's right to criticize but I have a huge issue when the criticisms are laced with acrimonious language.
You would have to agree, that does not usually do much to foster a healthy dialogue. Apparently, you felt the same way with what you felt was disrespectful behavior towards you by Mr. Palmieri and others.
As President and Chief Executive of my company, I stress with our company's senior management to keep the emotional element out of expressing a point of view because most people will react to the emotion and tune out the actual point of view being expressed.
I would also like to tell you that I was a life long Democrat in this town until I converted to an Independent or "U" affiliation then finally to Republican status last year.
If we do get a chance to meet each other in the future, I will tell you the reasons why.
Sincerely,
Michael J. Freda
Michael Freda Wrote:
Mr.Wechsler,
Thank you for your response. I am not surprised to hear that you do not want to meet with me personally.
It would have been a good starting point for us to understand each other's different points of view.
Michael J. Freda
What a distinct advantage you have as blog administrator to be able to comment on Mr Freda's letter paragraph for paragraph as you publish it. Do you think that adding your opinion into his letter in that format is open government? This Town may be better off with the opinions being posted here, but for you to control peoples opinion is quite a contrast to what you ask for.
To the Most Recent Anonymous:
I invited Mr. Freda to write blogs just the way I do. I have invited other officials, as well, including Mr. Kopetz. None has accepted my invitation.
I control no one's opinion. I welcome free expression. Even yours.
Michael Freda Wrote:
To Most Recent Anonymous,
I just wanted to let you know that I do not object to Mr. Wechsler having inserted his opinion in my original letter. Although we may disagree on certain issues, his inserting his opinion into the various parts of my letter better enabled me to understand his point of view.
I may not agree with everything he inserted but sometimes it is better to understand than to be understood.
I will also say that while I may disagree with Mr. Wechsler on the way he sometimes expresses himself, I have to give him credit for publishing my comments to him and to Mr. Leahy exactly and precisely the way that I wrote them.
Sincerely,
Michael J. Freda
Board of Finance
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