At last night’s Board of Finance meeting, where changes were made to the rejected budget, some good was done, but it was done halfway and with no more openness or goodwill than usual.
As usual, what was not said and not done was more important than what was said and done. This is not how a town democracy should operate. It makes things unnecessarily difficult for people to understand and it puts into question what is done, as well as the motives behind what is done.
At first glance, I was reasonably happy with the changes. But the more I thought about and came to understand what happened, and what didn’t happen, the more unhappy I became. Most people don’t look closely enough at a town budget. I have to, because I have to write about it. I hope what I say will make you think about it more closely, as well, even if you don’t agree with everything I say.
Despite the fact that the budget changes include some of the things that I and many others have been asking for, I do not believe that the budget is a sufficiently realistic document to merit a Yes vote. I also feel that there was no need to cut the education budget.
It’s not clear who this new budget satisfies. Those who don’t want a big tax increase won’t be satisfied, because the expenditure cuts are so small. Those who want a realistic budget won’t be satisfied, because only half of the underestimated expenditures are now realistic, and two large changes that will be known in a couple of weeks were not included in the budget: the increase in state aid and the decrease in insurance costs. Those who didn’t want education touched won’t be satisfied, because the education side was cut disproportionately and unnecessarily. And those who are willing to pay more taxes for better services and education won’t be satisfied, either.
The highlights of the changes are as follows (you can follow them on this sheet; I recommend opening the sheet in a new window for easier reference):
1. $700,000 was taken out of the contingency fund and added to a variety of underestimated budget items, most of them in the areas of overtime, gas & oil, and maintenance.
2. $875,000 worth of revenue was added.
3. $688,000 was taken out of the town side of the budget, and $150,000 was taken out of the education side of the budget, for total expenditures cuts of $838,000. But of the town side of these reductions, $178,000 was capital expenditures (that is, investment in equipment, which is expensed over a period of years rather than in the 2007-8 fiscal year), so that the actual, current expenditure cuts on the town side were $510,000.
4. $341,000 worth of additions were made to town side of the budget. The supervisors union contract was finally negotiated, requiring the payment of three years of backpay in the amount of $114,000. This is the only true addition. $100,000 is intended for the special "forensic-operations" audit, and this was taken from the unappropriated fund balance (this $100,000 was also included as added revenue, so the two even out). The rest represents two additional positions added to the Public Works department, to be paid out of fees associated with their work; these fees were included in the revenue increases, so it's a wash.
This is a lot of numbers. But the bottom line of the budget hasn’t changed much. If you consider that $250,000 was added to the town budget after the Budget Town Meeting, and that the supervisors’ backpay of $114,000 was also added, the town current expenditure cuts fall to only $146,000, the same as the $150,000 expenditure cuts on the education side.
If you consider the enormous opposition to cutting the education side of the budget, this seems like a very odd result. And, of course, this result was not presented as I presented it, except by the Democrats. The Republicans, even when doing some of the right things, still are far too concerned with how things look. When you’re doing the right things, you don’t have to be so concerned with appearances. But they haven’t learned this yet.
On the revenue side, the BoF Republicans want to make it look like they’re giving us more realistic revenue figures. But the fact is that they were willing to overtax us in the amount of $875,000 (and probably a lot more, by the time we see the state budget figures).
As for expenditures, they want it to look like they’re making sizeable cuts, when overall they are not. And yet, even these cuts will likely be unnecessary when we see the results of the bidding out of town insurance contracts, which will be decided on June 15 and take effect on July 1. If the bidding is truly open (in the past, I understand, specifications have seriously limited which companies could bid), this could mean a gain to the town (that is, a cut in expenditures) of over $1 million a year.
This means, for example, that expenditures could be cut without any cuts to education. It also means that a great deal more of the underestimated expenditure figures could be made realistic without adding to the tax burden (only about half the figures were made realistic). If the BoF weren’t in so much of a rush to go to another referendum, it could have waited to see the results of the bidding process and put the new insurance figures into the budget.
So, although a good, long-overdue management decision was made with respect to insurance, the Board of Finance is at the same time denying town residents the short-term benefits of this decision, just so that it can have another referendum before the artificial, and effectively meaningless, deadline of June 30. At the same time, the Board of Finance Republicans said nothing about my petition’s call for bidding out insurance, or all the similar calls in the past. They said nothing about how much more the town has been paying for insurance than other towns. And they do not appear to have let the Democrats on the BoF, or others (including me), know they had begun the insurance bidding process, so that we could take this into account in how we approached the budget.
Although extremely relevant to the budget situation, the Republicans on the BoF did not want the insurance bidding to be a factor. More lack of transparency, and more game-playing. Old habits are hard to end, and it’s not clear to me that the BoF Republicans are trying to beat the habit.
The expenditure figures are now more realistic, but the BoF added in only $700,000, whereas I found $1,275,000 in underestimated expenditures. That means, they only corrected 54% of this problem, a right down-the-middle compromise that was not presented as a compromise. Many seriously underestimated budget items were simply ignored. And again, not a word about the years that Janet McCarty and others have been arguing for this change, and been told they didn’t know what they were talking about. Now we know that they were right on target.
The revenue figures are now more realistic, but there was no explanation of why the additional revenue was left out in the first place. In the past, this revenue was surplus that the administration could play with as it chose, making budget transfers mostly without the knowledge or approval of the Town Meeting (despite state requirements of Town Meeting approval of transfers over $20,000). The result was a budget that had little relationship to reality. Nothing was said about this. The less is said, the less one can believe that these changes reflect long-term policy rather than short-term expediency, that is, doing what it takes to keep control of town government.
In addition, soon the state budget will be passed, and this will almost definitely give North Haven a lot more education funding than in the past. The recommended increases in funding to North Haven are as follows:
Governor - $1.05 million
Democrats - $1.07 million
Republicans - $.88 million
Although at the last meeting, First Selectman Kevin Kopetz said that we should use the lesser of these three budget figures, he did not include this figure in his recommended changes (his recommended changes were the basis for BoF’s discussion and were accepted by the Republican majority, with only very minor, housekeeping changes).
Other towns took the state funding increase into consideration. Many were conservative, such as Portland, which used 53% of the Governor's figure, and Tolland, which used 50% of the Democrats' figure. For North Haven, this would have meant additional revenue in the budget of $556,000 or $535,000, enough to offset the cut to the education budget and also cut taxes by $400,000.
Again, waiting a couple weeks to go to referendum would have given North Haven residents more information and a more accurate budget to vote on.
At the last BoF meeting, Mr. Kopetz also said that it looked like the local conveyance tax won’t be cut by the legislature, and that this could be included in revenue estimates, but it was not.
The other big missing piece in the Republicans’ revenue changes is the tax collection rate. The petition asked that the estimated collection rate be more realistic. I and others called for a rate of 99% (the average of the last three years) instead of 97.5%, because the lower figure would lead to overtaxing and the creation of what is effectively a million-dollar slush fund to be used as the administration pleases.
A question was asked about the tax collection rate being used, but I don’t believe it was answered. The failure to increase this estimate prevents the numbers from being realistic and takes more control over the budget away from North Haven residents.
There was a great deal of talk among Republicans of "fairness" and "sacrifice." The "fairness" was about making everyone "sacrifice" together, but there wasn’t much sacrificed on the town side of the budget. No services were cut, no positions were cut. The biggest cuts were of electricity (a better contract), medical insurance (not explained), cemetery care, and capital equipment. Hopefully the most important capital expenditure cut, fire fighting equipment, will be covered by a state grant.
And the "fairness," as many people said, was questionable, since there was such strong opposition to cutting the education budget any more than it already has been. No one was against cutting the town budget. Yet the two were cut by the same amount.
And is it "fair" to ask for "sacrifice" when, within a couple of weeks, we will almost certainly have large cuts in our insurance costs and a large increase in our state allotment for education?
As I said at the beginning of this blog entry, it’s not clear who this new budget satisfies. It will be supported only by those who are fooled or confused and generally vote for budgets, those who are worried that there will be bigger cuts in education the next time around (there won’t have to be, because the next time around, there will be all those extra state funds and insurance savings), and those who are worried about what will happen if this budget goes down and the June 30 deadline is reached (nothing will happen at all).
Once again, the Republicans’ budget shows disrespect to the people of North Haven. It appears to be something it is not. Behind this is an expectation that few people will have the skill or the time to look critically at the numbers or think about what’s missing, so that they will fall for the appearance of a better, more realistic, fair budget.
But it’s not fair to us to rush ahead with two very large figures (state budget and insurance) only a couple of weeks away. It’s not fair to us to only fix half of the underestimated budget items, to not increase the estimated tax collection rate, to cut the education budget unnecessarily. It’s not fair to us to make it look like more is being cut than is actually being cut. It's not fair to us to keep employee benefits out of the discussion, and to not have a full, open discussion of competitively bidding contracts, the most responsible (and legally required) way to get our expenditures total down. It's not fair to give us a budget that is still out of line with (that is, higher than) other towns our size in several areas.
It’s also not fair to us to make us vote for the town and education parts of the budget together, rather than separately, because voting for one budget causes many pro-education people to vote for a town budget they don’t support. The town budget is better now, but only separating the budgets will put sufficient pressure on BoF Republicans to ensure that the town budget become the good and true budget we deserve.
Thursday, May 31, 2007
Wednesday, May 30, 2007
The Register Confirms That the Budget Is a Lie
Today's New Haven Register has an editorial that confirms what I and many others, including the more than 200 North Haven residents who signed an on-line petition, have been saying: "There were a lot of reasons North Haven voters overwhelmingly rejected the proposed $78 million budget for the coming year. But they all boiled down to this: The budget numbers are as suspect as the people who put the figures together."
That's a very rough statement from the Register, but one that is clear to anyone with an open mind. Expenditure figures do not reflect reality, revenue figures are too low, budget transfer figures are chosen to get around Town Meeting approval, insurance and benefit figures are out of line when compared to other towns, and the Board of Finance has shown no interest in these or in the bidding out of contracts.
And yet it wants to cut basic services instead of getting us reasonably priced insurance, getting all our contracts bid out, taking a close look at benefits, and considering the cutting of luxuries such as leaves in the street (which is dangerous) and weekly bulk pickup.
The BoF is in a rush, due to the June 30 budget deadline. But they weren't in a rush to be prepared for last week's meeting with alternatives the public could discuss. They weren't in a rush to hear what department heads had to say.
And anyway, there isn't such a rush. If we don't pass a budget by June 30, the town does not screech to a halt. State law (Sect. 7-405) provides for expenditures for 90 days after June 30 and, if no budget has been passed by then, on a monthly basis thereafter.
So the BoF needs to sit down, get insurance quotes, see about other contract savings, make the budget figures realistic, and recommend an ordinance to put an end to $19,999 budget transfers before it presents another dishonest budget to the public.
That's a very rough statement from the Register, but one that is clear to anyone with an open mind. Expenditure figures do not reflect reality, revenue figures are too low, budget transfer figures are chosen to get around Town Meeting approval, insurance and benefit figures are out of line when compared to other towns, and the Board of Finance has shown no interest in these or in the bidding out of contracts.
And yet it wants to cut basic services instead of getting us reasonably priced insurance, getting all our contracts bid out, taking a close look at benefits, and considering the cutting of luxuries such as leaves in the street (which is dangerous) and weekly bulk pickup.
The BoF is in a rush, due to the June 30 budget deadline. But they weren't in a rush to be prepared for last week's meeting with alternatives the public could discuss. They weren't in a rush to hear what department heads had to say.
And anyway, there isn't such a rush. If we don't pass a budget by June 30, the town does not screech to a halt. State law (Sect. 7-405) provides for expenditures for 90 days after June 30 and, if no budget has been passed by then, on a monthly basis thereafter.
So the BoF needs to sit down, get insurance quotes, see about other contract savings, make the budget figures realistic, and recommend an ordinance to put an end to $19,999 budget transfers before it presents another dishonest budget to the public.
Sunday, May 27, 2007
Budget Cuts Poll - Please Respond and Send to Your Friends
I believe there is a great deal of overspending in such areas as insurance and wherever else there are no-bid or limited-bid contracts. But contracts cannot generally be bid out quickly, and there seems to be no interest among Board of Finance members in getting a quick insurance quote, to see what savings we could have in this area (and comply with a petition signed by over 200 North Haven residents, which was totally ignored by the Board of Finance at its May 23 meeting).
In fact, the Board of Finance, even in the midst of a scandal, has remained passive, responding rather than actively fulfilling its responsibility to oversee the town's finances. It has done nothing about bidding out contracts in order to bring our costs down. It has not reconsidered employee benefits in light of the changes in benefits in the outside world. It has fought tooth and nail against a forensic examination of questionable practices in the Finance department and in the town's procurement process.
The result of the Board of Finance's passivity is not only a budget full of lies but also the need to make cuts to some budget items. Knowing this, it did not invite department heads to the May 23 meeting, to give their suggestions, nor did our town's CEO present his suggestions (since he is a full member of the BoF, a serious conflict of interest that is, as far as I can tell, the only one of its kind in Connecticut).
Since the BoF doesn't seem interested in suggestions from those who know, and it doesn't look like we can trust the BoF to make responsible decisions on its own (last time a budget was rejected, it just punished us by cutting our library, pool, and recycling days), we need to tell them what we want cut and what we don't want cut. (To see the current budget proposal, click here. )
Please cut and paste the list below into an email, give each budget item (or group of budget items) a number (1 means "cut this one first." 12 means "cut this one last.") and email the list to rwechsler@cityethics.org. You can give multiple items the same number, for example, if there are some items you don't want cut, you can give them all a 12, and then work up (if three are 12, then the next one is 9). Or you can do this the other way, with, say, three marked 1 and then the next marked 4.
Suggestions of additional budget items or groups of items are welcome, and might be added to the poll. Responses will not be tied to any name or email address, but will be tallied and deleted.
Responses must be in by 5 pm Wednesday May 30 to be given to the Board of Finance right before it meets that evening at 7 pm.
Community Services Assistant Director position (cut position - $65K)
Contingent Fund (currently $1 million; to deal with emergencies, but usually used to offset expenditures for intentionally underestimated budget items)
Department Cuts Across the Board (to some, a way of not setting priorities; to others, a way to be fair)
Department Cuts in the Town Budget Only (no education cuts)
Instructional Supplies (increased this year from $418K to $503K)
Kindergarten (from full day to half day; cost unknown)
Leaf Collection (put in bags rather than along street; cost unknown)
Library Staff (result = day cut; $100K)
Overtime - 10% Across the Board (would save $130K)
Pool - Day Cut ($50K)
School Library Books & Periodicals (increased this year from $21K to $62K)
Weekly Bulk Pickup (monthly instead; cost unknown)
Others (suggestions may be added to poll, so think hard)
If you would like me to keep your email address on file to send you notice of other polls or any of the subjects listed below, please cut and paste the list, or parts of the list, into your email with an "X" in front of the ones you choose. If you do not send any part of the list, I will delete your message and not take down your email address or send you any email notices.
Notices of Special Meetings
Notices of Town Meetings and Public Hearings
Petitions and Polls
Major Blog Entries
Major Additions to Website
All
In fact, the Board of Finance, even in the midst of a scandal, has remained passive, responding rather than actively fulfilling its responsibility to oversee the town's finances. It has done nothing about bidding out contracts in order to bring our costs down. It has not reconsidered employee benefits in light of the changes in benefits in the outside world. It has fought tooth and nail against a forensic examination of questionable practices in the Finance department and in the town's procurement process.
The result of the Board of Finance's passivity is not only a budget full of lies but also the need to make cuts to some budget items. Knowing this, it did not invite department heads to the May 23 meeting, to give their suggestions, nor did our town's CEO present his suggestions (since he is a full member of the BoF, a serious conflict of interest that is, as far as I can tell, the only one of its kind in Connecticut).
Since the BoF doesn't seem interested in suggestions from those who know, and it doesn't look like we can trust the BoF to make responsible decisions on its own (last time a budget was rejected, it just punished us by cutting our library, pool, and recycling days), we need to tell them what we want cut and what we don't want cut. (To see the current budget proposal, click here. )
Please cut and paste the list below into an email, give each budget item (or group of budget items) a number (1 means "cut this one first." 12 means "cut this one last.") and email the list to rwechsler@cityethics.org. You can give multiple items the same number, for example, if there are some items you don't want cut, you can give them all a 12, and then work up (if three are 12, then the next one is 9). Or you can do this the other way, with, say, three marked 1 and then the next marked 4.
Suggestions of additional budget items or groups of items are welcome, and might be added to the poll. Responses will not be tied to any name or email address, but will be tallied and deleted.
Responses must be in by 5 pm Wednesday May 30 to be given to the Board of Finance right before it meets that evening at 7 pm.
Community Services Assistant Director position (cut position - $65K)
Contingent Fund (currently $1 million; to deal with emergencies, but usually used to offset expenditures for intentionally underestimated budget items)
Department Cuts Across the Board (to some, a way of not setting priorities; to others, a way to be fair)
Department Cuts in the Town Budget Only (no education cuts)
Instructional Supplies (increased this year from $418K to $503K)
Kindergarten (from full day to half day; cost unknown)
Leaf Collection (put in bags rather than along street; cost unknown)
Library Staff (result = day cut; $100K)
Overtime - 10% Across the Board (would save $130K)
Pool - Day Cut ($50K)
School Library Books & Periodicals (increased this year from $21K to $62K)
Weekly Bulk Pickup (monthly instead; cost unknown)
Others (suggestions may be added to poll, so think hard)
If you would like me to keep your email address on file to send you notice of other polls or any of the subjects listed below, please cut and paste the list, or parts of the list, into your email with an "X" in front of the ones you choose. If you do not send any part of the list, I will delete your message and not take down your email address or send you any email notices.
Notices of Special Meetings
Notices of Town Meetings and Public Hearings
Petitions and Polls
Major Blog Entries
Major Additions to Website
All
Saturday, May 26, 2007
Forensic Chicken 3: From Double to Single Yolk
In our last episode, the forensic chicken had returned to its egg. But it was at least a double-yolker, with separate Requests for Proposal (that is, requests for bids) for separate firms doing an annual audit and a "forensic-operational" audit. Why? Due to the conflicts of interest involved if one firm were to do both audits. The Republicans on the audit subcommittee were clear about this. (The conflicts are of two kinds: (1) the Sarbanes-Oxley Act calls for using separate firms to do accounting and consulting, that is, annual audits on the one hand, and forensic examinations or operations audits on the other; (2) there is a conflict between a new annual auditor's goal to please and be kept on, and a forensic examiner's goal to get to the bottom of what happened, even if your clients aren't happy with it.)
And then suddenly, at the May 23 Board of Finance meeting, it appeared that the two yolks might merge into just one. Acting chair Michael Peterson said that having two firms do the two jobs might not be "economically prudent." He wants to see the bids before he decides. And no one said otherwise.
Well, it doesn’t take much thought to realize that one firm will do the two jobs more cheaply than two. That was a given from the era when there actually appeared to be a forensic chicken (although I never believed it for a second). It was agreed that having one firm would not be ethically prudent. Now the talk is about economic prudence.
This is a doubly bad case of bait-and-switch, (1) because it’s sneaky and (2) because it will lead to the unethical situation that the decision to have two Requests for Proposals (RFPs) was supposed to prevent.
But since the Republicans finally "gave in" and added an addendum to the "forensic-operational" RFP requiring a forensic examination of the last three years of the Community Services and Recreation department (even though the known misconduct goes back many years further), and because it wasn’t absolutely certain that only one firm would be chosen (although how could two firms possibly make the lowest bid?), both Democrats voted for the addendum and accepted what, unless there is a great deal of protest, will be an unethical approach to examining unethical conduct.
Of course, although Peterson said that the limits of three years and just one department (even though the heads of two departments were arrested) were just starting points, there is still no requirement to go further. And with all the twists and turns the Republican majority on the audit subcommittee and BoF have made, it’s hard to trust that anything not clearly required will actually occur.
Peterson stuck to the mantra "if the operations audit finds weaknesses, we’ll do a forensic audit," but the weaknesses that allowed the Ierardis to do what they did have all been changed. Is an operations auditor going to look, say, at the bidding of contracts? Will an operations auditor look at the Town Charter for the rules to follow? Will an operations auditor compare North Haven’s expenditures to those of other towns? Is it going to make determinations about whether we should hire more people to get overtime down? There have been nothing but generalizations about the operations auditor’s job, and on that, it appears, depends the depth and breadth of a forensic examination. It doesn’t give me much confidence in what the BoF will do.
Why? Because it’s backwards. Finding evidence of embezzlement shows where new methods are needed, not the other way around. Do BoF members not realize this, or are they leading us astray?
And do BoF members really care more about saving the town money than getting to the bottom of what happened, even though learning this will allow us to get money from our insurance company? Sarah Aziz, who is an accountant, suggested that the BoF get bids for the entire timespan of the known questionable activities in Community Services, and then decide what the town can afford. The BoF ignored this, apparently because its talk about expenses is just a smokescreen for limiting the scope of the examination.
Early on, the Republicans on the auditor subcommittee said that the town wouldn’t get any money out of the Ierardis, so it wasn’t worth doing a forensic examination. They failed to mention an insurance policy that would give the town up to $300,000 in stolen money, but only if the town presents evidence. And the town also holds unused vacation time and other benefits owed the Ierardis in the amount of $158,000. That sounds like enough of a reward to force us to do a good, deep, broad examination, not just to renew public trust, but to get our tax dollars back.
There was one especially telling exchange during the May 23 BoF meeting. Feinberg asked why the RFPs were not sent to the four BoF members who were not on the auditor subcommittee. He said that he doesn’t know what he’s voting on. Peterson said that he doesn’t have a copy himself, as if that makes it okay to have anyone vote for something he has never seen.
When Hallahan proposed a forensic RFP at the last auditor subcommittee meeting, the Republican members said they needed time to read it, even though the new material was very short. But Feinberg was not given this opportunity. Apparently, fair’s fair unless you have a big majority.
Hallahan said that his RFP went back to the year 2000, but the addendum only goes back to 2003. Peterson said that this is because the insurance policy only goes back three years, and the auditor must decide the magnitude of the problem before going back further (but we’re holding lots of the Ierardis’ money, and that is not time-limited, and we know that the misconduct, to the extent it existed, had started by the mid-1990s). It should be noted that Peterson said that the addendum included all the relevant language from Hallahan’s forensic RFP. Not all.
What is it that the Board of Finance Republicans are trying to hide? Or are they only trying to save the town money? If they’re trying to save the town money, why aren’t they trying to get as much of the $300,000 insurance money as possible, not to mention the $158,000 of the Ierardis’ benefits the town is holding? It just doesn’t add up. We could pay a forensic examiner a lot of money and still not lose a penny. And we could clear up all the doubts and suspicions and worries going through people's heads, something you can't put a dollar value on.
When the people of this town have been almost unanimously calling for a forensic chicken, why are they being offered a one-yolk egg? At a time when town officials should be bending over backwards to gain the public trust, why are they so hesitant to give the people what they’re asking for. Why aren't they trying to get to the bottom of what occurred, so that the town can move on, and town officials can manage our finances more easily because the public has confidence that they are acting in the town’s best interest?
Every time the BoF meets, there are more questions than answers. That's not the way to get the people's confidence. But then what is the Board of Finance Republicans' goal? That's the big open question.
And then suddenly, at the May 23 Board of Finance meeting, it appeared that the two yolks might merge into just one. Acting chair Michael Peterson said that having two firms do the two jobs might not be "economically prudent." He wants to see the bids before he decides. And no one said otherwise.
Well, it doesn’t take much thought to realize that one firm will do the two jobs more cheaply than two. That was a given from the era when there actually appeared to be a forensic chicken (although I never believed it for a second). It was agreed that having one firm would not be ethically prudent. Now the talk is about economic prudence.
This is a doubly bad case of bait-and-switch, (1) because it’s sneaky and (2) because it will lead to the unethical situation that the decision to have two Requests for Proposals (RFPs) was supposed to prevent.
But since the Republicans finally "gave in" and added an addendum to the "forensic-operational" RFP requiring a forensic examination of the last three years of the Community Services and Recreation department (even though the known misconduct goes back many years further), and because it wasn’t absolutely certain that only one firm would be chosen (although how could two firms possibly make the lowest bid?), both Democrats voted for the addendum and accepted what, unless there is a great deal of protest, will be an unethical approach to examining unethical conduct.
Of course, although Peterson said that the limits of three years and just one department (even though the heads of two departments were arrested) were just starting points, there is still no requirement to go further. And with all the twists and turns the Republican majority on the audit subcommittee and BoF have made, it’s hard to trust that anything not clearly required will actually occur.
Peterson stuck to the mantra "if the operations audit finds weaknesses, we’ll do a forensic audit," but the weaknesses that allowed the Ierardis to do what they did have all been changed. Is an operations auditor going to look, say, at the bidding of contracts? Will an operations auditor look at the Town Charter for the rules to follow? Will an operations auditor compare North Haven’s expenditures to those of other towns? Is it going to make determinations about whether we should hire more people to get overtime down? There have been nothing but generalizations about the operations auditor’s job, and on that, it appears, depends the depth and breadth of a forensic examination. It doesn’t give me much confidence in what the BoF will do.
Why? Because it’s backwards. Finding evidence of embezzlement shows where new methods are needed, not the other way around. Do BoF members not realize this, or are they leading us astray?
And do BoF members really care more about saving the town money than getting to the bottom of what happened, even though learning this will allow us to get money from our insurance company? Sarah Aziz, who is an accountant, suggested that the BoF get bids for the entire timespan of the known questionable activities in Community Services, and then decide what the town can afford. The BoF ignored this, apparently because its talk about expenses is just a smokescreen for limiting the scope of the examination.
Early on, the Republicans on the auditor subcommittee said that the town wouldn’t get any money out of the Ierardis, so it wasn’t worth doing a forensic examination. They failed to mention an insurance policy that would give the town up to $300,000 in stolen money, but only if the town presents evidence. And the town also holds unused vacation time and other benefits owed the Ierardis in the amount of $158,000. That sounds like enough of a reward to force us to do a good, deep, broad examination, not just to renew public trust, but to get our tax dollars back.
There was one especially telling exchange during the May 23 BoF meeting. Feinberg asked why the RFPs were not sent to the four BoF members who were not on the auditor subcommittee. He said that he doesn’t know what he’s voting on. Peterson said that he doesn’t have a copy himself, as if that makes it okay to have anyone vote for something he has never seen.
When Hallahan proposed a forensic RFP at the last auditor subcommittee meeting, the Republican members said they needed time to read it, even though the new material was very short. But Feinberg was not given this opportunity. Apparently, fair’s fair unless you have a big majority.
Hallahan said that his RFP went back to the year 2000, but the addendum only goes back to 2003. Peterson said that this is because the insurance policy only goes back three years, and the auditor must decide the magnitude of the problem before going back further (but we’re holding lots of the Ierardis’ money, and that is not time-limited, and we know that the misconduct, to the extent it existed, had started by the mid-1990s). It should be noted that Peterson said that the addendum included all the relevant language from Hallahan’s forensic RFP. Not all.
What is it that the Board of Finance Republicans are trying to hide? Or are they only trying to save the town money? If they’re trying to save the town money, why aren’t they trying to get as much of the $300,000 insurance money as possible, not to mention the $158,000 of the Ierardis’ benefits the town is holding? It just doesn’t add up. We could pay a forensic examiner a lot of money and still not lose a penny. And we could clear up all the doubts and suspicions and worries going through people's heads, something you can't put a dollar value on.
When the people of this town have been almost unanimously calling for a forensic chicken, why are they being offered a one-yolk egg? At a time when town officials should be bending over backwards to gain the public trust, why are they so hesitant to give the people what they’re asking for. Why aren't they trying to get to the bottom of what occurred, so that the town can move on, and town officials can manage our finances more easily because the public has confidence that they are acting in the town’s best interest?
Every time the BoF meets, there are more questions than answers. That's not the way to get the people's confidence. But then what is the Board of Finance Republicans' goal? That's the big open question.
Board of Finance + Budget = Business As Usual, or Zeroing Out Instead of Zeroing In
Last night’s Board of Finance meeting dealt primarily with two topics: (1) amending the “forensic-operations audit” Request for Proposals (asking for bids) to make a forensic examination of the Community Services & Recreation department a requirement rather than a possibility, and (2) responding to the 2 to 1 rejection of the budget. In this blog entry, I will deal only with the budget. The budget discussion comes in two parts: (1) the members among themselves and (2) public comments.
The first thing worth noting is that no member of the Board of Finance seems to have considered a Plan B. Although everyone was predicting that the budget would be rejected, no one was prepared to talk about what to do next. But at least the two Democrats on the board, Gerry Feinberg and Michael Hallahan, had some ideas.
It is, of course, possible that the Republicans did have a Plan B, but chose not to share it with the public, so that they could spring it on us at their next meeting. That would be consistent with the way they ignored the on-line petition’s statement of what people wanted, and all the comments people had gone to the trouble of writing on the petition. As I’ve said many times before, town officials cannot expect to be respected until they show respect for the public they’re supposed to be representing.
It was clear from acting chair Michael Peterson’s first speech that the Republicans on the Board of Finance were just going to do business as usual, with one difference: Finance Director Vincent Palmeri was not there to tell the BoF what they should cut from the budget. They would have to do this themselves, and so Peterson began by asking BoF members to prepare a list of the specific budget items they would like to be amended, and to deliver the list by Friday – giving them one evening to work on it.
Democrat Michael Hallahan responded with some dark humor, thanking Peterson for asking for his input, something historically unusual on the BoF, which has 5 Republicans to 2 Democrats.
The other Democrat, Gerry Feinberg, went right to the heart of the matter, acknowledging that Peterson started with the presumption that the budget can be repaired. Feinberg suggested that they start with a clean slate, and this suggestion was rejected out of hand, because of time limitations.
The state apparently requires a budget to be approved by June 30, although some budgets do get rejected five times or more.
Feinberg talked about problems with underfunding, or underestimating, numerous budget items, and First Selectman Kevin Kopetz, who is also a member of the body responsible for oversight over his budget (that is, the BoF), said that the contingency fund could be reduced to make those estimates closer to reality. This makes sense, because the contingency fund is used for this purpose at the end of the year, so why not do it up front, so that the budget numbers better reflect reality.
Feinberg set off on a speech about what he considers the fundamental problem with the budget: that it doesn’t address where we’ll be this year or the next. There’s nothing in it that will convince people that the town won’t be in the same situation next year. Feinberg said that the BoF needs to look closely not only at expenditures, but also at revenues. He found that most of the revenue figures in the budget book are less than what actual revenues appear to be in the most recent report, and that this increase should be reflected in the new budget.
This shifted the conversation to revenues. Peterson said that the BoF will adjust the mill-rate in response to the final state budget, implying that this would not be taken into account in the second budget presented to North Haven residents.
This business-as-usual response was quickly rejected by Feinberg, who pointed out that all three state budgets – by the governor, Democrats, and Republicans – provide North Haven with a substantial increase in state money, none of which has been reflected in the rejected budget proposal and which was also ignored by Kopetz in his response to Feinberg. Peterson tried to hold the line, again saying that the mill-rate will be adjusted, but Kopetz agreed that the lower of the three state figures should be used once the figures are “solidified.” (But will the numbers be sufficiently “solid” before the next BoF meeting?) He also noted that it did not appear that the state would cut out the local conveyance tax (paid by homesellers), so this could also be taken into account.
So we might have better and higher revenue figures, which would lessen the pressure to cut services and possibly even allow taxes to be cut a bit.
Being faced with outdated revenue figures is another way in which voters were looking at an unrealistic budget, although this is not the fault of the Board of Finance. It will be the BoF’s fault if it does not include the state figures in the revenue section of their next budget proposal.
Next, Feinberg noted that a much higher percentage of North Haven’s total budget goes to the town side (relative to the education side) than in other, similar towns. Peterson said this was due to the fact that North Haven’s bonding expenses appear on the town side of the budget. But, as usual, there was no evidence presented that other towns put their bonding expenses on the education side of the budget. In any event, this trend of spending less on education relative to other towns is historical, and interest on the new high school begins just this year. Another example of how a lack of transparency works against our knowing the facts.
The next topic of conversation was why the BoF’s budget was rejected. Peterson said he didn’t know why. Hallahan said that BoF members should put themselves in the voters’ position. Peterson said there were many reasons, and that it wasn’t up to the BoF to figure out what people were thinking. Hallahan said that at the Budget Town Meeting, it was clear that people felt the budget was not realistic, that too much in it was inaccurate.
Not surprisingly, no BoF member mentioned the on-line petition I started, which was at their places when they arrived at the meeting. That petition, signed by 180 people at the time of the meeting (up over 200 now), stated clearly what they wanted the BoF to do, and also included many further comments, lots of them full of anger and disappointment in the work done by the BoF and the current administration. Nearly everyone did not want the education side of the budget touched, but Peterson did not acknowledge even this.
Besides asking for no cuts to the education budget, the petition’s requests are four: (1) make accurate estimates of expenses, which was brought up by Feinberg, but had little support from other members; (2) make accurate estimates of tax revenues, which was discussed but not resolved; (3) recommend an ordinance that requires budget transfers over $20,000 to be approved by the Town Meeting, which was never mentioned; and (4) inquire into and make a report on insurance costs and contracts, bringing in a forensic investigator where any irregularities are suspected, another request that was not mentioned by any BoF member.
The petition on delaying revaluation was ignored by the Republican majority of the Board of Selectmen in 2005. Again, a petition was ignored, this time by the entire Board of Finance. Neither was a binding petition, but that is no reason to ignore the will of 180 people who took the time to read, sign, and comment on a petition, and send it on their friends. It was an experiment that worked better than I had expected, and provided an excellent idea of why the town voted down the budget, which should be the principal impetus toward changing the budget. And yet no one on the BoF seemed to care. Their opinions clearly matter more than anything else. They don’t feel the need to be true representatives, and most of them know that they will not be up for re-election this year. That’s democracy the North Haven way.
The board switched back to talking about how to change the budget. Peterson echoed Kopetz’s suggestion that if Hallahan wanted to make expense figures more accurate, money could be taken out of the $1 million contingency fund. Richard Gillen said that they needed to look for savings, because moving money out of the contingency fund would not make any difference. Hallahan said there were a lot of very low numbers, and the department heads just ignored them. Timothy Doheny said that there were simply too many accounts.
When Feinberg said that he could not possibly have line item changes ready for Friday, Peterson switched the time for sending these changes (to acting finance director Edward Swinkoski) from Friday to the following Tuesday, with a meeting on Wednesday, May 30 at 7 pm. There was no talk of simply having each member e-mail his figures to the other members. One wonders about the concern for efficiency of a board that does not even talk about using e-mail under such tight time restrictions (Feinberg did ask if he could e-mail his figures to Swinkoski). One wonders how such an inefficient group of men could possibly make our town work better?
I was the first speaker in public comments. Here is what I prepared for my speech, and basically what I said after talking about the petition and how good a picture it gave of how the people who voted against the budget felt.
No one on the BoF said a word in response to my speech.
Michael Mele talked about non-competitive bidding and the need for change in the administration’s mindset. He felt that millions of dollars could be cut from the budget by bidding out contracts and other means, if not for this budget, then certainly for the next. Whatever is decided, I think that this sort of a commitment must accompany it.
A woman whose name I didn’t catch said that people only hear what they want to hear, and that people who voted against the budget were fully aware that there would be cuts in the budget on both sides. She felt it wasn’t fair for the town to carry a double burden of cuts. She felt the main reason for people voting against the budget was that taxes are too high, and she felt that the contingency fund needed to be preserved to deal with unexpected events. She finished by saying that sewer use charges had been increased, and that the figures for them in the budget were too low.
Sherman Katz talked about addressing budget overruns, that there are ways of talking to department heads about how they’re doing. Kopetz said that he planned to meet with department heads about budgeting, and had asked for updates.
But as the town’s CEO and a member of the Board of Finance, shouldn’t Kopetz have already done that, both before presenting a budget and in anticipation of the budget being rejected? Why does it always seem that Kopetz is reacting to events? That’s not good management.
Tim Doheny observed that overtime overruns are offset by salary savings. This is true, and not true. To the extent that overtime allows a department to hire fewer people, that can be a short-term savings. But overtime is more expensive than regular income, and it adds to the income of employees with respect to their pensions. Therefore, as employees approach retirement, they tend to take more overtime in order to get larger pensions (pensions are based on earnings in the last years before retirement). This can be very expensive, and may be one reason why North Haven pension benefits are substantially higher than many towns our size. It would be helpful if we knew that our large overtime costs also gave us fewer employees than other towns. I’m not sure that’s the case.
Feinberg said that the town budget has to go through a transition. We can’t zero every budget item out in one year, it’s not practical. We need to move in that direction, need to bring in department heads and make them and the BoF accountable.
Peterson replied that state law requires zeroing out line items.
Gina Falcigno, Kopetz’s assistant, said that she fielded many phone calls from people about the budget, and that there was not one single message. She was responding to what I had said, but I hadn’t said there was one single message. In any even, the one group I did not talk about, which she did, was the group who simply feels that taxes are too high. This group votes against the budget every year, but is not large enough to reject the budget. To get the current budget passed, you have to get the support of the many people who usually support the budget, but this time voted against it. Their reasons are more complicated and varied, but are reflected in the four petition demands, the request to preserve the education budget, and in the comments added to the petition.
Florence Sinow, a former Republican BoF member, said that the BoF is doing a great job and is not mistrusted. She said people will now have to sacrifice services because the budget was voted down. In other words, business as usual in a town that is changing fast.
A woman said she moved to North Haven for the schools, and has seen services cut. She asked that the education budget not be cut any more. Another woman rose and echoed this statement, adding that she felt held hostage: she either takes a tax increase or has the kids’ budget cut.
Doug Wood made a comparison between North Haven and Guilford, in which North Haven spends a great deal more on the town side and a good deal less on the education side of the budget. He emphasized the need to look at what other towns our size are doing.
Wood had lots of figures, but not the number of Guilford employees. Here are those numbers and how they affect the comparison:
Margaret Tivnan said that too many people are being used to collect leaves, that we could bag them like other towns do and save a lot of money. A woman said that this would make it difficult for older people, but Margaret said that her older neighbor does all the raking herself and putting the leaves in bags would be easier than this. She also suggested that bid notices should be put online for everyone to see, as is done in many other towns.
All in all, it was not a very good public comments section, because so little had been put forward by the BoF. There was little concrete discussion among BoF members, no one on the BoF seems to have tried to find out what people think (I was at the polls talking to people; where were they?), and if they held any cards at all, the Republican BoF members were keeping them close to their chests. Instead of zeroing in on why the budget was rejected and what could be done to respond to the people rather than, as in the past, punish them for their impunity, the BoF zeroed out.
Where the cards really hit the table was in the part of the meeting concerning the forensic examination, which I will discuss in my next blog entry.
The first thing worth noting is that no member of the Board of Finance seems to have considered a Plan B. Although everyone was predicting that the budget would be rejected, no one was prepared to talk about what to do next. But at least the two Democrats on the board, Gerry Feinberg and Michael Hallahan, had some ideas.
It is, of course, possible that the Republicans did have a Plan B, but chose not to share it with the public, so that they could spring it on us at their next meeting. That would be consistent with the way they ignored the on-line petition’s statement of what people wanted, and all the comments people had gone to the trouble of writing on the petition. As I’ve said many times before, town officials cannot expect to be respected until they show respect for the public they’re supposed to be representing.
It was clear from acting chair Michael Peterson’s first speech that the Republicans on the Board of Finance were just going to do business as usual, with one difference: Finance Director Vincent Palmeri was not there to tell the BoF what they should cut from the budget. They would have to do this themselves, and so Peterson began by asking BoF members to prepare a list of the specific budget items they would like to be amended, and to deliver the list by Friday – giving them one evening to work on it.
Democrat Michael Hallahan responded with some dark humor, thanking Peterson for asking for his input, something historically unusual on the BoF, which has 5 Republicans to 2 Democrats.
The other Democrat, Gerry Feinberg, went right to the heart of the matter, acknowledging that Peterson started with the presumption that the budget can be repaired. Feinberg suggested that they start with a clean slate, and this suggestion was rejected out of hand, because of time limitations.
The state apparently requires a budget to be approved by June 30, although some budgets do get rejected five times or more.
Feinberg talked about problems with underfunding, or underestimating, numerous budget items, and First Selectman Kevin Kopetz, who is also a member of the body responsible for oversight over his budget (that is, the BoF), said that the contingency fund could be reduced to make those estimates closer to reality. This makes sense, because the contingency fund is used for this purpose at the end of the year, so why not do it up front, so that the budget numbers better reflect reality.
Feinberg set off on a speech about what he considers the fundamental problem with the budget: that it doesn’t address where we’ll be this year or the next. There’s nothing in it that will convince people that the town won’t be in the same situation next year. Feinberg said that the BoF needs to look closely not only at expenditures, but also at revenues. He found that most of the revenue figures in the budget book are less than what actual revenues appear to be in the most recent report, and that this increase should be reflected in the new budget.
This shifted the conversation to revenues. Peterson said that the BoF will adjust the mill-rate in response to the final state budget, implying that this would not be taken into account in the second budget presented to North Haven residents.
This business-as-usual response was quickly rejected by Feinberg, who pointed out that all three state budgets – by the governor, Democrats, and Republicans – provide North Haven with a substantial increase in state money, none of which has been reflected in the rejected budget proposal and which was also ignored by Kopetz in his response to Feinberg. Peterson tried to hold the line, again saying that the mill-rate will be adjusted, but Kopetz agreed that the lower of the three state figures should be used once the figures are “solidified.” (But will the numbers be sufficiently “solid” before the next BoF meeting?) He also noted that it did not appear that the state would cut out the local conveyance tax (paid by homesellers), so this could also be taken into account.
So we might have better and higher revenue figures, which would lessen the pressure to cut services and possibly even allow taxes to be cut a bit.
Being faced with outdated revenue figures is another way in which voters were looking at an unrealistic budget, although this is not the fault of the Board of Finance. It will be the BoF’s fault if it does not include the state figures in the revenue section of their next budget proposal.
Next, Feinberg noted that a much higher percentage of North Haven’s total budget goes to the town side (relative to the education side) than in other, similar towns. Peterson said this was due to the fact that North Haven’s bonding expenses appear on the town side of the budget. But, as usual, there was no evidence presented that other towns put their bonding expenses on the education side of the budget. In any event, this trend of spending less on education relative to other towns is historical, and interest on the new high school begins just this year. Another example of how a lack of transparency works against our knowing the facts.
The next topic of conversation was why the BoF’s budget was rejected. Peterson said he didn’t know why. Hallahan said that BoF members should put themselves in the voters’ position. Peterson said there were many reasons, and that it wasn’t up to the BoF to figure out what people were thinking. Hallahan said that at the Budget Town Meeting, it was clear that people felt the budget was not realistic, that too much in it was inaccurate.
Not surprisingly, no BoF member mentioned the on-line petition I started, which was at their places when they arrived at the meeting. That petition, signed by 180 people at the time of the meeting (up over 200 now), stated clearly what they wanted the BoF to do, and also included many further comments, lots of them full of anger and disappointment in the work done by the BoF and the current administration. Nearly everyone did not want the education side of the budget touched, but Peterson did not acknowledge even this.
Besides asking for no cuts to the education budget, the petition’s requests are four: (1) make accurate estimates of expenses, which was brought up by Feinberg, but had little support from other members; (2) make accurate estimates of tax revenues, which was discussed but not resolved; (3) recommend an ordinance that requires budget transfers over $20,000 to be approved by the Town Meeting, which was never mentioned; and (4) inquire into and make a report on insurance costs and contracts, bringing in a forensic investigator where any irregularities are suspected, another request that was not mentioned by any BoF member.
The petition on delaying revaluation was ignored by the Republican majority of the Board of Selectmen in 2005. Again, a petition was ignored, this time by the entire Board of Finance. Neither was a binding petition, but that is no reason to ignore the will of 180 people who took the time to read, sign, and comment on a petition, and send it on their friends. It was an experiment that worked better than I had expected, and provided an excellent idea of why the town voted down the budget, which should be the principal impetus toward changing the budget. And yet no one on the BoF seemed to care. Their opinions clearly matter more than anything else. They don’t feel the need to be true representatives, and most of them know that they will not be up for re-election this year. That’s democracy the North Haven way.
The board switched back to talking about how to change the budget. Peterson echoed Kopetz’s suggestion that if Hallahan wanted to make expense figures more accurate, money could be taken out of the $1 million contingency fund. Richard Gillen said that they needed to look for savings, because moving money out of the contingency fund would not make any difference. Hallahan said there were a lot of very low numbers, and the department heads just ignored them. Timothy Doheny said that there were simply too many accounts.
When Feinberg said that he could not possibly have line item changes ready for Friday, Peterson switched the time for sending these changes (to acting finance director Edward Swinkoski) from Friday to the following Tuesday, with a meeting on Wednesday, May 30 at 7 pm. There was no talk of simply having each member e-mail his figures to the other members. One wonders about the concern for efficiency of a board that does not even talk about using e-mail under such tight time restrictions (Feinberg did ask if he could e-mail his figures to Swinkoski). One wonders how such an inefficient group of men could possibly make our town work better?
I was the first speaker in public comments. Here is what I prepared for my speech, and basically what I said after talking about the petition and how good a picture it gave of how the people who voted against the budget felt.
The Board of Finance is this town’s principal oversight committee. Every other town our size in the state has a legislative body that meets regularly and provides oversight over the executive branch. All we have is the Board of Finance.
And it has not been doing its job. It accepts and presents to the public expenditure numbers that are not realistic. It selects a revenue estimate that is substantially lower than the figures for the last three years.
When Mr. Palmeri suggested 37 budget transfers each $1 less than the legal limit, totalling 3/4 of a million dollars, did the Board of Finance even discuss the issue? No.
When Mr. Hallahan asked for a discussion of no-bid contracts, this town’s biggest financial problem and the subject of much controversy both among townspeople and in the New Haven Register, did the Board of Finance discuss the issue? No.
Does the Board of Finance sufficiently look at the figures of other towns our size in the state, to see if we’re paying too much for various items, to make sure the way we’ve always done things is still the best way of doing them? If it did, it would have seen how high our insurance costs are, for example. And our pensions. And some of our contracts.
The people of North Haven rejected the Board of Finance’s budget because the Board of Finance is not doing its oversight job. We rejected the Board of Finance’s budget because it’s a lie, and because we stopped falling for the smokescreens and half-truths we’re told. We rejected the Board of Finance’s budget despite wanting to vote for the education budget, because we were tired of the scare tactics perpetrated by people such as, most recently, Board of Education member Suzanne Donofrio.
If the Board of Finance touches the education budget, it will have crossed the line. The anger in this town will boil over.
No one on the BoF said a word in response to my speech.
Michael Mele talked about non-competitive bidding and the need for change in the administration’s mindset. He felt that millions of dollars could be cut from the budget by bidding out contracts and other means, if not for this budget, then certainly for the next. Whatever is decided, I think that this sort of a commitment must accompany it.
A woman whose name I didn’t catch said that people only hear what they want to hear, and that people who voted against the budget were fully aware that there would be cuts in the budget on both sides. She felt it wasn’t fair for the town to carry a double burden of cuts. She felt the main reason for people voting against the budget was that taxes are too high, and she felt that the contingency fund needed to be preserved to deal with unexpected events. She finished by saying that sewer use charges had been increased, and that the figures for them in the budget were too low.
Sherman Katz talked about addressing budget overruns, that there are ways of talking to department heads about how they’re doing. Kopetz said that he planned to meet with department heads about budgeting, and had asked for updates.
But as the town’s CEO and a member of the Board of Finance, shouldn’t Kopetz have already done that, both before presenting a budget and in anticipation of the budget being rejected? Why does it always seem that Kopetz is reacting to events? That’s not good management.
Tim Doheny observed that overtime overruns are offset by salary savings. This is true, and not true. To the extent that overtime allows a department to hire fewer people, that can be a short-term savings. But overtime is more expensive than regular income, and it adds to the income of employees with respect to their pensions. Therefore, as employees approach retirement, they tend to take more overtime in order to get larger pensions (pensions are based on earnings in the last years before retirement). This can be very expensive, and may be one reason why North Haven pension benefits are substantially higher than many towns our size. It would be helpful if we knew that our large overtime costs also gave us fewer employees than other towns. I’m not sure that’s the case.
Feinberg said that the town budget has to go through a transition. We can’t zero every budget item out in one year, it’s not practical. We need to move in that direction, need to bring in department heads and make them and the BoF accountable.
Peterson replied that state law requires zeroing out line items.
Gina Falcigno, Kopetz’s assistant, said that she fielded many phone calls from people about the budget, and that there was not one single message. She was responding to what I had said, but I hadn’t said there was one single message. In any even, the one group I did not talk about, which she did, was the group who simply feels that taxes are too high. This group votes against the budget every year, but is not large enough to reject the budget. To get the current budget passed, you have to get the support of the many people who usually support the budget, but this time voted against it. Their reasons are more complicated and varied, but are reflected in the four petition demands, the request to preserve the education budget, and in the comments added to the petition.
Florence Sinow, a former Republican BoF member, said that the BoF is doing a great job and is not mistrusted. She said people will now have to sacrifice services because the budget was voted down. In other words, business as usual in a town that is changing fast.
A woman said she moved to North Haven for the schools, and has seen services cut. She asked that the education budget not be cut any more. Another woman rose and echoed this statement, adding that she felt held hostage: she either takes a tax increase or has the kids’ budget cut.
Doug Wood made a comparison between North Haven and Guilford, in which North Haven spends a great deal more on the town side and a good deal less on the education side of the budget. He emphasized the need to look at what other towns our size are doing.
Wood had lots of figures, but not the number of Guilford employees. Here are those numbers and how they affect the comparison:
Guilford: Full-Time Employees (Town side only): 158 PartTime: 90-150 (no benefits for parttime)
North Haven: FT: 185-195 PT: about 60 (no benefits for PT)
Using the 2006-2007 numbers for these staffing levels.
North Haven: $38k/year per FT employee
Guilford: $26k/year per FT employee
We pay 46% more per employee for benefits than Guilford does.
Margaret Tivnan said that too many people are being used to collect leaves, that we could bag them like other towns do and save a lot of money. A woman said that this would make it difficult for older people, but Margaret said that her older neighbor does all the raking herself and putting the leaves in bags would be easier than this. She also suggested that bid notices should be put online for everyone to see, as is done in many other towns.
All in all, it was not a very good public comments section, because so little had been put forward by the BoF. There was little concrete discussion among BoF members, no one on the BoF seems to have tried to find out what people think (I was at the polls talking to people; where were they?), and if they held any cards at all, the Republican BoF members were keeping them close to their chests. Instead of zeroing in on why the budget was rejected and what could be done to respond to the people rather than, as in the past, punish them for their impunity, the BoF zeroed out.
Where the cards really hit the table was in the part of the meeting concerning the forensic examination, which I will discuss in my next blog entry.
Wednesday, May 23, 2007
We Need to Send a Clear Message to the Board of Finance
The budget was rejected 64%-36% yesterday. Now what's most important is to send a clear message to the Board of Finance about why the budget was rejected. Their tendency is to make cuts across the board, in both the town and education budgets. Many people were afraid of this and voted for the town budget in order to protect the education budget.
But we don't have to be helpless. We let the Board of Finance know how we felt at the Budget Town Meeting last week. We can come to the Board of Finance meeting this evening at 7:00 pm, at Town Hall (upstairs), and let them know again. And you can sign the northhaveninfo.org petition, and let them know (you can even make your own comments). You can sign the petition until 6 pm this evening. Please send the website address to your friends, so that we can get as many people as possible telling the Board of Finance not to touch the education budget.
Here is Selectwoman Janet McCarty's press release on the town's rejection of the budget. She is sending the same message.
But we don't have to be helpless. We let the Board of Finance know how we felt at the Budget Town Meeting last week. We can come to the Board of Finance meeting this evening at 7:00 pm, at Town Hall (upstairs), and let them know again. And you can sign the northhaveninfo.org petition, and let them know (you can even make your own comments). You can sign the petition until 6 pm this evening. Please send the website address to your friends, so that we can get as many people as possible telling the Board of Finance not to touch the education budget.
Here is Selectwoman Janet McCarty's press release on the town's rejection of the budget. She is sending the same message.
I want to be clear about this: The overwhelming defeat of the proposed budget sends a unmistakable message to Town Hall: the people of North Haven do NOT approve of your ineffective budgeting process, unrealistic budget numbers, and your foolish decision to keep raises for alleged felons in this year’s budget.
These results should NOT be interpreted by the Board of Finance as a vote to cut the education budget. Folks who spoke at the budget hearing, those who wrote letters to the local papers, and those who called/wrote/emailed me did not vote NO because they think our kids are getting too much from our schools. In fact, they believe that our education system has been seriously weakened as a result of the cuts in funding approved by Town Hall over the last few years.
The NO vote is not a YES vote to the Board of Finance to conduct business as usual. It is a YES vote for efficient, effective and honest budgeting. I certainly hope that the Board of Finance gets the right message.
Friday, May 18, 2007
A Muzzled Freda Tries to Take Advantage of People's Laziness and Lack of Knowledge
It is impossible to ignore Board of Finance member Michael Freda's latest opus on the town budget, as much as I would like to.
It's worth noting that this letter to the editor (sent to both the Citizen and the Post) is as calm as his last letter was over the top. Mr. Freda has clearly been muzzled.
What is sad here is how frightened Mr. Freda is to speak directly to what I, the Democratic members of the Board of Finance, Janet McCarty, and many others have said about the budget's dishonesty. All you need do is compare his letter against the flyer I handed out at the Budget Town Meeting, and my response to his last letter to the editor. And others have said so much more (see my blog entry on the Budget Town Meeting, for example).
Freda is banking on the fact that very few people will do this. He's taking advantage of people's laziness and lack of knowledge. He says, "We have no other motives or objectives other than to serve you as best we can." But what is his motive for writing a last-second letter that makes no effort to honestly present the opposition's side, even to knock it down (the way I did his)?
He says that I and others "speak in vague generalities." Yeah, right. I have thrown more numbers at this town than this town has ever seen.
There is one very specific matter I want to respond to. Freda says that the Board of Finance is in total support of bidding out contracts. But recently the BoF Republicans refused Democrat BoF member Michael Hallahan's requests to discuss competitive bidding of contracts.
Freda talks about the problem of contracts as low as $1,000 being bid out, and he's right. But the problem can only be solved by revising the Charter, something Democrats have favored, and which I have made the center of my criticism of North Haven's Republicans, but which no Republican member of the Board of Finance has publicly supported.
It's easy to say the right thing days before a referendum, when you know you're in trouble. Easy and deeply dishonest. It makes you nothing but another two-faced politician. At least to people who've been paying attention. But Mr. Freda is betting there are enough people that aren't paying attention. Very nice, Mr. Freda. You're the man.
Of course, Mr. Freda is not a politician. He wasn't elected to the Board of Finance, he was appointed. Just a year ago. He clearly has a lot to prove, and he's certainly proven what he's made of.
I'm not going to waste any more time on Freda. I've already said enough, and others have said much more. If this is the best the BoF Republicans can do, then it only gives more credence to what we've been saying.
It's worth noting that this letter to the editor (sent to both the Citizen and the Post) is as calm as his last letter was over the top. Mr. Freda has clearly been muzzled.
What is sad here is how frightened Mr. Freda is to speak directly to what I, the Democratic members of the Board of Finance, Janet McCarty, and many others have said about the budget's dishonesty. All you need do is compare his letter against the flyer I handed out at the Budget Town Meeting, and my response to his last letter to the editor. And others have said so much more (see my blog entry on the Budget Town Meeting, for example).
Freda is banking on the fact that very few people will do this. He's taking advantage of people's laziness and lack of knowledge. He says, "We have no other motives or objectives other than to serve you as best we can." But what is his motive for writing a last-second letter that makes no effort to honestly present the opposition's side, even to knock it down (the way I did his)?
He says that I and others "speak in vague generalities." Yeah, right. I have thrown more numbers at this town than this town has ever seen.
There is one very specific matter I want to respond to. Freda says that the Board of Finance is in total support of bidding out contracts. But recently the BoF Republicans refused Democrat BoF member Michael Hallahan's requests to discuss competitive bidding of contracts.
Freda talks about the problem of contracts as low as $1,000 being bid out, and he's right. But the problem can only be solved by revising the Charter, something Democrats have favored, and which I have made the center of my criticism of North Haven's Republicans, but which no Republican member of the Board of Finance has publicly supported.
It's easy to say the right thing days before a referendum, when you know you're in trouble. Easy and deeply dishonest. It makes you nothing but another two-faced politician. At least to people who've been paying attention. But Mr. Freda is betting there are enough people that aren't paying attention. Very nice, Mr. Freda. You're the man.
Of course, Mr. Freda is not a politician. He wasn't elected to the Board of Finance, he was appointed. Just a year ago. He clearly has a lot to prove, and he's certainly proven what he's made of.
I'm not going to waste any more time on Freda. I've already said enough, and others have said much more. If this is the best the BoF Republicans can do, then it only gives more credence to what we've been saying.
The Ierardis Get Their Pension - But What Do We Get?
At the center of yesterday’s Board of Selectmen meeting was an invisible dispute between lawyers, the result of which was Janet McCarty’s different position on pension payments to Joseph and Patricia Ierardi.
First, let’s look at what happened. The Ierardis were arrested for embezzlement and immediately announced their retirement and declared their innocence. They have not in any way owned up to what they did or didn’t do. No apologies, no explanations, no information that could help the town know about other misuses of funds, or what other town leaders knew about what was going on. Whatever they did or didn’t do, they showed no interest in making things better for the town. Instead they put out their hands and asked the town for money. Of all the possible things they could have done, they chose the most selfish alternative.
Of course, they deserve that money for all the years they worked for the town. But what about us? What are we owed for having been deceived all these years, not to mention intimidated by Mr. Ierardi?
The solution chosen by Mr. Kopetz and Mr. Mitchell, with the advice of town attorney Jeffrey Donofrio and labor lawyer George O’Brien, is rational, but I don't think it is right. The Ierardis will get their pensions ($122,000 a year) unless findings of fraud and dishonesty are made that would allow the Board of Selectmen to meet again and determine that, if these findings had been made while the Ierardis were employed, they would have resulted in their being fired. In that event, all further pension payments would end. But it is not clear whether past pension payments could be recouped.
Lawyers work for clients. In this case, Mr. Donofrio and Mr. O’Brien were effectively representing Mr. Kopetz and Mr. Mitchell. Therefore, Ms. McCarty had to speak with counsel of her own (all this is confidential, so I have no idea who or how many or what sort). Apparently (this is speculation based on what was said at the meeting), the advice she was given differed from the advice of Mr. Kopetz’s counsel. The difference does not appear to be so much about the law, but about (i) the likelihood of a successful suit against the town had the Board of Selectmen refused to allow the Ierardis’ pensions, conditional on their being found not guilty; and (ii) the possibility that the Ierardis will either win in court or make a plea bargain, so that (no matter what they did) there will be no findings of fraud sufficient to allow the Board of Selectmen to end pension payments.
There might be findings from a forensic examination (which, upon Ms. McCarty's request, the Board of Selectmen agreed to ask the Board of Finance to require), but then the Board of Selectmen would have to effectively hold a trial itself in order to end pension payments before a verdict is made or in the event there is no verdict. This would be long and messy and expensive and, if the Ierardis lost, they would likely sue, using taxpayer money to pay their lawyer.
How could a North Haven Board of Selectmen fairly judge a man who has been a North Haven icon, chair of the North Haven Republican Town Committee, the First Selectman's campaign manager (which Mr. Mitchell now is, I believe), and a vicious antagonist of Ms. McCarty? It's hard to imagine anyone sitting on the Board of Selectmen in the near future who could be perceived as neutral and fair to Mr. Ierardi.
Would the Ierardis have sued the town for immediate pension payments? We’ll never know, although it’s a fair bet they would, because they certainly don’t seem to care about putting the town through more pain. In fact, their lawyer told the New Haven Register that the Ierardis would have sued, which was totally unnecessary, since at least for now his side won. But at least they would have had to pay for the litigation themselves.
What we do know is that the town’s taxpayers will be paying the Ierardis $122,000 a year for as long as their trial takes, and that they have every incentive to drag it out, since we’ll be paying their lawyers. Ms. McCarty, on the other hand, said she didn’t want to see them get one more cent. Here’s her entire speech.
For the record, here is the exact wording of the motions the Board of Selectmen voted on (the same three for Patricia Ierardi, as well):
Motions Concerning Retirement Application of Joseph Ierardi
1. That the Town of North Haven, as Plan Administrator of the Town of North Haven Amended and Restated Pension Plan for General Employees of the Town Government and the Department of Education, conditionally approve the application of Joseph Ierardi to retire under the Plan, effective May 18, 2007, subject to forfeiture of any and all payments and benefits due or becoming due to him from the Pension Fund pursuant to Section 13.2 of the Plan, if there is a finding of fraud and dishonesty committed during the course of employment.
2. That the Town of North Haven inform Joseph Ierardi, in a writing prepared by the Town Attorney, of the approval of his retirement application and of the possible forfeiture of any and all payments and benefits due or becoming due to him from the Pension Fund pursuant to Section 13.2 of the Plan, concerning fraud and dishonesty.
3. That the Town of North Haven retain any and all amounts due, or becoming due on account of retirement, to Joseph Ierardi for earned but unpaid vacation, sick leave and similar benefits, unless and until an adequate accounting is obtained of all money, assets or other items owed to the Town by Joseph Ierardi and these are set off against such amounts due to Joseph Ierardi.
First, let’s look at what happened. The Ierardis were arrested for embezzlement and immediately announced their retirement and declared their innocence. They have not in any way owned up to what they did or didn’t do. No apologies, no explanations, no information that could help the town know about other misuses of funds, or what other town leaders knew about what was going on. Whatever they did or didn’t do, they showed no interest in making things better for the town. Instead they put out their hands and asked the town for money. Of all the possible things they could have done, they chose the most selfish alternative.
Of course, they deserve that money for all the years they worked for the town. But what about us? What are we owed for having been deceived all these years, not to mention intimidated by Mr. Ierardi?
The solution chosen by Mr. Kopetz and Mr. Mitchell, with the advice of town attorney Jeffrey Donofrio and labor lawyer George O’Brien, is rational, but I don't think it is right. The Ierardis will get their pensions ($122,000 a year) unless findings of fraud and dishonesty are made that would allow the Board of Selectmen to meet again and determine that, if these findings had been made while the Ierardis were employed, they would have resulted in their being fired. In that event, all further pension payments would end. But it is not clear whether past pension payments could be recouped.
Lawyers work for clients. In this case, Mr. Donofrio and Mr. O’Brien were effectively representing Mr. Kopetz and Mr. Mitchell. Therefore, Ms. McCarty had to speak with counsel of her own (all this is confidential, so I have no idea who or how many or what sort). Apparently (this is speculation based on what was said at the meeting), the advice she was given differed from the advice of Mr. Kopetz’s counsel. The difference does not appear to be so much about the law, but about (i) the likelihood of a successful suit against the town had the Board of Selectmen refused to allow the Ierardis’ pensions, conditional on their being found not guilty; and (ii) the possibility that the Ierardis will either win in court or make a plea bargain, so that (no matter what they did) there will be no findings of fraud sufficient to allow the Board of Selectmen to end pension payments.
There might be findings from a forensic examination (which, upon Ms. McCarty's request, the Board of Selectmen agreed to ask the Board of Finance to require), but then the Board of Selectmen would have to effectively hold a trial itself in order to end pension payments before a verdict is made or in the event there is no verdict. This would be long and messy and expensive and, if the Ierardis lost, they would likely sue, using taxpayer money to pay their lawyer.
How could a North Haven Board of Selectmen fairly judge a man who has been a North Haven icon, chair of the North Haven Republican Town Committee, the First Selectman's campaign manager (which Mr. Mitchell now is, I believe), and a vicious antagonist of Ms. McCarty? It's hard to imagine anyone sitting on the Board of Selectmen in the near future who could be perceived as neutral and fair to Mr. Ierardi.
Would the Ierardis have sued the town for immediate pension payments? We’ll never know, although it’s a fair bet they would, because they certainly don’t seem to care about putting the town through more pain. In fact, their lawyer told the New Haven Register that the Ierardis would have sued, which was totally unnecessary, since at least for now his side won. But at least they would have had to pay for the litigation themselves.
What we do know is that the town’s taxpayers will be paying the Ierardis $122,000 a year for as long as their trial takes, and that they have every incentive to drag it out, since we’ll be paying their lawyers. Ms. McCarty, on the other hand, said she didn’t want to see them get one more cent. Here’s her entire speech.
For the record, here is the exact wording of the motions the Board of Selectmen voted on (the same three for Patricia Ierardi, as well):
Motions Concerning Retirement Application of Joseph Ierardi
1. That the Town of North Haven, as Plan Administrator of the Town of North Haven Amended and Restated Pension Plan for General Employees of the Town Government and the Department of Education, conditionally approve the application of Joseph Ierardi to retire under the Plan, effective May 18, 2007, subject to forfeiture of any and all payments and benefits due or becoming due to him from the Pension Fund pursuant to Section 13.2 of the Plan, if there is a finding of fraud and dishonesty committed during the course of employment.
2. That the Town of North Haven inform Joseph Ierardi, in a writing prepared by the Town Attorney, of the approval of his retirement application and of the possible forfeiture of any and all payments and benefits due or becoming due to him from the Pension Fund pursuant to Section 13.2 of the Plan, concerning fraud and dishonesty.
3. That the Town of North Haven retain any and all amounts due, or becoming due on account of retirement, to Joseph Ierardi for earned but unpaid vacation, sick leave and similar benefits, unless and until an adequate accounting is obtained of all money, assets or other items owed to the Town by Joseph Ierardi and these are set off against such amounts due to Joseph Ierardi.
Thursday, May 17, 2007
The Forensic Chicken Has Returned to Its Egg
After last week’s Board of Finance Auditor Subcommittee meeting, articles appeared in local newspapers with headlines like “Forensic Audit OK’d” and “Finance Panel to Endorse Forensic Audit.” Before those articles appeared, I warned in a blog entry that we shouldn’t count our forensic chickens.
Well, it looks like the newborn forensic chicken has returned to its egg. All that’s left is the “capability” of an operations auditor to do forensic work. In the Request for Proposal approved unanimously by the Audit Subcommittee, no forensic investigation is required and no scope is given for one.
Eggs, too, are “capable” of being chickens. But most of them end up scrambled or fried.
Everyone who covers this town thought the deal was done. All the talk was about starting a forensic investigation as soon as possible, going back three years, giving the people what they want. But there were lots of warning signals, which I set forth in my blog entry.
At last evening’s meeting we learned how hollow Michael Freda’s mantra is. “As quickly and efficiently as possible” turns out not to mean getting a forensic investigation going, but rather not having a third firm involved, which would only get in the way.
Why is there even any talk of a third auditor? Until last week, the talk was about two firms, to do an annual-operations audit and a forensic investigation. Then, last week, there was suddenly talk about splitting the annual and operations audits into two. No agreement was reached on this, nor any vote taken, but this week there were two Requests for Proposal, and the operations audit was now called a Forensic-Operations audit, even though it requires no forensic work whatsoever.
The lone Democrat, Michael Hallahan, presented his Request for Proposal for a forensic investigation, and there was discussion of its scope and time period. But neither Timothy Doheny nor Freda showed any particular interest in it, and Doheny started referring to two approaches: theirs and Hallahan’s. In other words, with a Forensic-Operations audit, why bother with what they insist on calling a “forensic audit,” even though that is not the term ordinarily used. But the term is sufficiently confusing, so they keep on using it.
Will there be a forensic investigation of the departments whose directors were arrested: Community Services and Finance? And will the results of any such investigation be available before the election? There might be something, especially in Community Services, but I think there’s little likelihood of anything anywhere else. Doheny and Freda were reluctant even to go back before the last fiscal year, and refused, when I requested it, to put the Forensic-Operations Request for Proposal on hold while they were considering Hallahan’s forensic proposal. That’s pretty clear evidence of the way they’ll vote on Hallahan’s proposal: they’ll find it unnecessary, because a forensic proposal has already been approved, even by Hallahan. Gotcha! That’s where they’ve been heading. Gotcha! We win! There’s not much more to it than that.
And the town will lose. As usual.
Doheny and Freda are men who voted for a budget full of lies. Doheny and Freda are men who feel that the Board of Finance is not the place to discuss no-bid contracts, which have been costing taxpayers millions of dollars. Freda is the man who made such an over-the-top personal attack on me, his masters seem to have called him off.
And it is these men who will decide how deeply and quickly the dirty secrets of the Kopetz administration are brought to light. They are taking the advice of our town attorney, whom Joseph Ierardi said knew about his travel reimbursement scheme. They are taking the advice of our acting director of finance, who admits to knowing that fishy things were going on.
In such a situation, men with pride would bend over backwards to be fair, to go beyond what they need to do to win back the public trust. But these appear to be men who care more about winning, and winning means keeping secrets secret, and moving on.
Get that forensic word in the title, get that egg-like capability to do forensic work in the text, and you have a forensic chicken. No, putting feathers on an egg doesn’t make it a chicken. What’ll it be? Scrambled or fried?
Well, it looks like the newborn forensic chicken has returned to its egg. All that’s left is the “capability” of an operations auditor to do forensic work. In the Request for Proposal approved unanimously by the Audit Subcommittee, no forensic investigation is required and no scope is given for one.
Eggs, too, are “capable” of being chickens. But most of them end up scrambled or fried.
Everyone who covers this town thought the deal was done. All the talk was about starting a forensic investigation as soon as possible, going back three years, giving the people what they want. But there were lots of warning signals, which I set forth in my blog entry.
At last evening’s meeting we learned how hollow Michael Freda’s mantra is. “As quickly and efficiently as possible” turns out not to mean getting a forensic investigation going, but rather not having a third firm involved, which would only get in the way.
Why is there even any talk of a third auditor? Until last week, the talk was about two firms, to do an annual-operations audit and a forensic investigation. Then, last week, there was suddenly talk about splitting the annual and operations audits into two. No agreement was reached on this, nor any vote taken, but this week there were two Requests for Proposal, and the operations audit was now called a Forensic-Operations audit, even though it requires no forensic work whatsoever.
The lone Democrat, Michael Hallahan, presented his Request for Proposal for a forensic investigation, and there was discussion of its scope and time period. But neither Timothy Doheny nor Freda showed any particular interest in it, and Doheny started referring to two approaches: theirs and Hallahan’s. In other words, with a Forensic-Operations audit, why bother with what they insist on calling a “forensic audit,” even though that is not the term ordinarily used. But the term is sufficiently confusing, so they keep on using it.
Will there be a forensic investigation of the departments whose directors were arrested: Community Services and Finance? And will the results of any such investigation be available before the election? There might be something, especially in Community Services, but I think there’s little likelihood of anything anywhere else. Doheny and Freda were reluctant even to go back before the last fiscal year, and refused, when I requested it, to put the Forensic-Operations Request for Proposal on hold while they were considering Hallahan’s forensic proposal. That’s pretty clear evidence of the way they’ll vote on Hallahan’s proposal: they’ll find it unnecessary, because a forensic proposal has already been approved, even by Hallahan. Gotcha! That’s where they’ve been heading. Gotcha! We win! There’s not much more to it than that.
And the town will lose. As usual.
Doheny and Freda are men who voted for a budget full of lies. Doheny and Freda are men who feel that the Board of Finance is not the place to discuss no-bid contracts, which have been costing taxpayers millions of dollars. Freda is the man who made such an over-the-top personal attack on me, his masters seem to have called him off.
And it is these men who will decide how deeply and quickly the dirty secrets of the Kopetz administration are brought to light. They are taking the advice of our town attorney, whom Joseph Ierardi said knew about his travel reimbursement scheme. They are taking the advice of our acting director of finance, who admits to knowing that fishy things were going on.
In such a situation, men with pride would bend over backwards to be fair, to go beyond what they need to do to win back the public trust. But these appear to be men who care more about winning, and winning means keeping secrets secret, and moving on.
Get that forensic word in the title, get that egg-like capability to do forensic work in the text, and you have a forensic chicken. No, putting feathers on an egg doesn’t make it a chicken. What’ll it be? Scrambled or fried?
Wednesday, May 16, 2007
An Uncivil Call for Civility
Florence Sinow’s letter to the editor of the Advisor this week is one of a series of letters that appear every year asking for more civil discussion in North Haven politics. Sadly, her letter is anything but civil. She begins by saying that the “outcry” against First Selectman Kevin Kopetz is “unfair and untrue.” In two words, without any facts or arguments, she dismisses the hard, sincere work of numerous North Haven residents who are trying to act in the public interest. What could be more uncivil than this?
Tuesday, May 15, 2007
Good Faith, Bad Faith (and a call for the resignation of BoF chair Michael O. Peterson)
Last night’s Budget Town Meeting was truly marvelous. One person after another made a great speech, shared a new revelation, spouted wisdom.
The arrest of two of our town’s five department heads started people in North Haven wondering what has been going on. This Town Meeting took the next step: showing how small a part of our town’s problems those two men’s actions represented. What they are charged with is only indicative of the deep ethical crisis in our town’s government.
Good faith and bad faith flowed in almost equal proportions last night. I’ll start with the good faith. Charles DiMartino got the evening started with his recognition that what had happened was embarrassing, and showed “how far adrift our moral compass” was. He pointed out the audacity of town officials, and asked First Selectman Kevin Kopetz to stop the budget from going to referendum. (Silence.) He asked us to stand up to the bullies of Town Hall.
Democratic Selectwoman Janet McCarty did not display the inspired good faith of the evening’s ordinary citizens. She focused her speech too much on the raises given to the two arrested department heads, although she did also say that the budget numbers did not reflect reality. This latter statement became a central theme of the evening, because so much of the bad faith shown by town officials can be seen in the false budget numbers.
I summarized the flyer I handed out to people as they came into the high school. One side of the flyer focuses on the town’s overspending (particularly on insurance and pensions) and underspending (on education). The other side focuses on the ways in which the budget is dishonest: underestimating certain expenses, underestimating revenue collection, and allowing budget transfers without the Town Meeting’s approval.
A man whose name I didn’t catch, James Hartman?, felt an important problem was the growth of business in town, and that we needed to take a break from expansion to slow down cronyism.
Ann Ruocco was inspired yesterday evening. She spoke well of the budget’s underestimates and overestimates.
Jim Leahy talked about a number of problems, including no-bid contracts and the unappropriated fund, which is used to overtax North Haven residents.
Mike Mele also covered a lot of ground, bringing the new high school into the picture, since we start paying for it this year. He hit the nail right on the head when he said of town officials responsible for the budget, “You can’t fix anything when you’re in denial.”
Democratic Board of Finance member Gerry Feinberg gave the speech of his life. He spoke about how the Board of Finance, at the last moment, took 3/4 of a million dollars out of the unappropriated fund balance (to pay for additions to pool and library expenses and for a tax cut) even though the Board of Finance had agreed not to do this, that is, not to treat the unappropriated fund balance as revenue during election years. “Election year” was a term others were too delicate to use, but that’s really what, for the politicians, this meeting was about.
As Feinberg explained it, the norm used to be to overtax in non-election years and then, during election years, take the surplus and spend it to keep taxes from going up as much as they should. This is what the Board of Finance had agreed not to do. But when it did, and the two Democrats (out of 7 on the Board of Finance) objected, they were ignored. This is an election year, and promises be damned. Feinberg referred to this correctly as a “desperate measure.”
Joan Mazurek (spelling?) concluded her speech by saying that her conscience did not feel the budget was right. It would normally seem silly to use one’s conscience to analyze a budget, but in this case it was perfectly appropriate, due to the ethical black hole at the center of this particular budget.
Sherman Katz said that we need to find a middle ground, that politicians are playing with our lives and our futures. More wisdom, more of what a budget really is. He brought up another sort of misinformation in past budgets: allocating money to projects that are never accomplished [and where does that money go?]. He also discussed his feelings about the purchase of the Knights of Columbus building near Town Hall, to be useful for the town, and then its destruction two years later, giving the town a $480,000 parking lot.
Bill Gambardella added some more valuable information. He spoke about the town’s bidding process, how specifications are written so that most contractors are closed out of the bidding. This is a frequent complaint heard from local contractors. But this doesn't just harm them. How much money are we losing? he wondered aloud. Amen.
Bill Leiserson, Janet McCarty’s husband, summed up town residents’ disappointment with town officials. He referred to the rhetoric of those who take offense at citizens’ questions. He referred to how, when you criticize what they have done, they accuse you of denigrating town employees or taking away people’s raises.
This is acting in bad faith. What is bad faith? It’s a legal concept describing a malicious motive that can undermine the case of a party to a lawsuit. But there doesn’t have to be a lawsuit. A budget is clearly enough. The high school auditorium was full of bad faith, rather than making a good case for the budget, and I believe that it was so clear that people took it for what it was: malicious motives rather than just one side of the argument.
It began with Public Works director Richard Branigan. Before the Town Meeting, he told me that the flyer I was handing out had the wrong figure for his salary. I told him I would correct this at the beginning of my speech, and I apologized. As it turns out, the comparative salary figures I used for the flyer (from the Connecticut Conference of Municipalities) used the total full-time salary figure for the Public Works department rather than Mr. Branigan’s salary (a difference of $20,000).
Before I was called to speak, Mr. Branigan rose to do nothing but attack me for this error, and to call into question the information on my flyer and on the northhaveninfo.org website. It was an ugly case of maliciousness, intended to delegitimize me and put me on the defensive. But it made it clear to the audience, after I had a chance to speak, that Mr. Branigan is not a public servant, but a politician who has no respect for town citizens or common courtesy.
Town Attorney Jeffrey Donofrio got up on his high horse about the high school, saying how wonderful it was that it came in under budget and on time, with the work of so many. But the criticism he was responding to was not about the people who made it possible or whether it came in under or over budget. It was about how much more North Haven paid for its high school than another town of the same size. Coming in under a luxurious budget is nice, but irrelevant. And as with Mr. Branigan, Donofrio’s tone was disrespectful and inappropriate.
Suzanne Donofrio, a member of the Board of Education and the town attorney’s wife, pulled out an old, and in this context inappropriate performance. She said that if the budget were rejected, the schools would suffer. This scare tactic has been used year in and year out to get parents and others who care about education to come out and vote for a dishonest and oversized town budget, since the budgets can’t be voted on separately.
But this year, everyone who criticized the town budget made it clear that they were in favor of the education budget. There would be no reason for the Board of Finance to cut a penny from the education budget. Donofrio spoke in bad faith, trying to frighten town residents.
And Elinor Pedalino, the former town clerk and present chair of the Republican Town Committee, read a speech that added nothing to the discussion. But at least she spoke. Democratic Town Committee chair Peter Criscuolo didn't even bother, on such an important occasion.
There was another sort of bad faith displayed at the Town Meeting. The bad faith of silence. People were criticizing the budget right and left, but the two Republican Selectmen, Kevin Kopetz and William Mitchell, the acting Director of Finance, Ed Swinkoski, and three of the other four Republican members of the Board of Finance said absolutely nothing (Mr. Kopetz did make a pitiful response to a question about the Knights of Columbus building, but that was all). Only one of the architects of the budget made the slightest attempt to defend it, explain it, or take responsibility for it. They felt that it would help their cause better to be silent, than to actually make arguments in favor of the budget they had voted for. They did not fulfill their duty to the people of North Haven. Once again, they were trying to get away with doing something they knew was inexcusable. This is the bad faith of silence.
But things have changed. Their silence was taken as an admission of guilt, an admission that they had no defense for their horrendous budget.
I have not yet mentioned the principal architect of this budget, and of all the budgets of the last many years: Vincent Palmeri. He was not in attendance, due to his arrest. But everyone was talking about his work. His bad faith is evident everywhere in the budget. It is far worse than the charges brought against him. In North Haven, he has not only obstructed justice, he has given us a dishonest budget process, and he has treated us with arrogance and disrespect. He has played with our money, with the honor of our town, with the public trust. This man should not be allowed back into office, whatever happens with his criminal charges.
But since he was not present in person, the greatest bad faith shown at the meeting was by the acting chair of the Board of Finance, Michael O. Peterson. This great corporate leader, as he boasted, acted like a cheap conman.
His response to my contention that the town was spending far too much on insurance, partly because it was not using CIRMA, an insurer owned by the majority of sizeable towns in our state, was: (i) that the Board of Finance had been considering CIRMA, but that it didn’t have an A or AA rating (a contention I don’t know enough about yet to criticize), and (ii) misrepresentations that put into question this contention (why make misrepresentations when you have a good argument?).
The misrepresentations include: (1) Only thirty-some towns use CIRMA, not an overwhelming number; actually, 82 (of 169 Connecticut) towns use CIRMA, and that does not include most of the state’s small towns, which belong to a different organization. (2) He said that Guilford's insurance and pension costs are lower because it doesn’t spend as much on fire and police, and they have smaller staffs. They do have smaller staffs: they spend 10% less on each. But, for example, we spend 5 times what they do on worker’s compensation insurance, over $1 million more on just one type of insurance, every year. And Peterson’s Board of Finance has done nothing about it, nothing but make worthless excuses.
Peterson also said that the Board of Finance is very open, that information about budget transfers is available for everyone. As it happens, this is nowhere close to true. Until I started northhaveninfo.org a few weeks ago, Board of Finance minutes were not even available in the library, and the many documents referred to in those minutes were also not available. The only way to get access to those documents was to come to Town Hall during the workday and ask for exactly the right documents, by the right names. I know because I tried, and I was given the runaround.
While most towns put their proposed budgets on-line, North Haven hadn't until this year. When my northhaveninfo.org predecessors put up last year’s first draft budget, they were attacked. This year, the budget was put on-line only because we said we’d put it up ourselves. All Peterson had to do to make the process open was to ask that it be done, but he didn’t.
Mr. Peterson said that anyone could learn about the $19,999 budget transfers. Yes, if they knew to ask. But who knew? They were not even debated at Board of Finance meetings. How could anyone find out enough to know to ask for the right documents? The town’s finances were as closed as they could make them, and as complicated, and as dishonest.
Mr. Peterson defended the town’s competitive bidding. This is the same Mr. Peterson, who, when the matter was raised by Democratic BoF member Michael Hallahan, would not even allow the Board of Finance to discuss competitive bidding. Peterson said it wasn’t the right forum, as if the BoF does not have a responsibility to discuss keeping the town’s contract costs down.
And Mr. Peterson said that he didn’t cut out the raises to Ierardi and Palmeri because he didn’t want them to have to print a new budget book. But they did print a new budget book; they had to. (For another blog entry about a Peterson lie, click here.)
How can anyone trust a budget put together under the leadership of a man who shows so little respect for the truth, or for North Haven taxpayers? I believe that Mr. Peterson should resign from the Board of Finance, and that the Board of Finance should give us a new, honest budget, as well as the responsible oversight of the town's finances that they have an obligation to give us.
The arrest of two of our town’s five department heads started people in North Haven wondering what has been going on. This Town Meeting took the next step: showing how small a part of our town’s problems those two men’s actions represented. What they are charged with is only indicative of the deep ethical crisis in our town’s government.
Good faith and bad faith flowed in almost equal proportions last night. I’ll start with the good faith. Charles DiMartino got the evening started with his recognition that what had happened was embarrassing, and showed “how far adrift our moral compass” was. He pointed out the audacity of town officials, and asked First Selectman Kevin Kopetz to stop the budget from going to referendum. (Silence.) He asked us to stand up to the bullies of Town Hall.
Democratic Selectwoman Janet McCarty did not display the inspired good faith of the evening’s ordinary citizens. She focused her speech too much on the raises given to the two arrested department heads, although she did also say that the budget numbers did not reflect reality. This latter statement became a central theme of the evening, because so much of the bad faith shown by town officials can be seen in the false budget numbers.
I summarized the flyer I handed out to people as they came into the high school. One side of the flyer focuses on the town’s overspending (particularly on insurance and pensions) and underspending (on education). The other side focuses on the ways in which the budget is dishonest: underestimating certain expenses, underestimating revenue collection, and allowing budget transfers without the Town Meeting’s approval.
A man whose name I didn’t catch, James Hartman?, felt an important problem was the growth of business in town, and that we needed to take a break from expansion to slow down cronyism.
Ann Ruocco was inspired yesterday evening. She spoke well of the budget’s underestimates and overestimates.
Jim Leahy talked about a number of problems, including no-bid contracts and the unappropriated fund, which is used to overtax North Haven residents.
Mike Mele also covered a lot of ground, bringing the new high school into the picture, since we start paying for it this year. He hit the nail right on the head when he said of town officials responsible for the budget, “You can’t fix anything when you’re in denial.”
Democratic Board of Finance member Gerry Feinberg gave the speech of his life. He spoke about how the Board of Finance, at the last moment, took 3/4 of a million dollars out of the unappropriated fund balance (to pay for additions to pool and library expenses and for a tax cut) even though the Board of Finance had agreed not to do this, that is, not to treat the unappropriated fund balance as revenue during election years. “Election year” was a term others were too delicate to use, but that’s really what, for the politicians, this meeting was about.
As Feinberg explained it, the norm used to be to overtax in non-election years and then, during election years, take the surplus and spend it to keep taxes from going up as much as they should. This is what the Board of Finance had agreed not to do. But when it did, and the two Democrats (out of 7 on the Board of Finance) objected, they were ignored. This is an election year, and promises be damned. Feinberg referred to this correctly as a “desperate measure.”
Joan Mazurek (spelling?) concluded her speech by saying that her conscience did not feel the budget was right. It would normally seem silly to use one’s conscience to analyze a budget, but in this case it was perfectly appropriate, due to the ethical black hole at the center of this particular budget.
Sherman Katz said that we need to find a middle ground, that politicians are playing with our lives and our futures. More wisdom, more of what a budget really is. He brought up another sort of misinformation in past budgets: allocating money to projects that are never accomplished [and where does that money go?]. He also discussed his feelings about the purchase of the Knights of Columbus building near Town Hall, to be useful for the town, and then its destruction two years later, giving the town a $480,000 parking lot.
Bill Gambardella added some more valuable information. He spoke about the town’s bidding process, how specifications are written so that most contractors are closed out of the bidding. This is a frequent complaint heard from local contractors. But this doesn't just harm them. How much money are we losing? he wondered aloud. Amen.
Bill Leiserson, Janet McCarty’s husband, summed up town residents’ disappointment with town officials. He referred to the rhetoric of those who take offense at citizens’ questions. He referred to how, when you criticize what they have done, they accuse you of denigrating town employees or taking away people’s raises.
This is acting in bad faith. What is bad faith? It’s a legal concept describing a malicious motive that can undermine the case of a party to a lawsuit. But there doesn’t have to be a lawsuit. A budget is clearly enough. The high school auditorium was full of bad faith, rather than making a good case for the budget, and I believe that it was so clear that people took it for what it was: malicious motives rather than just one side of the argument.
It began with Public Works director Richard Branigan. Before the Town Meeting, he told me that the flyer I was handing out had the wrong figure for his salary. I told him I would correct this at the beginning of my speech, and I apologized. As it turns out, the comparative salary figures I used for the flyer (from the Connecticut Conference of Municipalities) used the total full-time salary figure for the Public Works department rather than Mr. Branigan’s salary (a difference of $20,000).
Before I was called to speak, Mr. Branigan rose to do nothing but attack me for this error, and to call into question the information on my flyer and on the northhaveninfo.org website. It was an ugly case of maliciousness, intended to delegitimize me and put me on the defensive. But it made it clear to the audience, after I had a chance to speak, that Mr. Branigan is not a public servant, but a politician who has no respect for town citizens or common courtesy.
Town Attorney Jeffrey Donofrio got up on his high horse about the high school, saying how wonderful it was that it came in under budget and on time, with the work of so many. But the criticism he was responding to was not about the people who made it possible or whether it came in under or over budget. It was about how much more North Haven paid for its high school than another town of the same size. Coming in under a luxurious budget is nice, but irrelevant. And as with Mr. Branigan, Donofrio’s tone was disrespectful and inappropriate.
Suzanne Donofrio, a member of the Board of Education and the town attorney’s wife, pulled out an old, and in this context inappropriate performance. She said that if the budget were rejected, the schools would suffer. This scare tactic has been used year in and year out to get parents and others who care about education to come out and vote for a dishonest and oversized town budget, since the budgets can’t be voted on separately.
But this year, everyone who criticized the town budget made it clear that they were in favor of the education budget. There would be no reason for the Board of Finance to cut a penny from the education budget. Donofrio spoke in bad faith, trying to frighten town residents.
And Elinor Pedalino, the former town clerk and present chair of the Republican Town Committee, read a speech that added nothing to the discussion. But at least she spoke. Democratic Town Committee chair Peter Criscuolo didn't even bother, on such an important occasion.
There was another sort of bad faith displayed at the Town Meeting. The bad faith of silence. People were criticizing the budget right and left, but the two Republican Selectmen, Kevin Kopetz and William Mitchell, the acting Director of Finance, Ed Swinkoski, and three of the other four Republican members of the Board of Finance said absolutely nothing (Mr. Kopetz did make a pitiful response to a question about the Knights of Columbus building, but that was all). Only one of the architects of the budget made the slightest attempt to defend it, explain it, or take responsibility for it. They felt that it would help their cause better to be silent, than to actually make arguments in favor of the budget they had voted for. They did not fulfill their duty to the people of North Haven. Once again, they were trying to get away with doing something they knew was inexcusable. This is the bad faith of silence.
But things have changed. Their silence was taken as an admission of guilt, an admission that they had no defense for their horrendous budget.
I have not yet mentioned the principal architect of this budget, and of all the budgets of the last many years: Vincent Palmeri. He was not in attendance, due to his arrest. But everyone was talking about his work. His bad faith is evident everywhere in the budget. It is far worse than the charges brought against him. In North Haven, he has not only obstructed justice, he has given us a dishonest budget process, and he has treated us with arrogance and disrespect. He has played with our money, with the honor of our town, with the public trust. This man should not be allowed back into office, whatever happens with his criminal charges.
But since he was not present in person, the greatest bad faith shown at the meeting was by the acting chair of the Board of Finance, Michael O. Peterson. This great corporate leader, as he boasted, acted like a cheap conman.
His response to my contention that the town was spending far too much on insurance, partly because it was not using CIRMA, an insurer owned by the majority of sizeable towns in our state, was: (i) that the Board of Finance had been considering CIRMA, but that it didn’t have an A or AA rating (a contention I don’t know enough about yet to criticize), and (ii) misrepresentations that put into question this contention (why make misrepresentations when you have a good argument?).
The misrepresentations include: (1) Only thirty-some towns use CIRMA, not an overwhelming number; actually, 82 (of 169 Connecticut) towns use CIRMA, and that does not include most of the state’s small towns, which belong to a different organization. (2) He said that Guilford's insurance and pension costs are lower because it doesn’t spend as much on fire and police, and they have smaller staffs. They do have smaller staffs: they spend 10% less on each. But, for example, we spend 5 times what they do on worker’s compensation insurance, over $1 million more on just one type of insurance, every year. And Peterson’s Board of Finance has done nothing about it, nothing but make worthless excuses.
Peterson also said that the Board of Finance is very open, that information about budget transfers is available for everyone. As it happens, this is nowhere close to true. Until I started northhaveninfo.org a few weeks ago, Board of Finance minutes were not even available in the library, and the many documents referred to in those minutes were also not available. The only way to get access to those documents was to come to Town Hall during the workday and ask for exactly the right documents, by the right names. I know because I tried, and I was given the runaround.
While most towns put their proposed budgets on-line, North Haven hadn't until this year. When my northhaveninfo.org predecessors put up last year’s first draft budget, they were attacked. This year, the budget was put on-line only because we said we’d put it up ourselves. All Peterson had to do to make the process open was to ask that it be done, but he didn’t.
Mr. Peterson said that anyone could learn about the $19,999 budget transfers. Yes, if they knew to ask. But who knew? They were not even debated at Board of Finance meetings. How could anyone find out enough to know to ask for the right documents? The town’s finances were as closed as they could make them, and as complicated, and as dishonest.
Mr. Peterson defended the town’s competitive bidding. This is the same Mr. Peterson, who, when the matter was raised by Democratic BoF member Michael Hallahan, would not even allow the Board of Finance to discuss competitive bidding. Peterson said it wasn’t the right forum, as if the BoF does not have a responsibility to discuss keeping the town’s contract costs down.
And Mr. Peterson said that he didn’t cut out the raises to Ierardi and Palmeri because he didn’t want them to have to print a new budget book. But they did print a new budget book; they had to. (For another blog entry about a Peterson lie, click here.)
How can anyone trust a budget put together under the leadership of a man who shows so little respect for the truth, or for North Haven taxpayers? I believe that Mr. Peterson should resign from the Board of Finance, and that the Board of Finance should give us a new, honest budget, as well as the responsible oversight of the town's finances that they have an obligation to give us.
Thursday, May 10, 2007
Don't Count Your Forensic Chickens
Yesterday’s Board of Finance Auditor Subcommittee meeting was odd (see my notes). Nothing was quite as it seemed.
Before the meeting, it was announced that a Q&A session would be held during the meeting, and that anyone who wanted to speak had to sign up in front, "as at Town Meetings" (where people do not have to sign up). There would also be time limits on the public comments part of the meeting (a half hour or so) and on each member of the public (3 minutes). When public comments began, the list and the time restrictions were, happily, ignored.
Holding public comments during a meeting, before adjournment, is something we have been seeking for years. It allows the public to hear people's comments on NHTV, as well as the answers given by board members. It also allows board members to benefit from the ideas and expertise of town residents and to reconsider their viewpoints, even their decisions, before it’s too late (once you adjourn, you can’t open a meeting again).
This was a victory for an increasingly participatory public. There have been more people in the audience, and more talking, each time this subcommittee meets. Come one, come all.
But I just learned that it was known that Channel 3 would be at the meeting, and that was one reason for the change of heart (the change did occur just the day of the meeting). Doing what's right by the public is one thing, being criticized for not doing it by a television reporter is another.
The meeting began with a discussion about splitting the annual and operations audits into two requests for proposal (RFPs), a topic that had not come up and for which there seemed to be no reason given. Then Mr. Hallahan switched over to talking about a forensic investigation, discussing its scope and his list of six forensic specialists to consider.
Mr. Doheny said that the subcommittee would come back to the forensic investigation later, but never left the topic, directing a question to Mr. Hallahan. Mr. Freda was completely on board, and wanted the forensic investigation to start as soon as possible, but felt that this could best be accomplished with one RFP (for all three jobs? It wasn’t clear). Mr. Doheny seemed to have no opposition. It was just a matter of determining scope, writing up an RFP (formerly he had said you can't do an RFP for a forensic investigation), and selecting a forensic investigator.
But Doheny presented a new problem: there is only one accountant in the Finance department (Mr. Swinkoski, the acting director) to oversee all three jobs, so they would have to be done one a time. He also kept saying that the forensic investigation would begin with a limited scope, apparently focused on the Community Services department and, possibly, on cash, overtime, and reimbursements in other departments, but this was only mentioned by Mr. Hallahan.
Then if the operations auditor found irregularities, the forensic investigation might be given a wider scope. The problem here, unstated at the meeting, is that the operations audit report, according to the RFP, is due November 15, so that the wider-scope forensic investigator would, presumably, not begin until after the election. This was a meeting where what was not said was more important than what was.
Also odd is the fact that, just last week, Mr. Doheny said the subcommittee had no authority from the Board of Finance (BoF) to select a forensic investigator. I asked about this, and there appeared to be a change of mind. But I agree: the subcommittee was not given this authority. So that if the subcommittee does select a forensic investigator, the BoF may very well say it doesn’t want to do this, that the forensic capabilities of the annual/operations auditor are just fine with them.
BoF chair Michael Peterson was in attendance at both the May 2 and May 9 subcommittee meetings, and his silence on this topic was louder than anything anyone said. If he felt that the subcommittee had the authority to hire a forensic investigator, there is no reason in the world why he would not have said so, and cleared the air.
The meeting appeared smooth and easy. After disagreeing on just about everything before, everyone seemed to agree. If you read the article in the Register, everything seems decided.
But nothing was decided. It looks like a forensic investigation, if there is to be one, will be very limited. People talked about no-bid contracts, but this was clearly not what Doheny and Freda had in mind, in terms of an investigation.
There is also still the problem of conflicts of interest. Our town attorney, Jeffrey Donofrio, has been implicated by Mr. Ierardi, who said he knew what Ierardi was doing. Donofrio certainly knows about all the illegal no-bid contracts, and he and his partner did nothing about them. Donofrio might have something to hide, and yet he is central to the selection of auditors and investigators, and the scope of their work.
Mr. Swinkoski worked directly under Mr. Palmeri and before that worked for the town's auditor. Both Mr. Palmeri and the town auditor's work will be investigated and critiqued by the forensic investigator and operations auditor. And yet according to the RFP, these people will report to Mr. Swinkoski. Before anything can actually be done, these conflicts of interest must be dealt with openly and honestly. One possible solution is to allow the state to oversee the forensic investigation.
When something looks too good to be true, it usually is. I hope I’m wrong.
Before the meeting, it was announced that a Q&A session would be held during the meeting, and that anyone who wanted to speak had to sign up in front, "as at Town Meetings" (where people do not have to sign up). There would also be time limits on the public comments part of the meeting (a half hour or so) and on each member of the public (3 minutes). When public comments began, the list and the time restrictions were, happily, ignored.
Holding public comments during a meeting, before adjournment, is something we have been seeking for years. It allows the public to hear people's comments on NHTV, as well as the answers given by board members. It also allows board members to benefit from the ideas and expertise of town residents and to reconsider their viewpoints, even their decisions, before it’s too late (once you adjourn, you can’t open a meeting again).
This was a victory for an increasingly participatory public. There have been more people in the audience, and more talking, each time this subcommittee meets. Come one, come all.
But I just learned that it was known that Channel 3 would be at the meeting, and that was one reason for the change of heart (the change did occur just the day of the meeting). Doing what's right by the public is one thing, being criticized for not doing it by a television reporter is another.
The meeting began with a discussion about splitting the annual and operations audits into two requests for proposal (RFPs), a topic that had not come up and for which there seemed to be no reason given. Then Mr. Hallahan switched over to talking about a forensic investigation, discussing its scope and his list of six forensic specialists to consider.
Mr. Doheny said that the subcommittee would come back to the forensic investigation later, but never left the topic, directing a question to Mr. Hallahan. Mr. Freda was completely on board, and wanted the forensic investigation to start as soon as possible, but felt that this could best be accomplished with one RFP (for all three jobs? It wasn’t clear). Mr. Doheny seemed to have no opposition. It was just a matter of determining scope, writing up an RFP (formerly he had said you can't do an RFP for a forensic investigation), and selecting a forensic investigator.
But Doheny presented a new problem: there is only one accountant in the Finance department (Mr. Swinkoski, the acting director) to oversee all three jobs, so they would have to be done one a time. He also kept saying that the forensic investigation would begin with a limited scope, apparently focused on the Community Services department and, possibly, on cash, overtime, and reimbursements in other departments, but this was only mentioned by Mr. Hallahan.
Then if the operations auditor found irregularities, the forensic investigation might be given a wider scope. The problem here, unstated at the meeting, is that the operations audit report, according to the RFP, is due November 15, so that the wider-scope forensic investigator would, presumably, not begin until after the election. This was a meeting where what was not said was more important than what was.
Also odd is the fact that, just last week, Mr. Doheny said the subcommittee had no authority from the Board of Finance (BoF) to select a forensic investigator. I asked about this, and there appeared to be a change of mind. But I agree: the subcommittee was not given this authority. So that if the subcommittee does select a forensic investigator, the BoF may very well say it doesn’t want to do this, that the forensic capabilities of the annual/operations auditor are just fine with them.
BoF chair Michael Peterson was in attendance at both the May 2 and May 9 subcommittee meetings, and his silence on this topic was louder than anything anyone said. If he felt that the subcommittee had the authority to hire a forensic investigator, there is no reason in the world why he would not have said so, and cleared the air.
The meeting appeared smooth and easy. After disagreeing on just about everything before, everyone seemed to agree. If you read the article in the Register, everything seems decided.
But nothing was decided. It looks like a forensic investigation, if there is to be one, will be very limited. People talked about no-bid contracts, but this was clearly not what Doheny and Freda had in mind, in terms of an investigation.
There is also still the problem of conflicts of interest. Our town attorney, Jeffrey Donofrio, has been implicated by Mr. Ierardi, who said he knew what Ierardi was doing. Donofrio certainly knows about all the illegal no-bid contracts, and he and his partner did nothing about them. Donofrio might have something to hide, and yet he is central to the selection of auditors and investigators, and the scope of their work.
Mr. Swinkoski worked directly under Mr. Palmeri and before that worked for the town's auditor. Both Mr. Palmeri and the town auditor's work will be investigated and critiqued by the forensic investigator and operations auditor. And yet according to the RFP, these people will report to Mr. Swinkoski. Before anything can actually be done, these conflicts of interest must be dealt with openly and honestly. One possible solution is to allow the state to oversee the forensic investigation.
When something looks too good to be true, it usually is. I hope I’m wrong.
Budget Dialogue with Michael Freda
To read my dialogue about the budget with Michael Freda, click here.
Tuesday, May 8, 2007
Four VPs of Controversial Company Contribute to the Kopetz Campaign
Today's front page of the New Haven Register has an article about the Maguire Group, a company that has been in the news for several months, since being charged with not doing the inspection work the state contracted it to do on Interstate 84, and allowing enormous cost overruns. The state Department of Transportation (DOT) threw the Maguire Group off that job, but it still uses it on 27 other DOT projects. Attorney General Richard Blumenthal has filed suit against the Maguire Group, DOT is under attack by co-chair of the Transportation Committee Donald DeFronzo, and is about to be reorganized by Governor Rell. This is serious stuff, and it's been getting a lot of publicity.
What does this have to do with North Haven? Well, the Maguire Group was hired to do work relating to the Sackett Point Road bridge in North Haven. And four Maguire Group employees have already donated to the Kopetz for First Selectman campaign: John Treichel (VP, but listed as "engineer"), Alan Asikainen (VP of the water resources division, but listed as "engineer"), James Fritz (executive VP, but listed as "engineer"), and Sebastian Amenta (VP, but listed as "engineer"). None lives in North Haven. Each gave $250, a sizeable amount for a local candidate.
The supervising inspector in the I-84 project, William W. Fritz, is now First Selectman of Clinton. Fritz is the son of the Connecticut House Deputy Speaker Mary Fritz. Maguire contributor James Fritz might or might not be related.
The September 2005 Town Meeting include a vote on the $15 million Sackett Point Road bridge project, for which the Maguire Group was hired for design and inspection purposes. There was no breakdown of what I understand to be $2.5 million to be paid to the Maguire Group for this project, so we don’t know what the money was to be paid to them for. At that meeting, Public Works director Richard Branigan chose not to answer North Haven resident Doug Wood's questions about the bridge project. So we still don't know what work the Maguire Group was supposed to do, and therefore we will not be able to see if they did the required work, as they are accused of not doing on the I-84 project.
What was being hidden? And why? And why is the Kopetz campaign accepting money from four out-of-towners whose company is the center of a big controversy and is being sued by the Attorney General?
You can see why many towns do not allow contributions to candidates from firms that do business or want to do business with the town. It looks like bribery, especially when it comes from out-of-towners with a big and unclear town contract. Especially when their company is being sued by our state for millions of dollars.
What does this have to do with North Haven? Well, the Maguire Group was hired to do work relating to the Sackett Point Road bridge in North Haven. And four Maguire Group employees have already donated to the Kopetz for First Selectman campaign: John Treichel (VP, but listed as "engineer"), Alan Asikainen (VP of the water resources division, but listed as "engineer"), James Fritz (executive VP, but listed as "engineer"), and Sebastian Amenta (VP, but listed as "engineer"). None lives in North Haven. Each gave $250, a sizeable amount for a local candidate.
The supervising inspector in the I-84 project, William W. Fritz, is now First Selectman of Clinton. Fritz is the son of the Connecticut House Deputy Speaker Mary Fritz. Maguire contributor James Fritz might or might not be related.
The September 2005 Town Meeting include a vote on the $15 million Sackett Point Road bridge project, for which the Maguire Group was hired for design and inspection purposes. There was no breakdown of what I understand to be $2.5 million to be paid to the Maguire Group for this project, so we don’t know what the money was to be paid to them for. At that meeting, Public Works director Richard Branigan chose not to answer North Haven resident Doug Wood's questions about the bridge project. So we still don't know what work the Maguire Group was supposed to do, and therefore we will not be able to see if they did the required work, as they are accused of not doing on the I-84 project.
What was being hidden? And why? And why is the Kopetz campaign accepting money from four out-of-towners whose company is the center of a big controversy and is being sued by the Attorney General?
You can see why many towns do not allow contributions to candidates from firms that do business or want to do business with the town. It looks like bribery, especially when it comes from out-of-towners with a big and unclear town contract. Especially when their company is being sued by our state for millions of dollars.
Friday, May 4, 2007
New Letters to the Editor
In this week's North Haven Post, William Dobbins argues for a forensic audit. He feels that some remaining town administrators are “engaged in a damage control mission.” He believes that the forensic audit should come first, to regain the public trust, and then the town can concentrate on setting up procedures to prevent past problems from occurring again.
Ray Fowler writes that First Selectman Kevin Kopetz has done nothing to warrant his resignation, that he is a man of unquestionable integrity and certainly not a thief. He feels we should all be more watchful, and that Kopetz had been given “no grounds to cause him to consider [Palmeri and the Ierardis’] criminal and shameful actions.” He feels that Mr. Kopetz was just unlucky to have these scandals occur under his administration.
Mr. Fowler's letter makes me think about what a thief is. Is someone a thief only because he or she has taken money out of the till? That’s what most people think. Isn't there another sort of thief: someone who tries to suppress public participation and knowledge of what is happening? This is a thief not of money, but of democracy. Mr. Fowler is right that we should be more watchful, but those of us who tried – and I took on Mr. Ierardi on two public occasions – were completely ignored by Mr. Kopetz, as were the letter writer and the woman who told Mr. Kopetz about problems involving the Ierardis (see my discussion of the arrest warrant affidavits).
And everyone knew how arrogant and closed to any sort of suggestion Mr. Palmeri was. Yes, the town was dependent on his knowledge and his skills. But no town should be so dependent on one person, and no person should have so much power. Just as no one should supervise his spouse. Mr. Kopetz did not create these situations, but he did nothing to change them. And only he could have done something about them.
I too would like to believe Mr. Kopetz is a man of integrity. But his actions and, even moreso, his inactions make it very hard for me to believe that. At best, he is a very weak man, unwilling or unable to stand up to people who abuse their positions and hurt this town.
In this week's North Haven Citizen, Bruce Dumelin writes in support of Board of Finance chair Michael Peterson’s former position that a forensic audit would be a waste of time. Dumelin also believes it would be inappropriate, because town employees perform so well. He feels that a forensic audit of the entire town would be prohibitive.
Dumelin also brings up a new argument: that the annual audit and the operations audit should be done by separate firms. This mirrors my argument that the annual and forensic audits should be done by separate firms. Both of us cite the Sarbanes-Oxley law. I admit that I had not thought of this in terms of annual and operations audits. I appreciate Mr. Dumelin bringing this idea up.
Dumelin also gives his support to Mr. Peterson, whom he has known and worked with for years. It would be easier for me to believe that Mr. Peterson has the best interests of the town in mind if he showed more good faith. His saying (in a letter to the editor; see my earlier blog entry) he was always in favor of a forensic audit makes Dumelin look stupid, because Dumelin too believed Peterson was against one. And Peterson’s refusal to even respond to what I wrote him also did not show good faith (see another of my blog entries). Sadly, North Haven politics seems to bring out people’s worst attributes, largely, I think, because people believe they can get away with doing things they wouldn’t think of doing in their work or social lives. And a lot of that is our fault: we've enabled them, and now we need to put an end to it.
Joe Connolly and Joan Morgan announce their support of Mr. Kopetz. Mr. Connolly stresses Kopetz’s attraction of new businesses to town. He believes that one of Mr. Kopetz's people didn’t do the job he was paid for, and this is not Kopetz’s fault.
Ms. Morgan is tired of the negativity in town, and believes people are using the recent situation for their “nefarious” political agendas by calling for Mr. Kopetz’s resignation. She believes, like Mr. Fowler, that he is in no way responsible for the offenses of people he inherited from previous administrations. She focuses her praise on Mr. Kopetz’s advances in efficiency and effectiveness of our town government.
I have not called for Mr. Kopetz’s resignation, and I agree that he has done many good things for the town. But he has himself accepted responsibility for what happened, which is a better show of his integrity than letting him off the hook.
Negativity is the stick many people use to beat down people who criticize government officials. I and many others in town do not stop at criticism. We also suggest solutions. I don’t care if those solutions are put into action by Mr. Kopetz or by others. But I do believe those solutions should be brought to the public to discuss them, and this is something that Mr. Kopetz, in many instances, has refused to do.
For a long time, for example, he and his colleagues voted to prevent town residents from asking him and other town officials questions at Town Meetings. It was only when citizens rose up and criticized this, and voted against the town officials, that those officials, including Mr. Kopetz, opened themselves up to our questions (even then, some refuse to give direct answers).
We need to keep criticizing and forcing our officials to open this town up in other ways, to run it for our benefit, not for theirs. That is what democracy is all about. What most of the people Ms. Morgan refers to are doing is not negative, not political in any negative sense; it is constructive in the best sense of the word: it is building the sort of democracy we believe in.
Ray Fowler writes that First Selectman Kevin Kopetz has done nothing to warrant his resignation, that he is a man of unquestionable integrity and certainly not a thief. He feels we should all be more watchful, and that Kopetz had been given “no grounds to cause him to consider [Palmeri and the Ierardis’] criminal and shameful actions.” He feels that Mr. Kopetz was just unlucky to have these scandals occur under his administration.
Mr. Fowler's letter makes me think about what a thief is. Is someone a thief only because he or she has taken money out of the till? That’s what most people think. Isn't there another sort of thief: someone who tries to suppress public participation and knowledge of what is happening? This is a thief not of money, but of democracy. Mr. Fowler is right that we should be more watchful, but those of us who tried – and I took on Mr. Ierardi on two public occasions – were completely ignored by Mr. Kopetz, as were the letter writer and the woman who told Mr. Kopetz about problems involving the Ierardis (see my discussion of the arrest warrant affidavits).
And everyone knew how arrogant and closed to any sort of suggestion Mr. Palmeri was. Yes, the town was dependent on his knowledge and his skills. But no town should be so dependent on one person, and no person should have so much power. Just as no one should supervise his spouse. Mr. Kopetz did not create these situations, but he did nothing to change them. And only he could have done something about them.
I too would like to believe Mr. Kopetz is a man of integrity. But his actions and, even moreso, his inactions make it very hard for me to believe that. At best, he is a very weak man, unwilling or unable to stand up to people who abuse their positions and hurt this town.
In this week's North Haven Citizen, Bruce Dumelin writes in support of Board of Finance chair Michael Peterson’s former position that a forensic audit would be a waste of time. Dumelin also believes it would be inappropriate, because town employees perform so well. He feels that a forensic audit of the entire town would be prohibitive.
Dumelin also brings up a new argument: that the annual audit and the operations audit should be done by separate firms. This mirrors my argument that the annual and forensic audits should be done by separate firms. Both of us cite the Sarbanes-Oxley law. I admit that I had not thought of this in terms of annual and operations audits. I appreciate Mr. Dumelin bringing this idea up.
Dumelin also gives his support to Mr. Peterson, whom he has known and worked with for years. It would be easier for me to believe that Mr. Peterson has the best interests of the town in mind if he showed more good faith. His saying (in a letter to the editor; see my earlier blog entry) he was always in favor of a forensic audit makes Dumelin look stupid, because Dumelin too believed Peterson was against one. And Peterson’s refusal to even respond to what I wrote him also did not show good faith (see another of my blog entries). Sadly, North Haven politics seems to bring out people’s worst attributes, largely, I think, because people believe they can get away with doing things they wouldn’t think of doing in their work or social lives. And a lot of that is our fault: we've enabled them, and now we need to put an end to it.
Joe Connolly and Joan Morgan announce their support of Mr. Kopetz. Mr. Connolly stresses Kopetz’s attraction of new businesses to town. He believes that one of Mr. Kopetz's people didn’t do the job he was paid for, and this is not Kopetz’s fault.
Ms. Morgan is tired of the negativity in town, and believes people are using the recent situation for their “nefarious” political agendas by calling for Mr. Kopetz’s resignation. She believes, like Mr. Fowler, that he is in no way responsible for the offenses of people he inherited from previous administrations. She focuses her praise on Mr. Kopetz’s advances in efficiency and effectiveness of our town government.
I have not called for Mr. Kopetz’s resignation, and I agree that he has done many good things for the town. But he has himself accepted responsibility for what happened, which is a better show of his integrity than letting him off the hook.
Negativity is the stick many people use to beat down people who criticize government officials. I and many others in town do not stop at criticism. We also suggest solutions. I don’t care if those solutions are put into action by Mr. Kopetz or by others. But I do believe those solutions should be brought to the public to discuss them, and this is something that Mr. Kopetz, in many instances, has refused to do.
For a long time, for example, he and his colleagues voted to prevent town residents from asking him and other town officials questions at Town Meetings. It was only when citizens rose up and criticized this, and voted against the town officials, that those officials, including Mr. Kopetz, opened themselves up to our questions (even then, some refuse to give direct answers).
We need to keep criticizing and forcing our officials to open this town up in other ways, to run it for our benefit, not for theirs. That is what democracy is all about. What most of the people Ms. Morgan refers to are doing is not negative, not political in any negative sense; it is constructive in the best sense of the word: it is building the sort of democracy we believe in.
A Late, Weak Step Toward Transparency, But a Rejection of Modern Technology's Advantages
First Selectman Kevin Kopetz’s May 1 memo on the agendas and minutes of board and commission meetings, which I obtained yesterday, is a first step toward transparency in North Haven. It is a very late, election-year reaction to years of criticism from Democratic Selectwoman Janet McCarty and others, including an article in last year's Citizen, which showed how poor the town is at fulfilling state requirements regarding public meetings and public documents.
It was also a very weak response to what I have been trying to do at northhaveninfo.org: make all board and commission meetings available not only in the library (where the website can be found on its computers), but anywhere and anytime at all. Basically, Mr. Kopetz developed a town policy that effectively tells department heads and board and commission chairs not to cooperate with northhaveninfo.org, not to make public information as easily available as it can be and as it is in most towns our size.
Mr. Kopetz sets forth the state Freedom of Information Act’s minimum requirements with respect to agendas and minutes, and asks that the town clerk, department heads, and board and commission chairmen fulfill these requirements. I won’t bore you with details of what these requirements are, but they are set forth in paragraph 2 of the memo.
Paragraph 3 asks that agendas for regular as well as special meetings be delivered not only to the town clerk’s office, as required for regular meeting agendas, but also to the North Haven library at least 24 hours before the meeting. This goes beyond the law, and I commend Mr. Kopetz for requesting this.
Paragraph 4 asks that all draft minutes be delivered to the North Haven library within 7 days after each meeting, and that approved minutes also be delivered to the library. For some reason, unlike in paragraph 3, Mr. Kopetz does not ask that the law itself be followed by making the minutes available in the office of the agency or in the office of the town clerk. I assume he meant this to happen, but considering that this is a revised memo (the original was sent out last week) and that Town Attorney Jeffrey Donofrio is said to have looked it over, this cannot be said for certain.
Perhaps Mr. Kopetz considers making the minutes available in the library sufficient to satisfy the legal requirements. It’s certainly better than having the minutes spread throughout the town government’s several buildings.
But Mr. Kopetz ignores a related requirement: Sec 1-225(a) requires that votes be made available for public inspection within 48 hours. I don't know why he left out this step in the transparency process.
Paragraph 5: Instead of asking town officials, in this paragraph Mr. Kopetz declares that changes in date, time, or location "shall" be delivered to the town clerk 24 hours (it should be “at least 24 hours”) before the meeting.
Our town clerk, Mary Lou Payette, whom I castigated in an earlier blog entry, is now calling me with these changes, when they come to her, so that I can put them on the northhaveninfo.org listing. This part of the town’s transparency efforts is working well, at least when boards and commissions do their job. I hope that Mr. Kopetz's memo will make this part of the process work even better, and I thank him for this.
In paragraph 6, Mr. Kopetz states that this memo is not intended to cover all the legal requirements.
There are two things that Mr. Kopetz's memo failed to cover, or even mention: (1) the past, and (2) the 21st century and the two locations in town that represent it: the official town website and northhaveninfo.org.
Nothing is said about past minutes, which I've been trying to collect to put on-line. Just because many board and commissions failed to meet legal requirements should not mean that they still have no obligations regarding past minutes. And past minutes are still useful for research, to learn the background of today's problems, to find patterns, etc.
With respect to today and the future, Mr. Kopetz is asking that each board and commission hand-deliver agendas, unapproved minutes, and approved minutes to the library, within the required time limitations. If these items are either put up on the town website, or emailed or faxed to me to be put up on the northhaveninfo.org website, Presto! They’re available at the library’s computers courtesy of the 21st-century technology. If the library wants to duplicate in paper form what’s on the computer, its personnel can print out agendas and minutes straight from the online files. The bonus here is that they’re also available in everybody’s home, day or night, weekday or weekend, whenever and wherever (home or work or even traveling) that they have the time to look at them.
This is what modern technology has brought to democracy: the ability to be truly transparent, to have all of our town government at our fingertips when we have time, not when the town clerk’s office is open or the library is open.
There are other problems with Mr. Kopetz's approach. A very important one is that agendas need be filed only 24 hours before a meeting. If they go to the library, by the time they have been filed in the appropriate binder, the meeting is over. Even if they’re put up on a bulletin board, what if the library isn’t open that evening or if you can’t get over there before it closes? And yet you want to know if you should go to the next day’s meeting, which depends on what they're discussing. If the agenda’s on-line, you can look at it at 11 in the evening or before you go to work in the morning.
But Mr. Kopetz doesn’t want to even suggest that you have that opportunity. He only lets you go to the town clerk between 8:30 and 4:30, or to the library after work. Otherwise, too bad, even though the technology is there.
I spoke yesterday with Public Works director Richard Branigan. He said, of the memo, that it set a policy and that is the policy he will follow. His department has electronic files of at least some of the minutes of boards and commissions in his area, according to assistant Public Works director David Maiden. But Public Works does not appear to be willing to put them up on the town website or make them available to me, so that town citizens will have 21st-century access to them. Why? Because the town policy is now set, and it does not include website access, which so many other towns have.
I told Mr. Branigan that Mr. Kopetz merely set forth minimum requirements. He did not accept this. This is how a step toward transparency can close the door on the full, more easily accessible transparency I am seeking and that people keep telling me they want.
But Mr. Kopetz did not discuss this with me, despite my work and expertise in this area, and despite the fact that he would never have written this memo had I not been collecting minutes and agendas for the northhaveninfo.org website. By responding to my actions and yet not seeking my input, he not only showed no respect for all the work I’ve done. He also did not consider more efficient and effective possibilities, which is what public managers are supposed to do. Considering all possibilities is in the public interest.
Mr. Kopetz doesn’t like me, and that’s that. Well, that’s not professional. Every professional deals with people they don’t like every day. Mr. Kopetz wants people to respect him for the work he does for this town, but he does not respect others for the work they do for the town, at least if those others criticize him. I don’t want to work with him any more than he wants to work with me, but I would be more than willing to do so. My interest is in the town, not in myself. Remember: I’m the one’s who’s not being paid, and who has no obligations to the town.
On top of how he mishandled the recent Special Board of Selectmen’s meeting on the Ierardis’ retirement by making it totally closed to the public, it makes people wonder what Mr. Kopetz is trying to hide. I’m not saying he is hiding something, but if not, people ask, why does he act as though he is? Why can’t he work with people who are trying to bring transparency and good government to this town, instead of working against them? Why is he still so afraid to open up the town after seeing what a closed town government leads to? Can’t he learn from his mistakes?
It was also a very weak response to what I have been trying to do at northhaveninfo.org: make all board and commission meetings available not only in the library (where the website can be found on its computers), but anywhere and anytime at all. Basically, Mr. Kopetz developed a town policy that effectively tells department heads and board and commission chairs not to cooperate with northhaveninfo.org, not to make public information as easily available as it can be and as it is in most towns our size.
Mr. Kopetz sets forth the state Freedom of Information Act’s minimum requirements with respect to agendas and minutes, and asks that the town clerk, department heads, and board and commission chairmen fulfill these requirements. I won’t bore you with details of what these requirements are, but they are set forth in paragraph 2 of the memo.
Paragraph 3 asks that agendas for regular as well as special meetings be delivered not only to the town clerk’s office, as required for regular meeting agendas, but also to the North Haven library at least 24 hours before the meeting. This goes beyond the law, and I commend Mr. Kopetz for requesting this.
Paragraph 4 asks that all draft minutes be delivered to the North Haven library within 7 days after each meeting, and that approved minutes also be delivered to the library. For some reason, unlike in paragraph 3, Mr. Kopetz does not ask that the law itself be followed by making the minutes available in the office of the agency or in the office of the town clerk. I assume he meant this to happen, but considering that this is a revised memo (the original was sent out last week) and that Town Attorney Jeffrey Donofrio is said to have looked it over, this cannot be said for certain.
Perhaps Mr. Kopetz considers making the minutes available in the library sufficient to satisfy the legal requirements. It’s certainly better than having the minutes spread throughout the town government’s several buildings.
But Mr. Kopetz ignores a related requirement: Sec 1-225(a) requires that votes be made available for public inspection within 48 hours. I don't know why he left out this step in the transparency process.
Paragraph 5: Instead of asking town officials, in this paragraph Mr. Kopetz declares that changes in date, time, or location "shall" be delivered to the town clerk 24 hours (it should be “at least 24 hours”) before the meeting.
Our town clerk, Mary Lou Payette, whom I castigated in an earlier blog entry, is now calling me with these changes, when they come to her, so that I can put them on the northhaveninfo.org listing. This part of the town’s transparency efforts is working well, at least when boards and commissions do their job. I hope that Mr. Kopetz's memo will make this part of the process work even better, and I thank him for this.
In paragraph 6, Mr. Kopetz states that this memo is not intended to cover all the legal requirements.
There are two things that Mr. Kopetz's memo failed to cover, or even mention: (1) the past, and (2) the 21st century and the two locations in town that represent it: the official town website and northhaveninfo.org.
Nothing is said about past minutes, which I've been trying to collect to put on-line. Just because many board and commissions failed to meet legal requirements should not mean that they still have no obligations regarding past minutes. And past minutes are still useful for research, to learn the background of today's problems, to find patterns, etc.
With respect to today and the future, Mr. Kopetz is asking that each board and commission hand-deliver agendas, unapproved minutes, and approved minutes to the library, within the required time limitations. If these items are either put up on the town website, or emailed or faxed to me to be put up on the northhaveninfo.org website, Presto! They’re available at the library’s computers courtesy of the 21st-century technology. If the library wants to duplicate in paper form what’s on the computer, its personnel can print out agendas and minutes straight from the online files. The bonus here is that they’re also available in everybody’s home, day or night, weekday or weekend, whenever and wherever (home or work or even traveling) that they have the time to look at them.
This is what modern technology has brought to democracy: the ability to be truly transparent, to have all of our town government at our fingertips when we have time, not when the town clerk’s office is open or the library is open.
There are other problems with Mr. Kopetz's approach. A very important one is that agendas need be filed only 24 hours before a meeting. If they go to the library, by the time they have been filed in the appropriate binder, the meeting is over. Even if they’re put up on a bulletin board, what if the library isn’t open that evening or if you can’t get over there before it closes? And yet you want to know if you should go to the next day’s meeting, which depends on what they're discussing. If the agenda’s on-line, you can look at it at 11 in the evening or before you go to work in the morning.
But Mr. Kopetz doesn’t want to even suggest that you have that opportunity. He only lets you go to the town clerk between 8:30 and 4:30, or to the library after work. Otherwise, too bad, even though the technology is there.
I spoke yesterday with Public Works director Richard Branigan. He said, of the memo, that it set a policy and that is the policy he will follow. His department has electronic files of at least some of the minutes of boards and commissions in his area, according to assistant Public Works director David Maiden. But Public Works does not appear to be willing to put them up on the town website or make them available to me, so that town citizens will have 21st-century access to them. Why? Because the town policy is now set, and it does not include website access, which so many other towns have.
I told Mr. Branigan that Mr. Kopetz merely set forth minimum requirements. He did not accept this. This is how a step toward transparency can close the door on the full, more easily accessible transparency I am seeking and that people keep telling me they want.
But Mr. Kopetz did not discuss this with me, despite my work and expertise in this area, and despite the fact that he would never have written this memo had I not been collecting minutes and agendas for the northhaveninfo.org website. By responding to my actions and yet not seeking my input, he not only showed no respect for all the work I’ve done. He also did not consider more efficient and effective possibilities, which is what public managers are supposed to do. Considering all possibilities is in the public interest.
Mr. Kopetz doesn’t like me, and that’s that. Well, that’s not professional. Every professional deals with people they don’t like every day. Mr. Kopetz wants people to respect him for the work he does for this town, but he does not respect others for the work they do for the town, at least if those others criticize him. I don’t want to work with him any more than he wants to work with me, but I would be more than willing to do so. My interest is in the town, not in myself. Remember: I’m the one’s who’s not being paid, and who has no obligations to the town.
On top of how he mishandled the recent Special Board of Selectmen’s meeting on the Ierardis’ retirement by making it totally closed to the public, it makes people wonder what Mr. Kopetz is trying to hide. I’m not saying he is hiding something, but if not, people ask, why does he act as though he is? Why can’t he work with people who are trying to bring transparency and good government to this town, instead of working against them? Why is he still so afraid to open up the town after seeing what a closed town government leads to? Can’t he learn from his mistakes?
Thursday, May 3, 2007
Little Progress Made Toward a Forensic Auditor, and None Toward Respect for the Public
Another Board of Finance auditor subcommittee, and little progress.
Of course, progress depends on one’s goal. If one’s goal is stalling and making it less likely that a forensic audit is started (and finished) quickly, then yesterday’s meeting made progress.
However, if one’s goal is to get a forensic audit started, to get to the bottom of what happened and how extensive the damage might have been, then little progress was made.
No list of forensic auditors was provided to members, only the names of firms on the state list that have forensic specialties. The assumption was that if any forensic audit were to be done, it would be done by the same firm doing the annual audit.
This is, I believe, a poor assumption, because there is a serious conflict in the relationship with a town that the two auditors have. An annual auditor has a relatively collegial, long-term relationship with a town. A new auditor is going to want to please its new client and develop friendly relationships with its employees, particularly in the finance department.
A forensic auditor will have a much more adversarial and short-term relationship with the town. It’s looking for dirt. It doesn’t want to please anyone. It doesn’t mind stepping on a few toes.
An annual auditor doing a forensic audit is going to be divided between its interest in investigating and its interest in pleasing. It is unfair to the firm, and bad for the town, to put it in this position. The firm will certainly be willing to do this to please the client, but it’s not the right thing to do.
And it looks bad, as well. In a situation like ours, we want to know that our forensic auditor will stop at nothing to get at the truth. We don’t really want to see them around the next year, making small talk with our employees, making us wonder how thorough they really were. We want them to do their job and move on.
It's bad enough that the town kept on the same auditor for 25-30 years, and hired away one of its auditors to be comptroller. This goes against what everyone recommends, and against what Janet McCarty and Steve Fontana started recommending years ago: a new auditor. With this history of looking bad, our Board of Finance has to try to look good, and do the right thing.
The meeting began with chair Timothy Doheny saying that the subcommittee was not authorized to hire a forensic auditor. This is true, but it is an obstacle that can easily be dealt with, not something that should in any way affect what the subcommittee does. If it believes a forensic auditor should be hired, it should tell the Board of Finance and ask it to immediately meet and authorize this. Sadly, all three members of the subcommittee declined to do this, despite requests from the public. Mr. Hallahan, who wants to hire a separate forensic auditor ASAP, felt that the others were coming around. I don’t share his optimism, but I do hope he is right.
In fact, the Board of Finance chair, Michael Peterson, was in the audience, and he was not asked his opinion on how the Board of Finance might vote on authorizing a forensic auditor, nor did he speak to this or other issues during public comments. Especially considering that his letter on his support of a forensic auditor has appeared in at least three local newspapers, I believe he had an obligation to join the discussion of this issue.
Mr. Hallahan will report back on possible forensic firms, but the others still lean heavily toward having any forensic audit done by the regular auditor. The question is, since they say that the annual auditor will need to get a feel for the town first, before they begin their forensic audit, and since the annual audit is not due until December 31, would the forensic audit report come out before or after the election?
Audience members were strong in insisting that people needed to know what had happened before they vote for candidates in November. But they won’t be in control of the process, the Board of Finance and the finance department will.
Another important issue that arose at this meeting is a problem throughout town government: holding public comments after rather than during each meeting. NHTV’s policy is to film only until adjournment. That is why town boards and commissions relegate public comments until after adjournment, so that what people who go to meetings say cannot be heard and seen by the rest of the public.
For years, Janet McCarty and others have been asking town boards to change this policy. But Mr. Doheny opposed Mr. Hallahan’s suggestion to hold public comments during the meeting, saying that public meetings do not allow this. There is no truth to that. In fact, the Board of Education allows it, as do town boards across the country.
It is a question of respect for the people by their officials. It is a question of openness of government, of letting the people hear what other people, non-politicians, have to say. As I said after the NHTV cameras turned off, we have experts in many fields in the audience at meetings, and their opinions and knowledge are valuable. But the town officials who form the majority of our boards – that is, Republican politicians – do not want to share these opinions and knowledge with the public. They would rather be closed than respectful.
Another argument for allowing public comments during the meeting is that if people share their knowledge and expertise, members might change their mind and someone might call for a revote. After adjournment, that's not possible. Listening to what citizens have to say includes the possibility of what they say actually having an effect on officials. That's what hearings are for.
We need more and more people to come to meetings in order to put a stop to this practice throughout the town.
To read my notes on the meeting, click here.
Of course, progress depends on one’s goal. If one’s goal is stalling and making it less likely that a forensic audit is started (and finished) quickly, then yesterday’s meeting made progress.
However, if one’s goal is to get a forensic audit started, to get to the bottom of what happened and how extensive the damage might have been, then little progress was made.
No list of forensic auditors was provided to members, only the names of firms on the state list that have forensic specialties. The assumption was that if any forensic audit were to be done, it would be done by the same firm doing the annual audit.
This is, I believe, a poor assumption, because there is a serious conflict in the relationship with a town that the two auditors have. An annual auditor has a relatively collegial, long-term relationship with a town. A new auditor is going to want to please its new client and develop friendly relationships with its employees, particularly in the finance department.
A forensic auditor will have a much more adversarial and short-term relationship with the town. It’s looking for dirt. It doesn’t want to please anyone. It doesn’t mind stepping on a few toes.
An annual auditor doing a forensic audit is going to be divided between its interest in investigating and its interest in pleasing. It is unfair to the firm, and bad for the town, to put it in this position. The firm will certainly be willing to do this to please the client, but it’s not the right thing to do.
And it looks bad, as well. In a situation like ours, we want to know that our forensic auditor will stop at nothing to get at the truth. We don’t really want to see them around the next year, making small talk with our employees, making us wonder how thorough they really were. We want them to do their job and move on.
It's bad enough that the town kept on the same auditor for 25-30 years, and hired away one of its auditors to be comptroller. This goes against what everyone recommends, and against what Janet McCarty and Steve Fontana started recommending years ago: a new auditor. With this history of looking bad, our Board of Finance has to try to look good, and do the right thing.
The meeting began with chair Timothy Doheny saying that the subcommittee was not authorized to hire a forensic auditor. This is true, but it is an obstacle that can easily be dealt with, not something that should in any way affect what the subcommittee does. If it believes a forensic auditor should be hired, it should tell the Board of Finance and ask it to immediately meet and authorize this. Sadly, all three members of the subcommittee declined to do this, despite requests from the public. Mr. Hallahan, who wants to hire a separate forensic auditor ASAP, felt that the others were coming around. I don’t share his optimism, but I do hope he is right.
In fact, the Board of Finance chair, Michael Peterson, was in the audience, and he was not asked his opinion on how the Board of Finance might vote on authorizing a forensic auditor, nor did he speak to this or other issues during public comments. Especially considering that his letter on his support of a forensic auditor has appeared in at least three local newspapers, I believe he had an obligation to join the discussion of this issue.
Mr. Hallahan will report back on possible forensic firms, but the others still lean heavily toward having any forensic audit done by the regular auditor. The question is, since they say that the annual auditor will need to get a feel for the town first, before they begin their forensic audit, and since the annual audit is not due until December 31, would the forensic audit report come out before or after the election?
Audience members were strong in insisting that people needed to know what had happened before they vote for candidates in November. But they won’t be in control of the process, the Board of Finance and the finance department will.
Another important issue that arose at this meeting is a problem throughout town government: holding public comments after rather than during each meeting. NHTV’s policy is to film only until adjournment. That is why town boards and commissions relegate public comments until after adjournment, so that what people who go to meetings say cannot be heard and seen by the rest of the public.
For years, Janet McCarty and others have been asking town boards to change this policy. But Mr. Doheny opposed Mr. Hallahan’s suggestion to hold public comments during the meeting, saying that public meetings do not allow this. There is no truth to that. In fact, the Board of Education allows it, as do town boards across the country.
It is a question of respect for the people by their officials. It is a question of openness of government, of letting the people hear what other people, non-politicians, have to say. As I said after the NHTV cameras turned off, we have experts in many fields in the audience at meetings, and their opinions and knowledge are valuable. But the town officials who form the majority of our boards – that is, Republican politicians – do not want to share these opinions and knowledge with the public. They would rather be closed than respectful.
Another argument for allowing public comments during the meeting is that if people share their knowledge and expertise, members might change their mind and someone might call for a revote. After adjournment, that's not possible. Listening to what citizens have to say includes the possibility of what they say actually having an effect on officials. That's what hearings are for.
We need more and more people to come to meetings in order to put a stop to this practice throughout the town.
To read my notes on the meeting, click here.
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