Today we throw a little spotlight on current BOE member Bruce Kimmel. Kimmel garnered a reputation as a strong advocate of curbing the reckless spending of the BOE. But the words use to describe his performance on the BOE by his former colleagues range from dissapointing to toothless. SO why is Kimmel changing his spots? Well, it turns out that Kimmel prefers to pick positions on his vested interests. The rumor circulating around town is that he wants a full time job with the BOE after he retires from the NYC school system. Could his aspirations be so crass? Who, but Kimmel knows?
Should we be surprised by this political chameleon? Well, I suppose not if we take a look in the wayback machine for another position that Kimmel took and how he handled it. . The beauty of the web is that is that there exists a kind of permanent record of who says what and when. And you just don’t know where you’ll find things.
Bruce’s famous personality is caught here, on a blog post, about one of those meaningless Democratic town committee resolutions about US foreign policy. There’s a part of the Democratic party that is strongly anti-war, and the resolution in question was about the Iraq war. From Neurotwitch:(emphasis mine)

This afternoon, Stanley and I went to the NEIGHBORS meeting to find out what is going on. We already signed the petition, and wanted to find out what else we could do in addition to showing up at the Council meeting on Tuesday (we’ll be there). Not much, as it turns out, except get people to show up and sign up to speak. So we will.We were informed that there is “powerful opposition” to the resolution by “people with influence,” mainly because of parts 2 and 3 of the resolution. The council member who is one of the presenters of the resolution, Bruce Kimmel, said, in essence, that if he doesn’t think the resolution would pass unless provisions 2 and 3 are dumped (which he apparently already decided is the case), he would cut them when the Democrats have their closed caucus on Monday. He’s decided that it’s better to pass just section one than nothing at all. Some people agree. Others, like me, think this is the typical kind of namby-pamby nonsense that lost two presidential elections.

And, we learned, there’s not a thing we can do if the Dems decide to drop 2 and 3 unless we show up in force and insist that they be put back in (and even then, who knows?)

He also said, when I asked him about why he would de-fang the resolution (which, without teeth, I think is an exercise in futility—though I hope I’m wrong), that he didn’t care what I thought. Guess he’s too powerful to care about what mere citizens think. And he said this without knowing who I am. He said that he has to play politics with this because he’s up for reelection in November.

What shocked many of the people at this meeting was that the Dems have this closed meeting to decide what gets on the agenda, even though they’ve already got the resolution petition circulating for signature. We won’t know what the resolution actually says until we show up on Tuesday—though Kimmel did assure us that it will really, truly be on the agenda. Though we don’t know in what form. (source: Neurotwitch, June 2005)

So much for winning the hearts and minds there Kimmel. Kimmel really does believe that flooding and investment in infrastructure are priorities, even though as Council President he didn’t encourage that kind of spending allocations. But maybe that had more to do with the infighting between him and Alex Knopp, also legendary.

Bruce in April 2006 on budgeting priorities (emphasis mine):

So what do we need — a new central fire facility, a new fire substation, a major road reconstruction program, an emergency communication system, a large subsidy for West Avenue — and when? Naturally, we can’t have them all at once, without jeopardizing our AAA bond rating and increasing the city’s debt burden, which in turn could lead to higher property taxes down the road. (The above are just several examples of pressing capital needs. I have not even mentioned our waterfront and beaches, both of which could require major infusions of capital funds in the near future. Nor have I discussed the need to increase the city’s open space fund, which currently is part of the capital budget.) Source: Norwalkdems.com

And when Bruce Kimmel was Common Council president, he apparently was in favor of holding the Board of Education to a zero percent increase, unlike the current council’s 3.8% increase. Here is the transcript of that exchange from 2005. (emphasis mine)

** MR. HEMPSTEAD MOVED THAT THE AMENDMENT BE MODIFIED FROM 0% TO A 3.5% INCREASE IN THE AMOUNT OF EXPENDITURES TO ALLOW DEPARTMENTS TO KEEP IN LINE WITH INFLATION

Mr. Kimmel spoke against the modified amendment. He said he would support a true zero percentage-0% that was originally requested. He expressed that due to issues with Department of Public Works, the problems would still exist, but they wouldn’t be as drastic if they had a larger operating budget. He stressed this applied to the Board of Education as well. He reiterated that he didn’t support the 3.5%. He felt a figure such as this was premature and he didn’t think it considered all the question marks and approach to the budget.

For example: when they were told about the $16 million in state aid, it was realized that the state is looking at a big deficit that they have to address, so this will result in a hardship for municipalities. He said to keep in mind that a big portion of the budget was not for discretionary purposes, but is for staff positions and other. He felt that $1million covers a lot of positions accompanied with benefits. He thought there was a possibility for significant cuts, but for now, he said he would be comfortable with a placeholder based solely on the requests set forth. In essence, he said he would hold off on the 3.5% increase proposed and perhaps in a few months, they could revisit the issue. He repeated that he would vote against the 3.5% increase. (source: norwalkct.org)

So what did they do in 2005? (emphasis mine)

Board of Education Funding – Funding for public education comprises approximately 57% of total City spending, so the level of funding provided to the Board of Education has the most significant bearing on the overall level of City spending. For FY 2005-06, the Board of Estimate and Taxation provided the Board of Education with a spending increase of $5.4 million, or 4.25% over FY 2004-05 spending. With this increase in spending, the Board of Education is able to hire additional staff to meet the demands placed on the district by the Federal No Child Left Behind law, and is also able to hire more staff at the secondary level where enrollment is rising.
Moreover, at the time of budget adoption, the Board of Education was projecting that it would end the FY 2004-05 fiscal year with an operating surplus of at least $550,000. Under State law, the Board of Education is entitled to spend these funds however they deem appropriate, so long as the funds are expended by the close of the fiscal year.
However, in order to encourage the responsible use of these funds, the Mayor and the Board of Estimate and Taxation indicated to the Board of Education that if these funds were not expended that they would support appropriating the $550,000 to supplement the FY 2005-06 budget. At the present time, the City is waiting to confirm the amount of surplus from the FY 2004-05 Education budget, and we expect this supplemental appropriation to be presented in September 2005. This is similar to the appropriation of $1.2 million in surplus funds from the FY 2003-04 Education budget that were appropriated in FY 2004-05 to support the purchase of textbooks.

And finally, it is important to note that for many years the increase in education spending has outstripped the increase in non-education spending. Over the past ten years, education spending has increased by 56%, while City spending has only increased by 3.7%. It should also be noted that debt service, which is reflected in the City budget, includes debt for school projects. Provided below is a ten-year history of Board of Education budgets compared to City budgets. (source: Norwalkct.org)

So which Bruce Kimmel are we seeing now? It appears that he’s decided his future lies with supporting Corda.  So much for holding the line on spending, his previous positions, being concerned about the AAA bond rating, tax increases, or apparently what anyone else thinks. That’s just not the Kimmel way.

Update
Bruce Kimmel wanted to go on the record with the statement that he is not looking for, or planning to take a Board of Ed job. He says that there should be no rumor to that effect. He also said that the resolution mentioned in a previous post was the Patriot Act, not an Iraq war resolution and that he was correct in that it would not pass if 2 clauses weren’t dropped. I have updated that post as well.