Last night the BET reviewed Norwalk’s operating budget. Key details:
1.
The budget proposal would translate to a 3.7 percent property tax increase, or an estimated $5,701 tax bill for a median single-family home in the city’s Fourth Taxing District.“As you know, we have a long way to go. This is just the start of the budget season,” Hamilton told the Board of Estimate and Taxation.
“We can find some savings and bring taxes down, but I think this is a very good starting point,” board chairman Fred Wilms said.
2.
Not including $18 million in Board of Education debt service, the “lion’s share” of city spending will go to education, at about 54 percent, Hamilton said. The rest is divvied up between public safety, comprising 13 percent of the municipal budget, public works, at 6 percent, debt service and employee benefits, for 9 percent each and another 9 percent toward all other expenditures.
3.
Driving factors in the budget proposal include debt service, or interest the city pays on loans, which will increase $2.4 million, or 10.3 percent next fiscal year, including city and school district debt.
Why are these details key? Decisions were made to throw more money at Education, we see that we are not getting any results, and those that should be held accountable hold no one accountable for the mismanagement of educational funding. Five schools will not be renovated because there’s no money left. Why is that? Are we willing to accept Corda’s excuse that it’s all a perception problem? I say numbers don’t lie. Stuart Opdahl is directly responsible for the shoddy implementation of the school renovation problem and Corda doesn’t seem to want to hold him accountable. Opdahl has yet to provide any evidence that any cost savings occur on the BOE budget. Corda refuses to hire a finance director, or conduct a forensic audit to see how the costs overruns and a variety of missing renovation items happened.
The Price Waterhouse report of 2001 predicted the construction project problems because of a lack of financial and construction project experience by the existing staff.
The general theme though, which has not been adequately improved under the Sal Corda administration are is a consistent lack of written management plans, inadequate management controls, performance evaluation and financial oversight. This is a classic problem with organizations, not unique to Norwalk, but I find it shocking that even Corda would be so dismissive of this report.
Your Common Council is planning to set a preliminary operating budget cap on Feb. 26.
source:Advocate, Proposed city budget would hike taxes 3.7 percent, By Alexandra Fenwick, February 12 2008
