Saturday, March 7, 2009

Shingleton announces additional furloughs in formal budget proposal - Why Not New Britain ? The Middletown Press (middletownpress.com)


Shingleton announces additional furloughs in formal budget proposal - The Middletown Press (middletownpress.com)
Posted by Frank Smith at 7.3.09

16 comments:

Anonymous said...

Well Geeze frank lets think about this for just one second. Okay, maybe a reason not to do it in NEW BRITAIN at this time is because there is no budget yet at the state level and still stimlous money left to be given out. Why furlough people in this economy if you don't know its even needed.

March 7, 2009 at 9:24 AM
Frank Smith said...

The Mayor of New Britain had talked about furloughing the city employees some three months ago.

your refer to the stimulus has though we will have nothing to worry about.

A pie in the shy Remember new Britain got nothing the 1.650 billions the State of Conn. rec vied.

Waterbury got some along with New London and etc.

March 7, 2009 at 1:47 PM
Anonymous said...

Farmington town employees renegotiated their contracts with the town to agree to no pay increases this year. Where are the City of New Britain and the Board of Education unions to be part of the solution? Our greedy unions are demanding huge pay increases while the rest of us are struggling to keep our jobs.

Maybe the Mayor needs to issues the same ultimatum to the council that the Governor gave to the legislatrure:

Cut spending or I will lay off employees.

March 7, 2009 at 1:56 PM
Anonymous said...

Hartford Board of Ed is laying off 250 teachers, while we are giving our teahcers an 8% pay raise to their $85,000 salary for working 9 months out of the year. Am I the only one who sees a problem with this?

March 7, 2009 at 2:48 PM
Anonymous said...

you could lay off half of them, including the teachers, and no one would even notice they were gone.

March 7, 2009 at 4:57 PM
Anonymous said...

"The Mayor of New Britain had talked about furloughing the city employees some three months ago.

your refer to the stimulus has though we will have nothing to worry about.

A pie in the shy Remember new Britain got nothing the 1.650 billions the State of Conn. rec vied."
Not exactly it, I'm just smart enough to know there is no hard numbers at this point and one should not lay people off or do furloughs unless the numbers ad up....Not against it, just questioning your wisdom in suggestion solutions to problems we do not yet fully see. Or maybe you like other rightwingers like to see hard working people laid off because at least government is smaller. That will help the economy...

March 7, 2009 at 9:35 PM
Anonymous said...

If laying off employees isn't good for the bottom line, why is it as soon as a publicly traded company announces layoffs, their stock normally shoots up in value?

March 8, 2009 at 11:28 AM
Anonymous said...

Anonymous said... Or maybe you like other rightwingers like to see hard working people laid off because at least government is smaller.

The problem in New Britain is not that “RIGHTWINGERS” want Mayor Stewart to lay off workers but that the unions don't seem to want to make concessions during difficult economic times. At all levels of the private sector unions have made concessions. take for example UAW president, Ron Gettelfinger, He said the union would suspend its jobs bank, which requires carmakers to keep paying laid-off employees, and would consider changes to its labor contracts. The union has also agreed, Gettelfinger said, to delay the payments that the automakers must make to a new retiree health care fund called a Voluntary Employee Beneficiary Association, or VEBA.
In many towns unions have made concessions.
In Farmington, Police, fire, municipal and three board of education unions granted concessions, though teachers did not.
Simsbury has announced agreements with the town's six labor unions that would eliminate raises for the 2009-10 budget year.
EVEN A WELL KNOWN “LEFT WING” MAYOR MADE SOME TOUGH DECISIONS WHEN THE UNIONS IN HIS TOWN WOULDN’T.
In December, New Haven called on unions for $10 million in concessions, and warned layoffs would result if agreements could not be reached. As a result of unions balking 27 city employees, including several executive management workers, were laid off, another 127 layoffs will come at the Board of Education at the end of the school year.
As private workers make concessions and forego raises because of the economic slowdown, and neighboring towns employee unions agree to concessions I don't believe that New Britain residents are out of line to ask Mayor Stewart to ask unions and city employees for concessions. If they won’t make concessions I believe that all citizens of New Britain will be asking the Mayor to consider furloughs and layoffs.
To imply that conservatives get a cheap thrill out of people losing their jobs is just a cheap shot. That is not in any way based on facts.
Ask ANY person who was laid off recently what they think about “raises” that city teachers will be receiving. I think that you will find that if they are Republican or Democrats neither one would say that the unions should not consider wage freezes as a way to keep HARDWORKING people from being laid off.
The evil right wing conspiracy is getting old.

March 8, 2009 at 7:18 PM
Anonymous said...

a way to keep HARDWORKING people from being laid off.

Must be referring to Catanzaro at the parks dept?

March 8, 2009 at 9:25 PM
Anonymous said...

Even Eddie Perez (still mayor while he awaits his trial for bribery charges) realizes the need to cut staffing costs with the huge number of layoffs at the Hartford School system. The last number I heard was 250 positions being eliminated, but in New Britain we are offering school board employees huge raises????
What is wrong with this picture?

March 9, 2009 at 2:17 AM
Anonymous said...

Fortunately we (my staff) had the wisdom to forsee economic problems coming back in the fall of '08 and ordered my staff citywide to stop all disctetionary spending, out-of-state travel and the hiring of nonessential employee position to create a surplus to cushion the city in the event of this economic collapse we are experiencing. We have taken a very conservative approach to budgeting during my tenure and are positioned well to absorb the potential revenue losses that the state government will hand us.
I have also been actively talking to my unions to get their help for the upcoming years' budget. But the sky is not falling in NB and most of what other towns have done is strictly for press purposes and really not affecting the bottom lines of their budgets significantly. We are not experiencing any significant issues with revenues or expenditures so the need to react by laying off or furloughing cityworkers is not needed. Hope that helps Frank.

March 10, 2009 at 4:12 PM
Anonymous said...

Mayor said...
Fortunately we (my staff) had the wisdom to forsee economic problems coming back in the fall of '08 and ordered my staff citywide to stop all disctetionary spending, out-of-state travel and the hiring of nonessential employee position to create a surplus to cushion the city in the event of this economic collapse we are experiencing. We have taken a very conservative approach to budgeting during my tenure and are positioned well to absorb the potential revenue losses that the state government will hand us.
I have also been actively talking to my unions to get their help for the upcoming years' budget. But the sky is not falling in NB and most of what other towns have done is strictly for press purposes and really not affecting the bottom lines of their budgets significantly. We are not experiencing any significant issues with revenues or expenditures so the need to react by laying off or furloughing cityworkers is not needed. Hope that helps Frank.

March 10, 2009 4:12 PM


Keep up the good work Mr. Mayor!
You are demonstrating true leadership at a time when most levels of government are clueless what to do and are running around spending billions and trillions of dollars without any clue whether any of it will work. The fact that we in New Britain are in such good shape shows that you have led our city well in these tough fiscal times.

March 10, 2009 at 8:35 PM
Anonymous said...

Anonymous says...

The Democratic Council members do perform their dities to the best of their abilities - that's why they don't do anything positive or in most cases, anything at all.

March 11, 2009 at 1:36 PM
Anonymous said...

Anonymous said...
For: " Anonymous said" from Anonymous also says;

Consider this; What do you suppose McNamara The Lesser, or Sherwack, or Truebabbler would say and do if the Mayor, Salvio or Bernacki introduced a resolution to remove Alderman COI (Conflict of Interest) Catanzaro from the Council? Sherwack would love it! It would get the Dems off the hook and then they could squash the motion. Then the bloggers would start all over again and ........

Considering that Catanzaro committed an offense that is mandated by the charter that he be removed from office and did so in the presence of the 13 Democrats, we would then have the ability to bring an action against the Alermen who voted against his removal for dereliction of their sworn duty.

Let's recap:

1...They each swore to uphold the charter of the City of New Britain.

2...Catanzaro committed a violation of the charter which dictates that any alderman who violates this section shall be subject to expulsion and did so in front of each and every one of them and in public, on video tape and also televised, so how can they deny it happened. He even told reporters that he voted on his own ethics violation so that he could speak on his own issue, a separate violation of the charter for which expulsion is also the penalty.

3...any alderman who votes against Catanzaro's expulsion is violating his/her own oath of office to uphold the Charter of the City of New Britain and should be the subject of their own case for removal from office.

If they continue to refuse to perform their sworn duty, we will need to turn to the State of Connecticut for assistance in removing them all from office.
They seem to think they are untouchable as if they are in some exclusive club, but the taxpayers and the voters have a right to expect them to obey the law--especially when they swore an oath to do so.

What these Democrats have apparently not learned yet, is that no one is above the law and maybe we need to solicit some help from state officials to teach them that very important lesson!

March 11, 2009 at 4:30 PM
Anonymous said...

City of New Britain Charter, Section 4-7:

…No member of the Common Council shall be heard to speak upon, nor shall be allowed to vote upon, nor shall be appointed a member of any committee to consider, any matter in which the member has a direct pecuniary interest. Any violation of this provision shall be grounds for expulsion of any member violating the same….

March 12, 2009 at 12:52 AM
Anonymous said...

Welcome to Obamaland, the Socialist Paradise:

If the inauguration of President Barack Obama fills you with dread rather than elation, you're not alone.

In fact, you're exactly at one with James Delingpole -- who knows exactly where America is heading: into a morass of sprawling government that will slowly start suffocating our economy, our liberties, and our culture.

How does Delingpole know? Because he's seen it all before in Great Britain.

You might as well call it socialism, says Delingpole, because that's what it is. In Britain it came in under the smiling face of Tony Blair, and has left the British bulldog castrated, whimpering, and sick. In America it's coming under the vibrant, youthful guise of Barack Obama.

But the result will be same: The brave, independent American eagle will become the American turkey, oven-basted by the nanny state of Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Nancy Pelosi, and Harry Reid.

March 13, 2009 at 12:53 AM

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