Saturday, August 4, 2012
MARK BERNACKI ATTACKS ELVIS'S CITY HALL BUDGET SCHEME!
As a long time alderman I have reviewed and made proposals for over a dozen budgets. New Britain has lost a significant amount of industrial properties and heavily relies on our homeowners for property taxes. Due to significant state mandates the City also relies on state aid for education cost sharing, PILOT dollars, casino revenues, and numerous one time revenues, particularly the sale of city property and fees.
According to the mayor’s chief of staff / communications director / building department director I must believe Elvis is still alive. It is utterly amazing that New Britain’s Mayor and City Council recently spent $25,000 to hire a politically connected accounting firm to supposedly “forensic” audit New Britain’s books. We elect a mayor, treasurer and city council to oversee our finances. This is why we also have a full time finance department. Real forensic audits cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. This was nothing more than a $25,000 political audit.
I guess the adage “a lie told long enough becomes the truth” is correct. Even the Herald uses the administration’s ramblings as a basis of fact. This administration just does not understand fiscal budgeting and has been reckless in their proclamations.
The recently passed city budget increased government spending from $217 million dollars to $232 million dollars with no tax increase. If their claim of New Britain being in “deficit” of $30 million were true why did the mayor and democrat controlled council increase spending by $15 million? If their claim of a $30 million deficit were correct shouldn’t the budget have decreased from $217 million to $187 million? Or, at worse, increase property taxes by $30 million to cover their supposed “deficit”?
The mayor and super majority council democrats reversed the 8 year budgetary strategy of stabilizing City finances by hiring a full time communications director (first at $45,000 then increased to $65,000), increased the Mayor's office budget by 50%, proposed adding 37 police officers, hired the wife of a city council member to be a community organizer ($47,000), zeroed out the line item that forced the Mayor (Stewart and now O'Brien) to obtain contract concessions with the City unions, got unfavorable bonding rates for long term debt and increased spending by $15 million.
The problem is this administration doesn’t understand the difference between a budget deficit and long term debt obligations. By state law, the council and mayor must pass a balanced budget. If their claim is the budget is out of balance by $30 million and they increased last year’s city budget by $15 million shouldn’t the council and mayor be headed to jail for purposely passing an unbalanced budget? If they increased spending by $15 million without any tax increase isn’t the new “deficit” now $45 million?
When we purchase our home and get a mortgage (long term debt) we don’t call this a deficit because it isn’t. We make monthly principal and interest payments to reduce our debt. The same thing happens with New Britain’s budget. Under this administration’s logic if you made $40,000 in take home pay and had a mortgage of $150,000 you have a deficit of $110,000.
Each year, the budget process goes from department heads to the Finance Board, to the Mayor and finally to the Council. Rarely do major expenditures such as health insurance premiums remain uncut. During the Stewart administration, the budget line item for health insurance was cut not arbitrarily, but by working with a benefits consultant to find ways to save money. The money that was cut is not a deficit, as this political audit would have you believe, but a SAVINGS! I would also note that democrats on the council never added money back into that line item, so this alleged "under funding" is on their heads as the final word in the budget. They were more than happy to reap the benefits of Mayor Stewart's number crunching. Unfortunately, people that never worked a day in the private sector and have absolutely no business experience are now in charge of New Britain’s finances.
Mark Bernacki
New Britain CT
Very well said Mark. Many people in town have been saying the same thing about,if we are -$30 million, and increase spending by $15 million where did the extra $45 million come from if we have seen no increase in city revenue.
ReplyDeleteHenry Zembko
Great job Mark! Couldn't have said it better myself.
ReplyDeleteSomething Mark wrote bears repeating:
ReplyDelete"... people that never worked a day in the private sector and have absolutely no business experience are now in charge of New Britain’s finances."
We're with you all the way, Mr. Bernack ! Let's hope enough people take the time to read your message.
ReplyDeleteCan't wait till Elvis leaves the building.
I just read a story in a national news publication that described the liberal left as "factually uniformed"
ReplyDeleteThe more I think of that term ("factually uninformed") the more I think of it as an accurate description not only for O'Brien, but also the band of misfit losers at the game of life that he has surrounded himself with.
The recent speculation on whether or not the city’s previous administration allowed a $30 million deficit to expand unchecked, and that there was a systematic action on the part of the previous administration to hide the growing deficit from city residents, leaves more questions than answers.
ReplyDeleteAlthough I choose to remain anonymous for reasons that will remain my own, I did want to throw some observations into the public discourse. As someone who was not a part of city government, but had access (as do all residents) to many of the documents concerning the audit this is the problem as I see it.
First, for many years the city’s audit was completed by the firm, Blum Shapiro. They are a well-known and reputable accounting firm that handles audits for scores of communities. In going back several years and rereading past audits, the deficit pointed to in the current discussions is nowhere to be found. Of course, as with any government entity, creative accounting may allow for funds to be moved arbitrarily, and there is evidence that in order to balance the city’s budget this may have happened, but it is certainly not hidden and was known to both the former administration and the Common Council.
But there is no evidence of a $30,000,000 (or anything approaching it) deficit. So, if no evidence of such an amount exists on the official budgets passed by the Common Council, then either it does not exist, or, it was hidden by the accounting firm. If you accept that it never did exist and that a multi-million dollar accounting firm did not “cook” the books, then the current administration is attempting to mislead the public for reasons not yet known. If, however, you accept that there was a $30 million deficit that was hidden, then there must have been either mass incompetence on the part of BlumShapiro, or collusion with either the former administration or Common Council, or both, to fake the city’s accounting records.
The first example (misleading the public) is unethical, but hardly illegal. Politicos and their staffs are known to stretch the truth to its limit for whatever personal agenda they have. That’s politics and was true for both the current and former administration. On the other hand, if we accept the second premise (that BlumShapiro in some way, and at the urging of the former administration, hid the deficit), then what you have is a case that rises to breaking the law.
Where then is the state’s attorney general? Is there a secret investigation of which we are not privy? Is the current administration seeking a reimbursement of hundreds of thousands of dollars in accounting fees from BlumShapiro? If the audits were indeed wrong, why are they not seeking reimbursement?
Or could it be that Blum Shapiro performed their audit as expected, and that the level of deficit is being exaggerated for political expediency?
Hopefully, someone, perhaps one of the newspapers in the area, will take the time to find out which is the corrent answer. Inquiring minds want to know.
Which area "newspaper" do expect will take the time to find out which is the correct answer.
ReplyDeleteThe Hartford Courant? LOL
The New Britain Herald? Fell off my chair LOL.
The truth as perceived by these two "newspapers" is whatever the Democratic Party tells them it is.
There's no mystery as to why Sherwood and O'Brien want to sell the public on their fictitious deficit.
They want a phony excuse to raise our taxes and spend more money. They are liberal Democrats.
Thank you Mark for setting the facts straight. The City of New Britain is headed down a terrible road with the current, in-experienced and corrupt administration. Why did the voters choose this path?
ReplyDeleteOverwhelmingly in New Britain there are voters who need liberalism. They fear breaking the cycle of dependence. Democrats
promise them dependence and they vote accordingly.
Then we have the die hard democrats that arrived in this country from other worlds proud to register to vote and vote democratic because they moved to a democracy. Democracy=Democrat and they vote accordingly.
Then we have the folks who administer the liberal democracy. They create government jobs for themselves and their friends paid for by the taxpayer but never the less this is a huge area of employment for those who are hard pressed to find gainful employment in the private sector. These folks make all the decisions for those of us who work hard and try to keep up and ahead in the private sector. These folks vote accordingly.
Then there is the last group of voters. We complain about all of the above, we understand what is happening around us, we fight it, we try in vain, but have been overcome. We can't explain to all of the above that our hard working ways and conservatism is the road to take. Please vote for change so we can cut your dependency, have you working harder or working at all, that your government job will be slashed, that the democratic party in America is not really a democracy at all explain to immigrants that their democratic vote = socialism.
Mark walked the city spoke to the voters. If Mark were Mayor today we wouldn't be reading the media garbage and even in tough times, City Hall would be stable.
Oh and Lucian Pawluk, thanks Lucian for nothing for throwing the cities chance at avoiding this catastrophe. All you ever cared about was yourself, the "loss of your job" as you kept saying. I don't know who is the at the top of the bad list? O'Brien, Sherwood, or Pawluk.
Then we have the die hard democrats that arrived in this country from other worlds proud to register to vote and vote democratic because they moved to a democracy. Democracy=Democrat and they vote accordingly.
ReplyDeleteThis is the most puzzling bunch. The group from Poland, Ukraine, Russia, and the other former Soviet Union states.
THEY CAME HERE FLEEING SOCIALISM, THEN TURN AROUND AND REGISTER WITH THE SOCIALIST PARTY AND CONTINUALLY VOTE TO EMPOWER THE VERY SAME SOCIALISTS THEY TRAVELED HALF WAY AROUND THE WORLD TO GET AWAY FROM.
Joe The Barber said...
ReplyDeleteFor some reason, every time I see that video with Obama saying: "if you own a business, you didn't build it, it was done for you" I keep picturing Mr. Bernacki and his print shop (Sir Speedy in downtown New Britain), and I wonder if Mr. Bernacki ever bothered to thank Obama for building that print shop for him?
Comments by Nicholas Mercier / CPOA President / August 3, 2012.
ReplyDeleteRecently released test scores for the New Britain School District have shown that our school is still well behind State averages and no where near the goals set by the Federal No Child Left Behind Act. These numbers are even more dismal when we look at how underserved our Hispanic population is by our schools. With dropout rates that are one of the highest in the State, it is no wonder we have been the target of much criticism.
Our new superintendent, Kelt Cooper, has stated that raising these scores is job number one and I certainly hope he can succeed where his predecessor failed. He certainly has a record of success that bodes well for our school systems future.
Furthermore, Superintendent Cooper doesn’t seem to be of the mindset that the key to greater student achievement is to simply request more money year after year. This should help put the tax paying property owners of New Britain at ease. Cooper’s history of fiscal prudence is a breath of fresh air after years of Dr. Kurtz’s budgets with requests for multi-million dollar increases which were rubber stamped many years by the Board of Education.
However, property owners should be concerned with more than just the price tag attached to education. The long term viability of a community can be closely tied to the quality of the education system. When middle class property owners are looking to put down roots one of the many things they look at is the public school system. By having a high quality school system we are not only making a better future for the next generation, we are also helping to build the middle class and keep our tax burden lower.
Already Superintendent Cooper has signaled that he wants to make some dramatic and much needed changes. One of these changes includes ending the practice of Kaizen Thursdays, regaining much needed hours to the school day. Another such change is his stated desire to return to the model of solid local neighborhood schools, rather than a patchwork of programs and special schools that can only cater to a few select students. These changes show a return to a common sense approach to education.
In the coming months Superintendent Cooper may need to make further difficult decisions regarding the future of our school system. These changes are necessary for our schools to recover and to thrive once again. All property owners should help support him and his plan to revitalize our school system before another 10 years is lost on ineffective programs.