A Math Problem
October 3, 2012 / By: Nicholas Mercier
I outlined in this previous post how the new police hotspot fee was build on very fuzzy math. After hearing Alderman Trueworthy speak on the matter the math is even more unrealistic than my worse case scenario. We could see property owners being hit with over $10,000 in fines per year.
In this recent newspaper article the mayor states what Alderman Trueworthy repeated at the meeting, that “2% of the properties in New Britain are responsible for 33% of the calls.” Remember when I outlined how the fee is calculated? First you take the number of calls a “hotspot” receives in a month, and then you divide that by the total number of police calls in a month. Those addresses are then assessed a fine based on their share of the cost of the entire police or fire budget respectively.
Warning! Math Ahead!
(Feel free to skip ahead to the bottom line)
For simplicity sake lets just look at the police calls for now.
The annual police budget for 2013 is around $15.4 million. That means that the monthly budget is $1.3 million (approximately). According to the ordinance the properties that are responsible for the 33% of calls would pay for 33% of the monthly budget, or around $423,000. So what does 2% of the population mean?
Well based on the US Census figures New Britain has about 28,000 to 32,000 housing units. So 2% of the properties would be around 560 to 640 properties that are the “hotspots”.
The Bottom Line
So if these property owners had to split that $423,000 bill they would each be looking at $660 to $775… per month, or close to $10,000 per year.
And that is the best case scenario!
Assuming that some of these police calls aren’t being distributed evenly certain property owners could be hit with even higher fees.
Why it won’t work
After this resolution was sent back to the council by the subcommittee I spoke with several of the aldermen about why they thought this was a good idea. One Alderman said that the purpose was to discourage people from renting to problem tenants, but there is no way to know if a tenant could become a problem and while you wait 6 months for an eviction they are going to be expected to pay $5000 on top of lost rent and eviction fees?
This ordinance is supposedly designed to recoup expenses and discourage bad behavior. But it does nothing to address the behavior of those making the excessive calls.
A better solution
If you want to recoup expenses and discourage bad behavior then you need to target those who are making the calls, not the property owners. There are a couple ways we could specifically address this issue:
■Increase fines for the specific types of calls that result in these “hotspots.” If that means clarifying or attaching teeth to a noise ordinance or a public intoxication ordinance then do it.
■Target fines at the offenders, not the landlords. A person is not going to change their behavior because their landlord is being hit with excessive fines.
■Enforce the laws already on the books. Currently we have a $99 dollar fine for repeated calls to an address. This law has never been aggressively enforced by either the current or previous administration. We need to know why not, and if it is because of reasons such as bookkeeping or manpower, we need to consider if this change will be just as unmanageable.
The math on this is scary, and I invite any commentary or questions about these numbers below. Again, these are based off the information the public has been provided with, and from the comments at the meeting it does not appear that the Common Council has any privileged information that they not sharing. If anyone has additional information I would be glad to hear it.
Nick,
ReplyDeleteI don't believe your math. Stick to teaching music.
Nck it is even worse then you figure. And of course Mike lied, or should I say he didnt really tell the whole truth of the impact this will have. The biggest offenders of this will not be reguired to pay, and they the two Hospitals, and NBHS. The next biggest is New Brite Plaza, which will have to pay tho. Now please redo your math when you take out those big offenders.
ReplyDeleteWhat Trueworthy didnt say is, According to data from the mayor’s office, the top two abusers of police calls during 2011 were New Britain High School with 222 calls and the Hospital of Central Connecticut with 182.However they will be exempt from the fee, so are their calls removed from the total to calculate the fee ?
ReplyDeleteThe Sherwood administration uses Democratic math which is little more than smoke and mirrors. He passed a budget with a built in $14 million hole and can't even get the members of his city council let alone anyone else to pay their taxes. I believe that is for the same reasons that other countries laugh at anything Obama wants due to his total weakness and ineptness in the eyes of the rest of the world. With no way to enforce the tax laws because this administration apparently lacks the testicular fortitude to issue tax warrants and enforce the law by utilizing the constables for the job they were elected to do, everyone knows they can wipe their lower extremities with the worthless tax bills sent out because there is nothing to back them up. In other words they pose no threat and there is no punishment for simply ignoring them, so why should anyone pay attention.
ReplyDeleteBrillant. Frank you should be mayor.
ReplyDeleteHere's a great idea, why doesn't NB cut back on subsidized housing to balance the budget? Get rid of section 8 altogether & let the tenants fend for themselves? Nothing good happens when people have no where to go everyday & then they start in w/drugs & the girls get into prostitution and never look for a job, god forbid.
ReplyDeleteYou can't have a nice or good city with street walking prostitutes everywhere. They're living amongst us and give bad undertones to the entire city.
isn't that why Trueworthy and company wanted to convert St Thomas Aquinas into what would have been the biggest homeless shelter in the state? I guess he wanted to warehouse all the hookers and junkies in one location so his dream of hundreds of prostitutes and drug addicts roaming the streets could be realized because homeless shelters throw everyone out in the morning, so they would have nowhere to go but your front lawn!
ReplyDeleteThe next time Trueworthy has a good idea it will be his first ever!
To CCSU Grad:
ReplyDeleteI can walk you through it step by step if you would like. Please tell me what area was unclear. Again, I am working off the publicly available information as provided by the City and the US Census data. If there are other considerations you think I should include I'd be glad to listen to them.
On a side note, there is tons of research showing a high correlation between math and musical ability. When considering a concentration for teaching math and science were my second and third choice. Furthermore, the math required for this problem is simple algebra, it isn't as if we are doing vector calculus here.
Nick you were board of finance chair so don't tell me that this is the dems fault.
ReplyDeleteTo Anonymous:
ReplyDeleteEvery budget that the Board of Finance passed included a mill increase. The Common Council and the Mayor's office of both administrations completely ignored the Board of Finance recommendation. Please tell me what else was in the legal authority of the Board of Finance to do?
If you were at the public hearing for this year'd budget you'll remember that I urged the Council to reject the Mayor's proposal out of hand and work from the BF&T budget to develop a realistic balanced budget that did not rely on unproven fees. In the past you may remember that I disagreed with Mayor Stewart on numerous aspects of his budget including the flat funding of education and the use of sale of property as a revenue source for the general budget.
Regardless of either of these issue, they have no real baring on the issue at hand, which is that this ordinance, as drafted, is of questionable legality and unbelievably convoluted. The math is flawed and shows that very little thought went into this idea before it was proposed.
Don't trust the math of anyone who finished last in votes for Board of Ed in 2011.
ReplyDeleteOh it's the guy from Broad Street harassing Nick LOL He works at the capitol can't remember the moron's name?
ReplyDeleteLou Salvio?
ReplyDeleteIs he the guy that's on you-tube shown breaking into and rifling a co-worker's desk?
ReplyDelete"Don't trust the math of anyone who finished last in votes for Board of Ed in 2011."
ReplyDeleteAh yes, because the number of votes I received directly affects my ability to add, subtract, multiply, and divide. By your logic O'Brien would be a math genius, but he can't even balance a budget. By your logic Trueworthy should have been able to figure out, based on his own facts, what the fine for this ordinance would be.
I am proud of every vote I earned and as someone who is new to politics and running with the "wrong letter" next to his name in New Britain I am glad I did as well as I did.