1 Labor Contract Settled

Clerkin presents Local 844 contract at Thursday night’s hearing.

Friday, June 16, 2017 - A city union that represents over 400 emergency dispatchers, school security guards, and a diverse array of public administrative and clerical staff has come to a new collective bargaining agreement with the city after working without a contract for nearly two years.

During a Board of Alders Finance Committee hearing at City Hall on Thursday night, City Budget Director Joe Clerkin presented some of the key provisions of the new five-year contract between the city and AFSCME Local 884.

The local represents 411 city employees in a variety of non-managerial positions, ranging from data control clerks and accounts payable auditors in the city’s Finance Department to school security guards to 911 dispatchers.

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Budget Critics Warn Against Reliance On Struggling State

Alders at Monday night’s budget hearing at City Hall.

Tuesday, May 9, 2017 - Weeks before the city has to finalize and approve a new fiscal year budget, a handful of government watchdogs expressed their deep concerns that the proposed budget relies too much on expected aid from a state on the brink of financial disaster.

Such was the prevailing sentiment at an hour-long public budget hearing held by the Finance Committee of the Board of Alders at City Hall on Monday night.

Although the aldermanic chambers were crowded with city employees waiting for a closed-door executive session meeting later in the evening about union negotiations, only a half-dozen citizens testified before the committee, which has spent the past few months holding hearings on the mayor’s proposed $554.5 million operating budget for Fiscal Year 2017-18. The Board of Alders must approve a final city budget by the end of the month.

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Lights, Cameras ... Action! Eyed For Parks

Edgewood basketball court, among those slated for resealing.

Friday, April 7, 2017 - New Haven basketball players can look forward to smoother surfaces and clearer three-point lines at courts throughout the city. Wooster Square will be better lit at night. And more security cameras may pop up in city parks.

City parks director Becky Bombero outlined those and other planned improvements during a presentation at a hearing held by the Board of Alders Finance Committee at City Hall on Thursday night on the Harp Administration’s proposed $554.5 million operating budget and $68.7 million capital budget for the coming fiscal year.

Bombero, joined by Deputy Director of Parks & Squares Bill Carone and Deputy Director of Recreation Bill Dixon, went through nearly each item of her department’s propsed $4.29 million city capital budget for fiscal year 2017-2018, zeroing in on the various improvement projects, both big and small, that are already or are about to be under way. The parks department’s proposed city capital budget marks a $1.395 million increase over this year’s; its proposed general fund budget is flat at $5,293,300.

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Youth Center Mired In Delays, Overruns

DANIELA BRIGHENTI PHOTO

Thursday, March 30, 2017 - A year after expecting to open a new center for disengaged and homeless youth, city officials offered explanations for a series of mishaps and delays — and asked for another $200,000 to complete the job.

The center is question is “the Escape, a drop-in center for New Haven teens that will also provide 15 beds for homeless young men between the ages of 17 and 24.

It was supposed to open by January 2016. Then March 2016. It still needs lots of work.

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Top City Lawyer To Oversee New Department, Old Drama

Rose (center), his executive assistant, Counsel Pernal Paula Marie (right), Deputy Corporation Counsel Phoenix Cherie (left) at hearing.

March 17, 2017  - A hearing about the city’s top lawyer’s budget turned into an examination of why his office is taking over the labor relations department, when he plans to fill a top vacancy there, and whether he’s assuring that city officials are up to date on how to properly handle and dispose of official public records in the wake of a still ongoing controversy over a high-profile firing.

Corporation Counsel John Rose Jr. fielded those questions when he presented his proposed new budget at a three-hour-plus budget hearing held at City Hall Thursday night by by the Board of Alders Finance Committee.

Few of the questions had to do with the relevant numbers in the mayor’s proposed budget, however, which asks for Corporation Counsel to incorporate the three-person staff and $425,000 budget of labor relations into its purview.

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Paperwork Snag Could Cost City

Alders Dolores Colon, Adam Marchand, Evette Hamilton at hearing.

Tuesday, January 10, 2017 - Alder Al Paolillo Jr. ran both of his hands through his hair as he tried to process what city Budget Director Joe Clerkin had just said: $1.6 million from the state might not make it into city coffers because of uncompleted paperwork.

That’s not money designated for future capital and infrastructure investments; that’s money the city has already spent and counted on getting back.

“So we’re not getting the [money] from the state?” Paolillo asked. “And the state just told us this?”

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Rose: Heed Us, Or Pay Your Own Bill

Rose at Monday night’s hearing.

Tuesday, January 10, 2017 - Can the city’s chief legal adviser deny representation to a department head who refuses to heed his advice? Should the city have to foot the bill when a city employee then seeks outside counsel?

These two questions occupied the first half of a nearly three-hour meeting held by the Board of Alders Finance Committee at City Hall Monday night.

A unified front of alders pushed and pulled with city Corporation Counsel John Rose Jr.over just how far the city’s legal department should go to defend municipal employees caught up in legal disputes, especially when those clients disregard the advice offered by the city’s appointed attorneys.

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