New Rochelle City Manager Chuck Strome will propose a 2011 budget at a press conference on Wednesday. The budget will propose a 4% tax increase, no layoffs, and 5 new police officers, according to statements made by City Council Members Lou Trangucci and Richard St. Paul at a Reform Club meeting last Thursday.
Without providing specifics, Strome discussed his struggle to come up with a budget with Michael Woyton at New Rochelle Patch.
As announced previously to the City Council, New York State hit New Rochelle with a $2.5 million increase in pension contributions. At the time, Strome indicated that the City would take advantage of an option to finance 64% of the amount due ($1.6 million) and pay the balance ($900,000) in cash. The $1.6 million would financed at 5% over 10 years.
Financing pension contributions in this manner is akin to taking out a bank loan to pay off a portion of a credit card bill — it does nothing to reduce the principal but does increase financing costs. In the case of a government borrowing in this matter, it is simply a form of taxation. Any Econ 101 student is familiar with the economic theory knowns as Ricardian Equivalence under which governments can raise money either through taxes or taking on debt. Whatever this debt is called, the debt must eventually be repaid—presumably by raising taxes in the future. The choice is therefore described as “tax now or tax later”.
Strome is an Idiot…
He can’t even balance his own check book and we expect him to balance a city’s budget? It’s time for Strome to get the hell out. He, Bramson and Idoni have ruined New Rochelle. The City’s emergency response teams are already under staffed. They want to us, the people of New Rochelle, to believe that they are actually adding to the city’s emergency response support by adding 5 police officers. Even if they add 5 police officers, the department would still be under staffed. And what about the fire department? We need more fire fighters as well. Strome, Bramson and the rest of the idiot council members voted to build unnecessary residential high-rises without thinking about how much municipal man power it takes to service them. The Avalons, New Roc, and The Trump always have police and fire emergencies on a daily bases. Oh but wait, the corrupt theives in city hall lined their pockets with pay off money to get the projects passed while granting them tax abatements and understaffing our emergency response teams, while increasing our taxes and over working city employees and paying them much more in over time when it would be more cost effective to add new staff.
Like I said, Strome can’t even balance a check book, let alone a city’s budget.
The Devil’s in the DETAILS
It is my understanding that the details in the bowels of the budget, like closing Hudson Park on Mondays & Tuesdays will reduce services and recreation at a time when we need them most. The bottom line is this is an election year budget so if Strome is coming in at 4% you can bet council will use a part of the Avalon money ($3 million) to further reduce the tax increase. Amortizing the pension costs is nothing more than robbing Peter to pay Paul which has already mortgaged our children’s and grandchildren’s future. It’s time this city was managed like a business by prioritizing necessary positions, getting rid of dead weight and stop spending money they don’t have. Five new police officers is great and needed but what happens to future budgets when they reach maximum pay, advance and amass overtime to inflate their pensions? Think about this; last year 16 firefighters received termination notices and this year we will pay the firefighter contractual increases that we couldn’t last year and hire five new police officers. Is this year that much better than the previous year? No way so this is nothing more than a shell game to get re-elected.
Andrew Cuomo we need a tax cap or just bring back the 1 we had!
Nothing like good ole New Rochelle increasing taxes at 4 times the rate of inflation, but even that’s being generous because the rate of inflation in much less than 1%.
Borrowing to pay pension costs? That’s outragous, where are the union give-backs? Why aren’t there any cuts? We need less chiefs and more indians in city hall and not the other way around.
We need to get rid of Bramson and Strome once and for all. Actually, we need to dump the whole lot of them if this is what we can expect.