City Fiscal Crisis: Councilor and Mayoral Candidate Sam Yoon Presents Proposed Fixes at Community Hearing

BOSTON/Dorchester - When Boston Mayor Thomas Menino presents his proposed 2010 fiscal budget to the City Council on Wednesday he will have to address a shortfall of approximately $140 million dollars. According to the Boston Finance Commission’s February 2009 report on the municipal budget “the financial deficit facing the City of Boston is the city’s most serious financial problem since the implementation of Proposition 2 1/2.” Proposition 2 1/2 passed in 1980 by Massachusetts voters in a statewide ballot initiative limits the amount of money cities and towns can raise through increases in property taxes. On Tuesday City Councilor At Large Sam Yoon convened a public meeting of the council’s Post Audit and Oversight Committee - which he chairs and has responsibility for reviewing Finance Commission reports - in the Great Hall of the Codman Square Health Center in Dorchester. About 75 residents activists and council staff were in attendance. “The idea of looking to find ways to save revenues is…critical ” said community advocate Horace Small of the Union of Minority Neighborhoods “because we all recognize as we’re fighting for our schools as we’re fighting for our communities…for our programs the fight this year will have to be the same fight next year. “And it just seems we kind of don’t need to be doing this year in and year out ” he added making a case for long term solutions. In its report the Finance Commission makes a dozen recommendations. These include reducing the number of veteran city employees – between 300 and 400 jobs - earning the highest salaries and “reorganizing” the operations of the Boston Fire Department. The report calls for “significant financial savings” at the Fire Department through reorganization “that makes economic and operational sense to the City of Boston. The first step should be to start at the top and reduce the number of high paying jobs many of which are no longer needed to effectively manage the BFD.” The report applauds the hiring of civilian leadership within the department in recent years. While not officially endorsing the more than a dozen recommendations Councilor Yoon expressed enthusiasm for the work of the Finance Commission and worried out loud that a lack of public concern and input could lead to the proposed solutions being ignored by elected officials. “So when I saw this report come out I realized if we don’t bring this out to you if you don’t understand what they’re saying a dozen different ways to save money in the budget this report will sit on a shelf somewhere in City Hall and collect dust.” Yoon who is running for Mayor this year and has voted against Menino’s proposed budget all three years he has sat on the city council emphasized aspects of the Financial Commission report that he termed reform of the “ways the city works” as opposed to temporary “cost cutting measures” such as the wage freeze proposed by the current executive. “And the Boston Finance Commission says we like that idea [a wage freeze] that would save $55 million… But that’s one year that’s temporary. It doesn’t address the way we need to eliminate wasteful spending that’s permanent; that would make a difference not just this year but the year after and the year after…which is what we need to be about. “We need to be talking about thinking about the city’s long term future. And…an economic crisis is just the time we need to do that.” Yoon focused his remarks on five proposed reforms in the report: reducing overtime eliminating high salary jobs fixing what critics call a broken payroll system modernizing the Boston Fire Department and selling or otherwise figuring out how to draw revenue from city owned properties. In a likely preview of the political battles that will ensue during the mayoral race Judith Curland Menino’s Chief of Staff defended her boss’s record. “Most of the things you mentioned here today of the five and the ones you didn’t mention but that are in the report there has been progress made already in the city.” Curland reiterated that Financial Commission Executive Director Jeff Conley has endorsed the wage freeze and changes made by the fire commissioner and added “…there are a lot of things we hope we will be able to achieve in addition to the ones we have already achieved.” By law according to Curland the Mayor must present his budget on the second Wednesday in April; in this case April 8th. Public testimony at the hearing included residents who think government is too big and wasteful several candidates for elected office with their own prescriptions and city workers who deal with contentious contract negotiations. Richard Paris Vice President of Local 718 of the Firefighters Union asked people to remember that he and his colleagues have been working three years without a raise – or formal contract. Among its proposed changes to the Fire Department the Finance Commission recommends eliminating the Fire Alarm Division of the BFD. “The Fire Alarm Division…has been cited in every outside review as one that should be reduced in size with an eye towards elimination ” states the Commission’s February report. In response to calls to stop maintaining the old style red emergency call boxes – for a savings of $2 Million according to an estimate provided by Councilor Yoon – Paris recounted an incident in Dorchester. “Recently we had a fire on Blue Hill Avenue where firefighters saved four kids on the third floor of a three decker. The box was hitched one minute before the call came in… The boxes are very important not everyone has a cell phone.” While sympathetic to the City’s financial plight Paris said 2009 isn’t the only year the city has faced a deficit. “Back in 1980 they cut 22 stations that brought our manpower down to 16 hundred. It is now 13 hundred. That’s why our overtime is up. We need men on firetrucks.” Residents in attendance had a mixed reaction to the hearing. Back Bay activist Shirley Kressel thinks Boston will continue to face massive deficits unless it takes bold action. She supports eliminating the Boston Redevelopment Authority and selling off city owned property in a timely manner. As examples of city and BRA mismanagement she cited two downtown properties Winthrop Square and Hayward Place which she said is “an open parking lot. It fetched $23 million for a zoning compliant project. Instead of selling it like it should have been sold by the city for $23 million to build housing which we could have used 315 units of housing the Mayor gave it away for free to the BRA. And they never sold it at all.” “We need to do something with surplus property ” Yoon agreed insisting that reform of the BRA will be part of any budget process. Youth worker Allentza Michel who testified she thought estimates of the cost of police details at ethnic festivals were too high said she found the hearing useful but added “there’s nothing definitive…we’re ready to actually see some action and this meeting didn’t say anything about taking any steps forward.” Councilor Yoon perhaps sensing this attitude ended the meeting by saying the process of reviewing solutions to the city’s fiscal crisis was just beginning and that conversations would continue. He added the Post Audit and Oversight Committee would be in "recess" until the next time members address the budget in public. Web Resources: February 2009 Finance Commission Report posted here: http://www.universalhub.com/node/23472 Bookmark/Search this post with: Delicious Digg StumbleUpon Reddit Newsvine Facebook Google Yahoo Technorati