LTE: Papier-Mâché Elections

As yet another election approaches for East Hartford this November it’s important that we steel ourselves against the onslaught of rhetoric and look-at-me politics which threaten to swallow us whole like a Connecticut River flood. Inevitably those officials already in office will parade papier-mâché accomplishments as evidence that they deserve another term while challengers will attempt to prove they have something new, or perhaps old and ignored, to offer. We have a duty as the electors of East Hartford to demand truth and seek honest answers. We must hold those who are not forthcoming with these accountable at the polls and in the chamber hall.

One of the papier-mâché accomplishments we’re sure to see this year will be the new budget which maintains the mill rate at the same level as the previous year. While it seems like an amazing accomplishment in comparison to previous budgets by the current office holders it’s nowhere near where we need to be and appears to be the best we can ever hope for from this council and this Mayor. Sadly this zero increase budget was not balanced through serious and sustainable reductions or efficiencies. Instead it was balanced on the elimination of town maintenance items such as police vehicle replacements which will in turn need to be double funded next year, or triple funded the year after and temporary union concessions. Certainly these are enough to get the Mayor and Council through this election if unchallenged on the facts but the reality is that we will all pay heavily for this next year and the years after when these false savings have to be paid for. The Mayor and Council have made no progress whatsoever in halting the freefall of our grand list, one of the two major drivers of our ever increasing taxes.

Interestingly prior to the 2007 municipal election the Mayor and Council played the same trick on us proclaiming they had shrunk the budget only to make up for it in 2008 giving grand speeches defending an increase in the Mayor’s salary and condemning the acts of previous councils, which most of the council members conveniently forgot they were a part of, in failing to fund maintenance spending. That year we let them get away with it. This time let’s not fall for it again.

By the way, have you thought of running for office? Maybe it’s time.

Jon Searles
East Hartford

Assessment Appeals, know your rights.

The deadline has passed on assessment appeals. I did not personally appeal my assessment but I value my right to do so, every year if need be.

I was very disheartened to see the disinformation campaign that came out of the Mayor’s office in response to Councilman Thompson’s letter in the Gazette encouraging residents to appeal their assessments. The Mayor and her representatives, including the Tax Assessor, have been attempting to use the ambiguity of our great English language and the general ignorance of the CT General Statutes which exists in the citizenry to convince us that we don’t have the right to appeal our assessments. That is wrong and they know it.

From CGA 12-62(b)(1):

The town shall use assessments derived from each such revaluation for the purpose of levying property taxes for the assessment year in which such revaluation is effective and for each assessment year that follows until the ensuing revaluation becomes effective.

This is the section that the Mayor, her legal counsel and the tax assessor claim as the rule that sets your assessment to the revaluation value and disallows an assessment appeal based on the 16+ percent decline in the value of your property since the last revaluation. I can only believe that these three are being intentionally obtuse on this issue. The fault in their logic is clearly defined when time is taken to read the entirety of the statutes in question. One major issue comes from their interpretation of the word derived. They are defining derived to mean “the same as”. Derived has no legal definition, so here are few common dictionary definitions from the web:

Princeton Wordnet:
develop or evolve from a latent or potential state

Dictionary.com
to receive or obtain from a source or origin

A synonym of derived is “educe” which means “to infer or deduce”.

As you can see derived does not mean “same as”. When something is derived it is developed or built upon from a source. In the case of your assessment this means that the revaluation value is modified by data pertinent to the assessment to derive the current assessment. This interpretation, unlike the Mayor’s, is supported by other language in the statutes.  First, had the legislation been intended to do as the Mayor et al. suggested the word derived would not need to appear in the language of the statute at all. Instead it would read:

The town shall use assessments from each such revaluation for the purpose of levying property taxes for the assessment year in which such revaluation is effective and for each assessment year that follows until the ensuing revaluation becomes effective.

Do you see how that one word changes the entire paragraph? The second support comes from CGS 12-55(b) which reads as follows:

Prior to taking and subscribing to the oath upon the grand list, the assessor or board of assessors shall equalize the assessments of property in the town, if necessary, and make any assessment omitted by mistake or required by law. The assessor or board of assessors may increase or decrease the valuation of any property as reflected in the last-preceding grand list, or the valuation as stated in any personal property declaration or report received pursuant to this chapter. In each case of any increase in valuation of a property above the valuation of such property in the last-preceding grand list, or the valuation, if any, stated by the person filing such declaration or report, the assessor or board of assessors shall mail a written notice of assessment increase to the last-known address of the owner of the property the valuation of which has increased. All such notices shall be subject to the provisions of subsection (c) of this section. Notwithstanding the provisions of this section, a notice of increase shall not be required in any year with respect to a registered motor vehicle the valuation of which has increased. In the year of a revaluation, the notice of increase sent in accordance with subsection (f) of section 12-62 shall be in lieu of the notice required by this section

This section clearly demonstrates that the current assessment is set each and every year and can vary year to year separate from a change based on revaluation. If your assessment increases the assessor must specifically give notice of your right to appeal, but it exists regardless of any notice received from the assessor and regardless of whether your assessment goes up, down or remains the same. This clearly voids the reasoning given to us by the Mayor and others.

As I commented on the Gazette website, I understand the knee jerk reaction to Mr. Thompson’s letter. Imagine if say 100 of the 1000’s of households in East Hartford appealed their assessment and succeeded.  Based on the average reval assessment and a 20% decline in value since the reval the town would stand to lose $79,112 in revenue. Imagine now if the number of appeals reached 1000 or if some of the higher valued neighborhoods started appealing. The town’s tax and spend history would catch up with it rapidly. Fear is no excuse for lies, especially from our elected representatives. It is inexcusable for the Mayor and her representatives to be misinforming the citizenry in the manner which they been on this issue.

Grand list shrinks…. again. Does this mean tax increases?

The grand list has shrunk again this year marking a consistent trend during the term of Mayor Melody Currey. The only years not showing a drop in the list were attributed to the widely unpopular revaluation, but even the reval adjusted list shrank. This history makes it disingenuous at best when the Finance Director and Mayor make their public budget projections based on the grand list not shrinking.

Despite the annual drop in the list the Mayor has submitted budget after budget which increases the spending of the town without regard for the tax impact on the citizens. Last year some of the council members were declaring victory that the mill rate had fallen despite the fact that the actual tax impact on East Hartford Residents had never been higher.

Now, almost 12 months later foreclosures have become an epidemic and the per household tax burden is approaching $400 per month. Could the two be related? You be the judge.

The newly release Net Taxable Grand List is $3,103,953,346 down $43,013,279 from $3,146,966,625 for the 08/09 budget year. When multiplied by the 98% collection rate that gives the town $3,041874,279 of property to base the mill rate on.

To maintain the same level of spending as 08/09 which was itself an abusive budget tax increases are required.

So far the Mayor has revealed a drop in Non-Tax Revenue of 3.2 million of 08/09 which we’ll assume will exist in 09/10 as well. That brings the Non-Tax Revenue estimate to $55,622,281 reducing portion of the 08/09 spending level of $155,830,432 which needs to be raised through property tax to $100,208151. That means a minimum mill rate of 32.94 to maintain spending. That translates to an average tax increase of $184 or $15/month per household. That’s 4% in one year. How many residents lost their jobs, forget received a 4% increase in wages. As a portion of household income property tax would represent burden of 11.52%  up from 11.07% in 08/09. At this growth rate the local property tax burden will equal 14% of the average household income within 5 years.

This picture will get worse as PILOT, ECS and grant money dries up. It’s also going to be magnified many fold if the BoE doesn’t get it’s act together and commit to a serious trimming of fat in the East Hartford education district. So far the BoE has offered no substance to indicate they understand the problem.

What our officials need to do is draw a line. They need to understand that a ZERO increase in all areas of the budget is the starting point this year. They need to pare down from there. To even pretend to be serious about the plight of the businesses and residents of East Hartford our officials must cut spending by $3.9 Million. To properly govern they probably ought to pare at least 3 times that and, as unpopular as it will be with those who have a vested interest, most needs to come from the education side.

The Mayor’s public statements so far have been encouraging, but given the history of East Hartford’s government I’d be surprised if they could even hold the budget, forget implementing the reductions required to prevent a tax increase.

Property values impacted by proposed budgets

It’s budget season again and we find ourselves in a situation considerably more dire than last cycle. Property values  have throttled into full reverse and non-energy cost of living items are sky rocketing. Hyperinflation looms as the single greatest threat to the nation thanks to the knee jerk reactions of congress, the president and the clowns placed in charge of our supposedly free market economy, Paulson and Bernanke. It’s all too likely that soon the millions who have rescued what little is left of their retirements from the markets will lose the remainder’s value  in an inflationary tsunami caused by an unprecedented dilution of the dollar.

Many in town are officially upside down in their properties with the general value of  lower to middle end East Hartford properties dropping by about 16% in 2008 according to market information sources including Zillow and the CT Statewide MLS.

It appears that the affordability of East Hartford homes has now been entirely offset by ever increasing taxes. It should be noted that for every $72 a year that property taxes increase on a home the market value will fall $1,000. In 2008 the average homeowner saw an increase of $218 from the 08-09 budget according to the Mayor’s estimate plus new bonding costs which won’t be known until the bonds are shopped. That means the average household as defined by the Mayor’s office was handed a $3,000 decrease in property value upon budget approval on top of the uncontrollable market decline caused by the mortgage mess.

Some positives we have going for us this time around include the freeze and 5% reduction in budgets that the Mayor called for, but it’s unclear whether any such reductions will materialize. What we do know for sure at this point is that the BOE has no intention of  reducing their budget by 5%. In fact they haven’t even frozen it at it’s previous level.

The BOE so far is handing down a budget with over 3 million in increases and it’s generally believed that the town could see another $5 million or more in lost state aid as a result of the state’s budget deficit. The combined $8 million dollar increase in taxpayer liability would represent a new mill rate of 34.29 based on the 08/09 grand list, an increase of 2.6 mills or about $380/year for the average household. It also represents a further decline of $5,200 in the average property value. That’s a two year total of $8,200 less that the average family would receive upon selling their home which is entirely the fault of runaway government and the citizens who won’t hold it accountable.

A State Rep. and State Senator walked into office thumbing their noses at the taxpayers by abusing public campaign funds and nobody cared. The East Hartford Taxpayers Association met and 20 citizens showed up. The Gazette reported that nobody cared. When I consider that I’ve seen the chambers fuller to protest a gas station on Silver Lane than I ever have for a tax issue I can’t help but say that I agree. It appears nobody cares.

We are given a short window of opportunity each year to express our views on taxes and the budget and it should not be squandered. If there is anyone who does care that your property values and quality of life are being eviscerated by taxation now is the time to speak up. Write a letter, tell a friend, tell your officials what you want. These tax increases are not an inconvenience of life to be accepted. They are the bearers of foreclosure, broken homes and economic stagnation and must be rejected soundly.

Board of Education 09/10 Proposed Budget

While we make something happen others are busy wasting.

Thanks.

Thanks to everyone who contributed to yesterday’s successful fundraiser. With your help we will make something happen in East Hartford and Connecticut as a whole.

We have a long road ahead of us before we, caring citizens and taxpayers of all affiliations, will be able to reverse the damage of years of reactionary policy making.

Preemptive waste

In East Hartford we have 3 candidates running unopposed. Henry Genga (D) in the 10th House, Tim Larson (D) in the 11th House and Gary LeBeau (D) in the 3rd Senatorial district.

Being unopposed you would think that these candidates would opt not to run a campaign, or at least not with our tax dollars. What I’ve found is that 2 of these candidates decided it would be a prudent and responsible choice for them to use our hard earned and easily stolen tax dollars to campaign against nobody. Where is the conscience in these candidates? Where is the sense of fiscal responsibility? The desire to help the electors in the district? I can’t think of a more clear example of the spend it because you can mindset that is destroying this town, this state and this nation.

Shame on Henry Genga

Shame on Gary LeBeau

These two representatives were there when the law was written to allow unopposed candidates to fleece the taxpayers by receiving campaign grants and it’s now clear why they didn’t change it.

I find it insulting that both these candidates are triple dipping into our pockets without remorse. First they created taxpayer funded careers for themselves in the East Hartford School District, then they decided they needed taxpayer funded representative salaries and now they are grabbing at taxpayer dollars to further their own personal political aspirations. There is truly no better definition of an ‘establishment candidate’ at the state and local level than these two.

We know based on the vast evidence of recent history that these two excel at creating and utilizing government waste, but how are they at doing what they were elected to do, responsibly represent their constituents? It’s time for you, Mr. Genga and Mr. LeBeau, to step up and return the money you took from the Citizen’s Election Program today. Our wallets are not your personal bank accounts.

Did you see?

Jason Rojas received the endorsement of Margaret Hacket, the chair of the Manchester BOE, in the JI. Her reasoning?

Rojas understands that we need more funding for education

Wow. I wonder how Manchester taxpayers feel about that assertion. East Hartford spends about 4-5 times as much per student than the average area private school tuition. Manchester spends about the same with an average expenditure of $13,400 per student in the 07/08 budget. Will more money or yet another backer of big education finally fix the system?

Let’s take a look at the current representatives who have had their hands in the East Hartford School District.

John Larson – Current U.S. Congressman
Gary LeBeau – Current State Senator
Henry Genga – Current State House Representative
Michael Christ – Current State House Representative

Consider, we have a congressman, a state senator and two state house reps who represent the education industrial complex and East Hartford’s education system is still broken. East Hartford’s education costs are increasing at a record pace and performance is stagnant at best. Why haven’t these politicians performed on their election promises and fixed the educational system? How many times have these officials campaigned on education?

Jason Rojas’ major campaign issue, according to his candidate bio in the latest iTowns section, is reforming the property tax system. Intrigued, I read on. Sadly it appears his motivation to reform property taxes is to ensure that the educational complex is free to grow unconstrained by the ability of local taxpayers to shoulder the bill. East Hartford’s educational costs are a crushing burden on this town which are driving business and residents away. Jason’s answer? Push the burden of East Hartford’s broken system onto all the state residents through the income tax. While we spread the impact of our broken system we in turn would have to shoulder the cost of other far more expensive broken systems such as Hartford, New Haven, Waterbury and others. I suspect that in the long run everyone but those supporting the largest and worst run systems would be better off leaving education financing local.

East Hartford has been electing champions of the educational status quo, which Rojas unarguably is, for decades to all levels of government with naught but negative results election after election. Maybe it’s time for a new direction. Or as Obama might say, “Change we can believe in”.

Taxes… worse than strip clubs?

Unfortunately, despite the fact that I was in New Haven on business anyway, I was unable to attend the Masters Club v. East Hartford case in court today. The New Haven Federal District Court requires you to check your cell phones at the door and I could not be separated from my phones during business hours. I’ve not heard any updates yet from either side either.

What I did instead was go to the Raymond Library to conduct some budgetary research for a tax reform proposal I’m working on. What I found was two fold. First, the reference section has a woefully inadequate resource of town budget documents. Quite frankly, there is no where near the information required for an average resident to form a working knowledge of the budget history of East Hartford. I won’t judge too harshly however because the regular reference librarian is on vacation. There may be more information squirreled away which the other librarians don’t know about.

What I did find was interesting. The most interesting part being that student enrollment in the East Hartford School District totalled 7,438 in 1998 and increased to 7,918 in 2007 which represents a 6.4% increase in enrollment. During the same period the employment rolls of the East Hartford School District increased from 934 in 1998 to 1222 in 2007, or 30.8%. Is it any wonder why our school budget is spiralling out of control?

How much does the average employee make? According to the 08/09 BOE proposed budget the answer is $53,315 before benefits. The budgetary impact of these 288 additional employees is huge. Based on the 08/09 adopted budget’s mill rate calculation these employees represent 4.98 mills of the current 31.67 mills. In plain dollars and cents that’s $721.62 that the average taxpayer has no choice but to pay.

What was it that Bill Horan and Barbara Rossi said at budget time earlier this year? They said that taxes don’t cause foreclosures. Well, I’ll counter that by saying when this kind of unchecked excess represents $60/month extra on the “average” persons mortgage and tax increases of 5% or greater come year after year the result is the inability of the homeowner to pay the mortgage and the taxes. The average East Hartford taxpayer today has a burden before state and federal taxes of $382/month.

It can be assumed based on previous unbridled budgetary growth that when budget season ‘09 concludes the monthly tax burden will be over $400 while the median household income in East Hartford remains stagnant or falls and the grand list shrinks. 

Stay tuned, major changes for the East Hartford tax system are coming. With any luck these changes will force the BoE to realize it’s strangling this town and they’ll fix these problems voluntarily. If not, we’ll drag them kicking and screaming to an education system that this town can afford.

 

UPDATE: I did manage to find the exhibits and witness lists filed by the town and Masters Club. When you put them together you get a pretty good idea of what is being argued in court.

East Hartford (Defendant) Exhibit List
East Hartford (Defendant) Witness List
Masters Club (Plaintiff) Exhibit List
Masters Club (Plaintiff) Witness List

My $5 says the Masters Club case is two pronged.

The first prong is an attempt to demonstrate through testimony of Council & P&Z members as well as town officials that certain persons, whether in executive session or out, have indicated that the goal is to prevent clubs from coming to town. *cough* Currey *cough* Any such statement by a town official would likely lose the case right there since it is illegal for the town to regulate speech for reasons other than secondary effects.

The second prong will be ripping apart the claims of regulating for secondary effects. As you’ll see on the witness list a variety of people not named on the case have been subpoenaed to testify in addition to P&Z members. I don’t honestly believe the claim of regulating for secondary effects can be defended here, but good luck to Mr. Gerard.

On the defense side it appears their strategy is to disqualify as much of the plaintiff’s exhibit material as possible followed by an attempt to get Mr. Chu and or his real estate agent to blow the case and finally a vigorous defense of the actions of the P&Z and town hall officials to date as regulating for secondary effects.

I’m anxious to see the resolution of this preliminary injunction hearing and find out if everyone told the truth up on the stand based on what has been told to me over the months. If you are interested here is the relief that Masters Club is seeking.

Masters Club Proposed Order

How does saving money sound?

As anyone who knows me can attest, I’m cheap. That being said, my wife’s new shopping hobby might seem like a good reason for me to panic. Fortunately, this is not a normal shopping hobby. My wife has figured out how to get many of our every day items for free or nearly free through special forces style surgical shopping assaults.

She recently started a blog to share her deals and invites you to have a look if saving money makes you smile.

Her new hobby combined with the savings I’m expecting on our electric bills from switching to PP&U as our supplier should provide for a surprisingly pleasant fiscal experience going forward.

I’ll try and keep these savings in mind while the $500 tax bill I’m about to receive for our one and only car does it’s darnedest to ruin my month. Our one car combined with our property tax on a modest (being generous) home this year should be about $4300. That’s greater than 10% of the gross earnings of the average East Hartford resident and over 8.5% of the average household’s combined income. Even worse is the consideration that despite our ridiculously high tax burden our tax will fund less than one third of the education spending for one student in our school system. It would fund about 1.5 students at St. Chris or St. Rose however.

First rumblings of new budget appear

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The Republican Town Council members have released a budget position statement to accompany their budget plan which is to be voted on tonight along with the democratic plan. Hopefully I’ll get a copy of the proposed budgets, though not likely before they are passed or defeated.

Have a read and please do come to the budget meeting tonight.

Republican Budget Statement 2008-2009

As a bit of bonus material I calculated the visible tax burden in our CL&P bills.
As a percentage of the entire bill state tax (that’s what all those fees ultimately are) come to a full 29% of the total delivery bill they are assessed against. This is our energy crisis. I use an energy aggregator as my supply provider so your tax burden may even be higher if you use cl&p.

Take a look at your bill. It’s quite enlightening and enraging at the same time.