September 24, 2009
Victory for New Haven Neighborhoods:
Historic Home Tax Credit Survives
June 25, 2009
New Haven & The State Budget: What's At Stake?
March 31, 2009
Rell's Health Chief Pulls Plug on Infant Mortality Programs
October 6, 2008
Wachovia Merger Threatens State's Colleges
September 19, 2008
Bush Officials To the Levees To Shore Up Markets
September 17, 2008
A Financial Katrina
September 9, 2008
Call Petula Clark
June 26, 2008
Gun Ownership Right Affirmed
March 17, 2008
Wall St Woes Bode Ill for CT Budget
December 5, 2007
What State Cut?
October 30, 2007
$4B Bond Bill Passes
June 11, 2007
Hope on Guns -- And Gun Injuries
May 30, 2007
Presidential Politics Imperil Connecticut's AIDS Fight
VICTORY FOR NEW HAVEN NEIGHBORHOODS:
HISTORIC HOME TAX CREDIT SURVIVES
The budget implementer, adopted in a late-night session by the Connecticut House of Representatives Wednesday, contains good news for New Haven. The Historic Home Tax Credit, which Gov. Rell had tried to eliminate, is left intact.
The tax credit has been an essential tool for restoring homes in transitional neighborhoods. Although the statewide program is relatively small — $10 million — it has an outsized impact on New Haven: $4.8 million, or 48 percent, of the statewide activity is in New Haven zip codes, and has generated over $20 million in business for local contractors.
West River activist John Fitzpatrick, whose restoration led him to other civic efforts in West River, contacted New Haven legislators and made an economic and civic case for retaining the credit.
New Haven & The State Budget: What's At Stake?
The public debate over Connecticut's looming budget issues has employed familiar symbols: a Republican governor who claims to oppose taxes, a Democratic majority advocating for aid to towns and opposing cuts to programs for the poor.
But less discussed, and buried in the details of Governor Rell's budget, are a number of program changes that, together, would have a disproportionate, and negative, effect on New Haven. Below is a short list of some of the Rell proposals.
Suspending the Historic Home and Structures Tax Credit
Rell proposes saving $10 million by suspending this credit altogether, at the same time retaining the tax credit for film production at $30 million.
While, ironically, CT Voices for Children has calculated that much of the economic benefit of the film credit goes to out of state production costs, there is no dispute about the historic credit.
In addition to the benefit of upgrading housing stock and providing livable homes and neighborhoods, every carpenter, painter, roofer, or general contractor restoring these structures lives right here in Connecticut, mostly self employed small businesses.
And those contractors live largely in the New Haven area.
From 2000-2008, 48 percent of the projects qualifying for the historic home credit were in a New Haven city zip code (but pipeline projects and pent up demand are not included here). While the cost of that tax credit from 2000-2008 has been $4.8 million, the total project costs for New Haven projects so far were over $20 million, without even calculating the multiplier effect of job creation.
For now, the Democratic budget retains this credit. But its impact on New Haven is so great, that we need unity - and allies - to keep it if Governor Rell vetoes this first budget.
St Raphael's Hospital
As of February 2009, St Raphael's employed 4,200 people and is a major provider of health care and jobs for New Haven. But it faces a deficit.
The Rell budget provides no relief. In fact, one remedy — to use stimulus dollars to raise rates for St. Raphael's to equal the same level Yale gets — is foreclosed by Rell, because she has used stimulus dollars to plug budget holes and avoid more tax increases. This strategy undermines the point of the federal stimulus.
The Democratic budget includes a SAGA waiver that can provide some relief to all hospitals with large General Assistance populations. It isn't specific to St Ray's, and doesn't go as far we'd like.
But it's an important start, and critical to New Haven health care and jobs.
Westville Village
Westville Village Renaissance has made important advances in economic development. They became certified by Connecticut Main Street, and are working on strategies to strengthen Westville businesses, all of whom pay taxes and employ local people. Rell eliminates the core operating dollars for WVRA.
STRIVE
STRIVE provides career counseling and job training for New Haven residents. It is best known for its work in prison re-entry. But as it approaches its tenth anniversary, STRIVE has broadened its mission to include soldiers returning from Iraq who are struggling to find a job.
The Rell budget wipes out STRIVE's state subsidy, which leverages private dollars.
Solar Youth
Solar Youth works with inner city youth on environmental education, and has also proved to foster leadership skills.
Based in the West Rock area, it serves young people citywide, at Barnard School and in Fair Haven.
Last year, Governor Rell rescinded new dollars to enable Solar to do fundraising and become more self reliant. This year Rell proposes cutting all state funds to Solar.
New Haven Boys and Girls Club
The Rell budget eliminates the "Neighborhood Youth Center" line item, which includes $1 million to Boys and Girls Clubs statewide.
New Haven's portion of that line item is a critical part of their operating budget, one which enables them to leverage other dollars.
FIMR
The total state allocation for FIMR, community-based prevention of infant mortality, is $300,000 — the same as the average cost of caring for a low birth weight baby on Medicaid. The Rell budget eliminates the program entirely. The Democratic budget - for now — restores it.
EMS Council of South Central Connecticut
EMS Councils serve thirty towns and work with first responders - police and fire - at times of crisis. When this region faced an anthrax crisis, it was this council that coordinated work among the first responders. It also tests EMS providers for recertification. Although the towns contribute in some regions, the South Central Council has no access to carry over funds.
As of July 1, the South Central EMS Council will be out of funds due to the budget standoff.
The budget is still a fluid document, but most of these programs are restored in the budget to be voted shortly. But demands from some Democrats and the Governor's budget office to further cut the budget means every one of these — and more — are at risk going forward.
With articulate human service agencies making the case for statewide issue, and a city government aggressive about its own wish list, local agencies risk being overlooked. But their impact is great.
This narrative does not include cuts to Junta, to libraries, a proposed 1% cut to nursing homes, or proposed cuts to CMHC, which provides psychiatric care to the mentally ill in the community. It does not include changes to HUSKY or medication for the mentally ill.
But it does provide a glimpse of what the "cuts" proposed mean for the New Haven economy.
There's a lot at stake.
Pat Dillon represents the 92nd General Assembly District.
Rell's Health Chief Pulls Plug on Infant Mortality Programs
Using sweeping authority granted by the legislature in deficit mitigation legislation, the state Department of Public Health last week canceled its 2009 contract with the New Haven area Fetal and Infant Mortality Program, or FIMR. Also affected were FIMR programs in eastern Connecticut, Windham, and central Connecticut.
The community based health program has long been targeted by Rell officials.
In past years, they proposed eliminating the program, transferring the money to the University of Connecticut for the training of first-year public health students. That action was averted by a coalition of lawmakers, and some dollars -- not all -- were restored to the programs.
The Rell budget submitted to the General Assembly for the upcoming year again proposed eliminating the program.
FIMR is a national model begun in the late 1980s to combat infant mortality. (Click here for a story about the local effort to combat a spike in infant deaths in New Haven, especially among African-Americans.)
The website of the American College of Obstretricians and Gynecologists states:
The Fetal and Infant Mortality Review process brings together key member of the community to review information from individual cases of fetal and infant death. The purpose of this type of review is to identify general community, social, economic, cultural and health systems factors highlighted by those deaths; to determine if they represent service delivery system or resource problems that require change; to develop recommendations and assist in the implementation and monitoring of the changes. Case reviews are anonymous and confidential. Source: National Fetal and Infant Mortality Review Program.
As technology improved the ability to save smaller infants and mortality dropped, FIMR emphasized improving birth outcomes -- reducing the number of low birth weight babies. One might call it "Raise the Weight".
Twenty years later, low birth-weight babies are more likely to survive the first months of life, but may take years to catch up with their peers, and may require more health care or end up in special education.
In the New Haven area, the regional FIMR brings together local health departments, state departments such as DCF, and health providers to
monitor changes in birth outcomes and examine cases to identify gaps in the system. One case study demonstrated the importance of the role of the father. Another identified gaps in communication between DCF (the child protection agency) and the state Department of Social Services.
The rationale for eliminating the program has shifted through the years, with health officials at one point belittling a local FIMR for raising money to help pay for an infant's funeral, even though this did not involve state dollars. But in fact, social support after the loss of an infant is an accepted, mainstream -- and important - -public health intervention for a grieving family. In Connecticut, just as nationally, affected families are disproportionately African American.
It appears that at least one FIMR may have been spared, and it is unclear why.
The larger question is, why is the state Department of Health so hostile to -- um -- public health? One rationale -- money -- doesn't hold up to scrutiny.
When the siege began, the total state expenditure for FIMR was $300,000. The state Department of Social Services (DSS) responded to a recent inquiry that Medicaid costs for a low-birth baby in the first year of life average approximately $300,000, ironically the same amount (although this does not include health costs later in life for infants with delayed development, and the FIMR program dollars have been cut since then) .
So helping only one infant avoids a Medicaid cost of $300,000 and could recoup the whole cost of the FIMR program
It might also save a life -- priceless.
Wachovia Merger Threatens State's Colleges
Wachovia Bank's proposed merger with Wells Fargo may affect Connecticut colleges, universities, and other nonprofits unless Connecticut officials intervene to make sure assets are protected.
Why? Because Wachovia is the trustee of Commonfund. Commonfund manages $42 billion in assets for colleges and non profits nationwide, including funds from Connecticut colleges and universities.
The Wachovia move — and its possible consequences — are yet another example of the ripple effect of the wreckage on Wall Street.
This week Commonfund restricted redemptions from the fund and said its assets would be liquidated. The move may affect the financial positions of any Connecticut colleges and nonprofits that use Commonfund for short-term accounts.
Even if Wachovia and Commonfund ultimately release the dollars (after the initial shock, Wachovia suggested funds may be released by 2010), organizations may have difficulty paying vendors or even worse, meeting payroll. Connecticut colleges may be less affected than Minnesota, or the University of Vermont, but every dollar counts now.
The endowments of many colleges have already been hit by sharp downturns in the market.
Wachovia is one of many banks seeking a buyer. It appears that the Wells Fargo move is a better deal for Wachovia shareholders than the alternative proposed merger with Citibank, but it is unclear what the terms of the Wells Fargo merger are and what the fate of Commonfund participants will be.
Even if colleges get their money back from Commonfund, it may take time and thus hurt cash flow.
Financial aid for students, and access to a college degree, may be affected.
In a knowledge economy, access to higher education is crucial not only for future students, but also for an educated workforce and job creation.
Gov. Rell and Attorney General Blumenthal are best positioned to reach out to nonprofits — and to Wachovia — to protect our universities. Bob Steele, president of Wachovia, lives right here in Greenwich.
We should take advantage of that.
Pat Dillon is a state representative from New Haven.
Bush Officials To the Levees To Shore Up Markets
In a dramatic move early Friday, the SEC imposed a temporary ban on short selling in U.S. financial markets.
Imposed on the day that the expiration of stock options threatens further
erosion in capital markets, the measure, if successful, should result in large gains today in major indexes.
It follows similar moves in the UK and in CALPERS, California's massive pension fund.
The Wall Street Journal had reported that last weekend, financial leaders had pleaded with Bush officials that the SEC take similar action, only to be rebuffed. Subsequent days saw the bankruptcy filing of Lehman Brothers, a federal takeover of AIG insurance, and the shuttering of possibly two major money market funds as their assets deteriorated.
Although the measure is temporary, it is an implicit admission that the repeal of New Deal reforms enacted in the wake of the 1929 market crash contributed to the financial crisis.
Most Americans do not follow the intricacies of stock market regulations. But they do know that their savings and pension funds have suffered serious erosion.
Gains today will not undo the wreckage of the past week.
Coming at the end of the week, it may change the psychology of a market that seemed to be feeding on itself.
Despite the complexity of SEC rules, at the end, much of the market operates implicitly on confidence and trust.
Today's measure is an attempt to restore that trust.
A Financial Katrina
This week's meltdown on Wall Street is a financial Katrina. Just as a hurricane in the Gulf was foreseeable, a correction in the market for structured finance was foreseeable. Corrections are part of the cycle, as are tropical storms. Neither the hurricane nor the correction was caused by government.
But in both cases, the catastrophe — and for many, it will be — was a result of the failure of governmental institutions to plan for disaster, or to safeguard the safety and soundness of our markets and therefore the financial security of our citizens. The results will be felt in loss of jobs, losses in our state pension funds, loss of state revenue — particularly, but not only, in Fairfield County — loss of adequate revenue to cities, loss of access to credit, and reductions in retirement accounts just as large numbers of baby boomers are retiring.
In this case, the backdrop happens to be partisan and ideological, because reforms enacted by FDR during the Depression in the wake of the stock market crash were repealed by Republicans. Complex areas of the market operated without transparency, much less regulation.
The table was set in 1999, when the Republican Senate in Congress, led by Senator Phil Gramm over the threat of a Clinton veto, repealed the Glass-Steagall Act which had prevented banks from making risky investments with customer's deposits. Another Depression reform (1938) was the uptick rule restricting short selling. Bush's SEC repealed the uptick rule in 2007.
Depression reforms certainly created winners and losers, and markets had changed, so reform was needed. But Phil Gramm didn't want update or reform. He wanted repeal, and after a standoff with the Clinton White House, he got it. Then he went to work at UBS and was a McCain spokesman — until he called Americans "whiners."
This ideological bias against governmental regulation continued even after the collapse of Bear Stearns in March 2008.
Bush and Christopher Cox, chair of SEC, responded to a systemic problem as if it were a problem with individual institutions. Therefore, they did nothing to look at the capital reserves of lenders, at the lack of transparency of hedge funds, at unregulated credit swaps, at the consequences of repeal of Glass Steagall or the effect of the uptick rule repeal in a down market.
Instead, Cox walled off 19 institutions and restricted the ability to sell their stocks short. That order expired Aug. 12.
The Bush administration's emergency order was flawed for several reasons, all stemming from their insistence on seeing Bear as an individual bank run, not a symptom of systemic failure. For example, the order protected some institutions and not others, harming their rivals. In addition, those same institutions themselves had been selling short.Further, the administration had no plan after Aug. 12, the expiration of the limited order. After that, the floodgates opened.
Why is this happening now? The slide began almost as soon as the limited order expired. But an important date looms. This Friday is Triple Witching Friday, one of the four days a year when all options expire and markets become volatile - up or down. If anything would go wrong, it would go wrong this week.
It is telling that last weekend the SEC was invisible, and the Fed came to the fore, framing the issue as whether or not the government should bail out firms with taxpayer dollars.
That's the wrong question, and the outcome was predictable. Lehman's collapse triggered a run on others. If AIG had gone down, Citibank was surely next. So after doing nothing, the Bush administration intervened. Now we own AIG.
This year is a presidential election, sort of like witching Friday except in politics. So the Bush administration and Senator McCain, because they are the party of incumbents, will look for scapegoats. Wall Street and short sellers will be blamed and symbolic actions proposed. Everyone will be indignant. Perhaps a commission will be appointed.
But this is not over. Federal policymakers are just shifting blame and buying time.
Today, the SEC once again trotted out reforms of short sellers. Lame and late.
Short selling can be a legitimate tool of risk management if proper rules are set and markets are transparent. Short sellers exacerbated this, but are not to blame. And pace John McCain, the "greed" of Wall Street (exempting Phil Gramm presumably) is not to blame either. On the ground, a trader, whose salary is largely an end of year bonus, sees only his (or her) rivals.
It's the role of government to set, and enforce, ground rules to prevent dishonest traders from getting an advantage over honest ones. It's the role of government to protect the public from the incompetent.
For anyone expecting to retire within in the next five years, check your retirement account (or don't). Our state pension funds lost $50 million when only Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac went under. We'll find out the rest of the losses later.
Call Petula Clark
by Paul Bass
Westville has its own "downtown" — and, as of Tuesday, an official "Main Street" title.
Paul Bass Photo
The official designation came at a ceremony inside Whalley Avenue's Kehler Liddel gallery, one of the hubs of the neighborhood's — or "village"'s — revived commercial core. John Simone (at left in photo), president of an outfit called the Connecticut Main Street Center (CMSC), declared Westville a "Connecticut Main Street Community."
That doesn't mean Whalley Avenue will be renamed "Main Street."
It means a team of national experts will come to town to study the commercial district and help neighbors plan its future growth; hire the right full-time executive director for the Westville Renaissance Alliance (WVRA); and link the group with more expertise and investment. CMSC offers all that when it designates a commercial downtown a "Main Street." The not-for-profit group is dedicated to "bringing Connecticut's downtown commercial districts back to life."
The designation was a tribute in part to the boundless energy a growing core of volunteers, like store owner and WVRA President Gabriel DaSilva (at center in photo), have poured into the neighborhood the past few years. "Renaissance" isn't marketing-speak; it describes a true flowering of volunteerism and cultural vitality. "Downtown" Westville has exploded with ArtWalks, Edgewood Park clean-ups, gallery openings and musical events, Sunday farmers markets, flower-planting, distinctive new businesses, an artists housing complex, not to mention informal organizing brunches at coffee shops and organizing against threats to quality of life.
Tuesday's designation was also a tribute to Westville politicians who fought for government support for the district's growth, chief among them State Rep. Pat Dillon (at right in photo) and State Sen. Toni Harp. Dillon championed Westville neighbors' push for $80,000 in state money for a paid WVRA executive director, part of a $120,000 annual budget the group had to raise to qualify as a "Main Street Community."
"This gives us a chance to move beyond the volunteer model and be more sophisticated" in developing the commercial district, Dillon said.
Toni Harp (at right in photo) spoke of how Dillon was relentless at the Capitol in making sure that she and other leaders didn't let Westville's money drop out of the budget at the last minute, the way other projects often die disheartening deaths.
"Every five minutes during the budget process she would say, 'Is it in? Is it in?' She never took it for granted," Harp said.
A prime mover behind the Westville "downtown" renaissance has been Thea Buxbaum, currently WVRA's interime director. She and her husband, the sculptor Gar Waterman, converted an old factory building on West Rock Avenue into a living space and studio. More studies followed on their block; then a riverfront walkway behind their block; then West Rock Avenue's ArLoW studios, apartments and storefronts on the other side of Whalley; with a whole lot of neighborhood organizing in between.
"We're not homogenized," Buxbaum said of the neighborhood, during Tuesday's mid-day event. "We're retailers who know each other. We're property owners who reinvest."
Buxbaum and other speakers made their comments beside two "lost rabbits" painted by Laurie Grace. Grace's work is part of a three-artist critter-themed show at Kehler-Liddel. Her work shares the walls with the photos of Gale Zucker and paintings of Julie Frankel — the latest contribution to the Westville "downtown" scene.
Gun Ownership Right Affirmed
In an historic 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court Thursday struck down Washington, D.C.'s ban on handguns in D.C. v. Heller, 07-290, and ruled that the Second Amendment contains the right of an individual to possess firearms. (Click here for a summary of the D.C. law.)
The D.C. Circuit has been active on gun cases. Washington's handgun ban is broad. On March 9, 2007, a three-judge panel of the Washington, D.C. Court of Appeals had struck down parts of the D.C. law on Second Amendment grounds, the first time a federal appeals court had done so.
Connecticut does not ban handguns, but does regulate their ownership and use. PA 93-306 criminalized the sale, use, and possession of assault weapons. However, PA 90-144, which prohibits keeping an unlocked loaded firearm where a person under 18 could use it without permission, could be affected. The Court found that requiring trigger locks is unconstitutional because it renders firearms useless for self defense. The Connecticut law was prompted by a tragic accidental shooting in the Naugatuck Valley.
Justices are known to shop for cases to change precedent. The ruling finds a new right, but appears to allow regulation of firearms. Its application will be tested.
Staff lawyers at the state Capitol are researching the impact of the ruling on Connecticut firearms policy and will be issuing a report in coming weeks.
Wall St Woes Bode Ill for CT Budget
In the past week, while eyes were on the meltdown of New York Gov. Elliot Spitzer, another meltdown was in progress that can damage Connecticut's state budget and the stability of financial markets.
On March 10, Spitzer publicly acknowledged wrongdoing. Less noticed that same day, shares of Bear Stearns, a financial institution with major exposure to sub-prime mortgages, began a week long decline in share price.
By this weekend, the Federal Reserve brokered a bailout at a shocking $2 a share to preserve the stability of markets. In two days alone, $4.5 billion in equity had vaporized.
Because of the effect on the stock market, the short-term implications for Connecticut's budget will likely be losses in our pension fund investments.
Will this affect this year's budget? State revenue this year may be weakened already. We'll know more after April 15. But because we are taxed on the previous year's income, the full brunt of stock market decline will not be felt until next year. In 2002, final payments of income taxes dropped 39.3 percent because of stock market losses in 2001.
So there will be pressure to cut next year's spending in all categories, including aid to cities.
The outlook for Connecticut's state budget is at best guarded.
The financial sector is a major employer in Connecticut.
How long will the effects last? Good question. Because Bear Stearns cleared trades for hedge funds, and hedge funds are largely unregulated, it is difficult for policy makers to quantify the damage. Will this spread to banks? On Monday, a stock to watch is Lehman Brothers, another financial with exposure to sub prime mortgages.
Given Elliott Spitzer's vigilance as a prosecutor, his fall was saddening and stunning. But the principals of Bear Stearns also deserve note.
On Dec. 21, 2007, Alan Schwartz, Bear's chief executive, exercised his option to purchase 161,662 shares at zero a share and sold 67,900 shares at $89 a share for a gain of $6 million. Jimmy Cayne, chairman of Bear, sold 172,671 shares, also on Dec. 21, for a gain of $15 million. Coincidence? Or did they learn something on Dec. 21 that other shareholders — Connecticut taxpayers — didn't know??
At least Alan Schwartz showed up during this week's crisis. Jimmy Cayne was in Detroit competing in the North American Bridge Championship while his company collapsed.
Pat Dillon is a state representative from New Haven.
What State Cut?
The Independent's Capitol blogger reports that the facts don't square with an accepted truth in New Haven — the the state cut funding to the city.
In fact, it appears New Haven is $14 million ahead of last year.
* * * *
Prelude: Election Day
On Election Day, I stood at the polls on the west side of New Haven to greet people as they came to vote. Municipal elections are a good opportunity for state legislators to be available to answer questions. It's low pressure because we aren't on the ballot, and unlike when we are knocking on doors, we don't have to worry that we are intruding. People can stop to chat, or not, as they choose.
This year, they stopped to chat. In fact, there were pointed questions about state aid to New Haven, and a few indignant comments.
"How could you cut our money? Our property taxes are outrageous!" asked a voter at Edgewood School as we walked together to get in line to vote.
At Davis School, a voter asked, "Why don't you guys get how important PILOT [Payments In Lieu Of Taxes] is to us? Why did you cut it?"
The short answer is, the legislature did not cut state aid to New Haven. Aid was increased. But clearly there is an impression that state dollars were cut, when they actually increased.
Our Election Day conversations weren't news: phone calls and emails in the lead up to the election were similar, but I was surprised that the belief was so widespread.
So, as promised in an Oct. 30 post, I asked the nonpartisan Office of Fiscal Analysis to report on exactly how many new dollars were flowing from state taxpayers to New Haven taxpayers. The numbers are below, but first a warning: there's a lot of information in this post. A few caveats.
Caveats
-
The nonpartisan Office of Fiscal Analysis (OFA) does not know the budget for 169 towns, but they do know the state budget. Because only a few categories account for most aid to 169 towns, OFA usually lifts the numbers from those big categories in its report and leaves out the others. That is the standard analysis.
However, New Haven gets some dollars that other towns do not get. So I asked for another analysis — call it a custom analysis. Most legislators don't need to do that. So even in New Haven you may see a report from one legislator with one number, and another legislator with another number. They are probably both right, but reported different accounts. I have tried to account for all new dollars. But at least one category — Board of Services to the Blind — usually about $200,000 plus — is missing because the numbers aren't done yet. -
To calculate actual dollars year over year it's better to measure ongoing formula funding so we can compare apples to apples. Here Pequot gaming revenue fund and health and human services money are separated out from PILOT and ECS [educational cost sharing], but I mention them so that we can see actual dollars to the city.
-
Some education formulas were changed this year. In the Appropriations budget, school districts had been reimbursed for the same magnet school students twice, once in ECS and once in the magnet grant. The Rell people objected to that. According to staff, Rell prevailed on the merits. But New Haven got a 4.4 percent increase in ECS, so even though there appears to be a drop in magnet dollars, the dollars net out the same because the students are covered by ECS.
-
But one change made without floor debate does harm New Haven. A $20 million early reading initiative in the priority school district program will phase out in 2009. This cut was done with no bill, no debate in committee or on the floor, and no heads up to legislators before the budget vote. This year, $193,353 is cut from New Haven's priority school district line; total phase-out in 2009 will lose New Haven taxpayers $2,316,785. Since that change does not occur for a year, we have time to look at the issue, understand its impact, and restore the dollars. I have asked for a report on this from legislative staff.
-
The Rell proposal to increase special education aid by 16 percent added dollars for towns that are not eligible for new money under almost any wealth formula. That 16 percent hike remained in the final budget because the swing votes in the new Democratic majority come from wealthier towns who feel their towns don't get their fair share.
-
PILOT is complicated. Because of questions about that line item, I've asked OFA to look at the dynamics of PILOT and its budget implications going forward.
New State Dollars to New Haven FY2008*
| Education and PILOT | |
New PILOT $$ |
$1,000,015 |
Education |
|
|
8,013,210 |
|
1,255,602 |
|
395,958 |
|
241,566 |
|
194,695 |
Total new education + PILOT |
$11,191,046 |
Other New $$ to New Haven City Budget |
|
|
416,238 |
|
325,000 |
|
1,199,928 |
|
524,740 |
|
354,909 |
|
94,092 |
|
211,000 |
Total Other New $$$ |
$3,125,907 |
Total New $$ to New Haven
$11,191,046 ECS and PILOT + $ 3,125,907 other = $14,316,953
This $14,316,953 in new money compares with the $193,353 cut in Priority School District dollars.
* Acronyms:
- PILOT, or payment in lieu of taxes, reimburses towns for lost revenue for tax exempt property. One fund covers state property, another private colleges and hospitals.
- ECS, or education cost sharing, is state aid to towns for local education. It began under Gov. O'Neill as an attempt to equalize differences in wealth between towns.
$4B Bond Package Passes
And Rell's ready to sign. New Haven State Rep. Pat Dillon, the Independent's legislative blogger, gives an up-to-the-minute analysis.
After months of high stakes squabbling with the executive branch, the state Senate, and then the House of Representatives passed Emergency Bill SB-1502, the bond authorization act. The one negative vote in the House was cast by a Democrat.
Ordinarily - if there is such a thing - budget action would be completed by the first Wednesday in June.
Aside from the dollars for school construction projects already approved in regular session, the bill also authorizes reimbursement to towns for unanticipated interest costs due to delayed adoption of the bond bill. New Haven's costs exceeded $200,000.
Other highlights:
-
$2 million fund for grants to homeowners in the Beverly Hills neighborhood of New Haven, and in Woodbridge, in the vicinity of the West River, to repair structural damage.
-
$1 million to New Haven for improvements in Morris Cove drainage.
-
$2.8 million to New Haven for River Street Development project.
-
A major commitment to Southern Connecticut University. Various improvements in the upcoming budget, with an additional capital program commencing in the next budget.
In addition to bonding, there have been several requests from readers for accurate information about state funding to the city of New Haven. The state nonpartisan Office of Fiscal Analysis (OFA) is compiling the numbers, for larger spending categories, and their report will be posted when it is ready.
(Click here for Dillon's previous blog entry on this subject.)
Hope On Guns -- And Gun Injuries
The throw-rug lobby? Weak. The gun lobby? Strong. The results can be seen in the fate of gun laws here and in D.C. -- laws that can be considered public-health legislation. Yes, public health. So says New Haven State Rep. Pat Dillon (pictured), who's been blogging below-the-radar health issues in the final weeks of the legislative session.
June 11, 2007
Is gun violence a public health issue?
The NRA says no. Does it matter?
In early June, the General Assembly passed timely legislation to control gun trafficking by targeting "straw buyers," making it a felony to knowingly give guns to a person - such as a felon -- who cannot legally possess a firearm.
This measure to combat gun-related homicides occurs in contrast to the Bush White House's policy and even national Democrats' belief that gun control issues hurt the Democratic Party. The Connecticut bill follows traditional public health methods to reduce gun violence by targeting the threat - guns on the street.
Is gun violence a public health issue? Does it matter? The NRA thinks so.
Public health means collecting data, and it means prevention. Data doesn't fall from the sky. Somebody - usually the government -- has to collect it. And in this case, prevention means restricting access to guns.
For 20 years before the 2000 election of G.W. Bush, the public health community, particularly the Center for Disease Control (CDC), advocated prevention. Since gun violence causes illness and death, the CDC pressed for collection of data though its injury prevention bureau to document gun violence.
Collecting data leads to information. And information is power.
Homicide with a gun is an intentional injury, and falling down on a throw rug (see May 30 entry below) is an unintentional injury. Both injuries are preventable.
But unintentional injury and intentional injury have very different politics. Collecting data on seniors falling down is one thing, but gun related homicides another. Removing throw rugs to protect seniors is one thing, removing guns from the street quite another. The throw rug lobby is apparently weak. The gun lobby, not so much.
Thus, to restrict advocacy about guns by the CDC, the National Rifle Association (NRA) became experts on the arcana of data collection, trying to stop the government from collecting statistics about guns, arguing that data collection about guns produces research with 'biased results'. With Bush's win in 2000, the NRA won.
Today, the CDC's Injury Prevention web page does not highlight firearms at all, even though gun ownership drives homicide and suicide rates. Some information can be found, but it is buried. To find out easily what is happening on our streets and, say, compare it to other countries, you can dig for the information in charts and make your own graph, find charts with old data collected in the Clinton years or go to academic sites and private advocacy groups. Not your federal government.
But the tide may turn again. Even in timid Washington, the Virginia Tech massacre has led to some progress.
And the Connecticut bill, though it takes effect in October, was certainly timely.
Less than a week after the legislature acted, police seized 601 guns, some reported stolen, from an apparent gun trafficker.
The NRA would say that death from a stolen gun has nothing to do with health.
Tell that to the families of victims.
June 4, 2007
In March of this year, the federal government shocked Connecticut health advocates and legislators by slashing support for Ryan White funds to support people with AIDS, including a 50 percent cut in dollars to Hartford and New Haven.
The Ryan White program, named for a young man with hemophilia, who died of AIDS, addresses the unmet health needs of persons living with HIV and AIDS by funding primary health care and support services.
At a time when President Bush is touting his multi-billion dollar program targeting AIDS in Africa, the action seemed hypocritical. Is politics involved? Is this another story about the callousness of the Bush administration?
Yes and no. And Ryan White dollars may even be affected by the politics of the Democratic presidential primary.
There is no question that Bush's cuts in health care and housing have harmed all vulnerable groups, including people with AIDS.
But the response to AIDS has been controversial from the start. Traditional public health measures to prevent transmission of the disease -- whether closing down bathhouses in New York, screening blood donors, encouraging use of condoms, testing mothers to prevent transmitting the disease to their babies, funding needle exchange, reporting of disease, and even promoting circumcision -- have raised tensions between autonomy and privacy of the individual and the protection of the public.
It is true that under George Bush, emphasis on AIDS prevention is tepid: opposition to both needle exchange and promotion of condoms, but encouraging talking to partners, testing moms to prevent transmission to newborns, and abstinence.
Even so, tensions over prevention measures do not always fall along party lines.
In the past, the formula favored states with the most cases and best reporting, pioneers in AIDS prevention that also tended to be wealthier: New York, California, and Connecticut. Poorer states like Georgia fared less well, but these are also states that adopted prevention measures a decade or two later.
The proposed change shifts dollars from states with large caseloads to those with large number of new -- or incident -- cases. So in March, New Haven was cut.
Any choices about money are stark. How do we measure need? Can we keep politics out of it?
Should we send dollars to communities with large numbers of new cases, or to communities maintaining large numbers of people with AIDS? If a community has a large number of new cases, are we rewarding states that fail to prevent the disease?
As might be expected, when money is involved, where you stand depends on where you sit. Last year, the National Black Chamber of Commerce and the Gay Men's Health Crisis were in different corners.
Connecticut is a pioneer in AIDS prevention; beginning in the late 1980s, with needle exchange, we adopted aggressive measures to reduce transmitting the virus. Unlike many states with diverse populations, new cases in Connecticut are more evenly distributed by race, although minorities are still over represented.
Further, Connecticut and New York, for example, are relatively wealthy states. Is the cut political? Is it fair?
Last year, Hillary Clinton said no, at first holding up legislation because of cuts to New York. But Henry Alford of the National Black Chamber of Commerce, citing the threat to minorities in the South, questioned Clinton's action, and others speculated that she was appealing not only to New York, but California, a key state in the Democratic presidential primary.
This year, for the time being, the formula will change as proposed, and reaction has been more muted than last year. Recently, Congress replaced some dollars with supplemental funds, but large gaps remain The Connecticut Appropriations budget adds back dollars to avoid layoffs and homelessness, but those line items are still being negotiated in Hartford.
So -- would George Bush divert money from New York, California, and Connecticut to Florida, Georgia, and Texas for political reasons? In a New York minute. But Democratic lawmakers in the South would cheer him on because it helps their communities.
For this year, supplemental funds and state dollars buy time, but avoid painful decisions about rationing dollars and building grassroots support for measures to prevent AIDS.
May 30, 2007
The most serious medical conditions for seniors are mystifying, require teams of physician detectives to diagnose, and require major investments in biomedical research in search for a cure. Right?
Wrong. If you are over 70, a better quality of life, and the choice to stay in your own home rather than a nursing home, could be undone in a flash by a throw rug.
If you slip on a throw rug in your home, you may require surgery for a broken hip, take months to recover, and you may never regain full mobility. You may spend months, or even years, in a nursing home.
One of the most expensive, most common, and most preventable health problems for those over 70 is slipping and falling down. Falls are more frequent than strokes and almost as serious in their consequences, such as hip replacement. Falls lead to a loss of function, decline in activities of daily living, and higher likelihood of placement in long term care. Falling is the leading cause of injury-related deaths in seniors, and costs $20 billon annually.
This year the Democratic state budget proposes to do something about it.
For years, advocates have urged legislators to include prevention programs in the state budget. But when a Senator from Manchester, Sen. Mary Ann Handly, suffered a fall on the punishing marble steps of the state Capitol, the issue had a human face, and legislators paid attention.
As it happens, a New Haven researcher, Dr. Mary Tinetti, authored the groundbreaking article in 1994 that demonstrated the consequences of falls. Most importantly, she argued that falls are preventable, and that preventing falls saves money in health costs.
This year's Appropriations budget proposes a pilot program to assess risks to seniors, and interventions to make seniors safer. If the program survives budget talks, it's a safe bet that seniors will be hearing more about throw rugs.
May 28, 2007
On the eve of this Memorial Day weekend, 70 percent of Americans disapproved of President Bush's job helping returning troops. Professionals testifying before Congress faulted the Department of Defense for failure to identify post traumatic stress (PTSD), predicting a future of "loneliness and family breakdown" if the mental health needs of soldiers and their families are not met.
But in Connecticut, 500 National Guard members returning from Afghanistan - and their families - were the first to share in a unique program to intervene quickly at the sign of mental health or substance abuse problems with veterans in the Guard and reserves along with their families. Although younger veterans of Iraq are at higher risk for suicide, stresses between couples and anxiety in children of soldiers is also common.
The Military Family Support Program is a network of trained psychologists, social workers, and substance abuse counselors available statewide for those who call a confidential hotline, (866) 251-2913. Funded by the proceeds of the sale of Fairfield Hills Hospital, which housed the mentally ill, the program is the first contact and the payer of last resort for the behavioral health needs of military and families who may lack health insurance coverage. Since it is state funded, soldiers can call for counseling and referral without fear of hurting their military careers.
Planning for the program began in 2003, when the Iraq invasion relied heavily on National Guard and reservists who lack the benefits, social supports, and even eligibility of career military. In addition, red tape in federal programs can delay treatment for those who are eligible on paper at a critical time of adjustment.
Today the picture is worse than expected at the outset of the invasion. Extended deployments and the stress of urban warfare have resulted in higher levels of PTSD and suicide than the Vietnam War. It could climb to 35 percent of military, with Iraq veterans at higher risk, and even the Pentagon is taking notice.
Family impact is not known because the Pentagon does not study National Guard or reserve families. In addition to providing timely care for families, learning about the stresses - and gaps in coverage -- of Guard and reserve families through the Connecticut initiative may help in meeting the needs of the uninsured.
You can find GAO reports on veterans here.
May 13, 2007
One public health dispute overshadowed by other health initiatives involves community-based efforts to improve the health of newborns. In the late 1980s, New Haven had the highest infant mortality rate in the country.
At the time the state was paying $1 million to hospitalize babies born early, but there were few prevention efforts. In response, activists and legislators designed and funded a number of programs targeting pregnant women.
One program, FIMR, or Fetal and Infant Mortality Review, based on a national model, brings together providers and community to share information and best practices. New Haven's regional program, which includes 15 towns, has had the most dramatic results.
But FIMR is under siege.This past year, state bureaucrats cut community programs - New Haven was cut 46.3 percent -- and gave the dollars to a researcher at the University of Connecticut. UConn's political power at the capitol is legendary, and it seemed to be winning. This year, the Health Department says it will wipe out remaining local programs.
But a coalition of lawmakers from New Haven, New Britain, Manchester, Hartford, and Willimantic is fighting back, supporting legislation to compel the department to fund community efforts. Many New Haveners, including Maria Damiani of New Haven's Health Department and Dr. Brian Karsif, provided powerful testimony in support of community based health.
Although the dollars are small -- $300,000 in a budget of $16 million -- the stakes are high, especially for African-American babies. Infant mortality is down, but African-American babies are still at risk for low birth weight.
May 9, 2007
This month's rallies for universal health care in Connecticut have been important to create the climate for change in our health system.
At the same time, legislative committees are working to restore or expand the building blocks of our current system.
Legislators were quick to restore a proposed cut of 21 percent in the statewide needle exchange program pioneered in New Haven.
To the Health and Hospitals Subcommittee on Appropriations, cutting $102,000 from a successful program in a $16 billion budget was inexplicable. After all, taking infected needles out of circulation prevents transmission of HIV, and HIV costs both human lives and money in social services and corrections. Without including programs in the Department of Health or Department of Social Services, the cost of medication and hospitalization for HIV-positive inmates in the Department of Corrections alone is $7.75 million. Preventing even one more case would justify the exchange program.
The governor's budget and the Democratic budget are currently $300 million apart, so nothing is totally secure. But so far, the needle exchange has passed the first hurdle.
Presidential Politics Imperil Connecticut's AIDS Fight
Did George Bush cut Connecticut's AIDS money for political reasons? So asks New Haven State Rep. Pat Dillon, who's blogging below-the-radar health issues in the final weeks of the legislative session.
June 4, 2007
In March of this year, the federal government shocked Connecticut health advocates and legislators by slashing support for Ryan White funds to support people with AIDS, including a 50 percent cut in dollars to Hartford and New Haven.
The Ryan White program, named for a young man with hemophilia, who died of AIDS, addresses the unmet health needs of persons living with HIV and AIDS by funding primary health care and support services.
At a time when President Bush is touting his multi-billion dollar program targeting AIDS in Africa, the action seemed hypocritical. Is politics involved? Is this another story about the callousness of the Bush administration?
Yes and no. And Ryan White dollars may even be affected by the politics of the Democratic presidential primary.
There is no question that Bush's cuts in health care and housing have harmed all vulnerable groups, including people with AIDS.
But the response to AIDS has been controversial from the start. Traditional public health measures to prevent transmission of the disease - whether closing down bathhouses in New York, screening blood donors, encouraging use of condoms, testing mothers to prevent transmitting the disease to their babies, funding needle exchange, reporting of disease, and even promoting circumcision have raised tensions between autonomy and privacy of the individual and the protection of the public.
It is true that under George Bush, emphasis on AIDS prevention is tepid: opposition to both needle exchange and promotion of condoms, but encouraging talking to partners, testing moms to prevent transmission to newborns, and abstinence.
Even so, tensions over prevention measures do not always fall along party lines.
In the past, the formula favored states with the most cases and best reporting, pioneers in AIDS prevention that also tended to be wealthier: New York, California, and Connecticut. Poorer states like Georgia fared less well, but these are also states that adopted prevention measures a decade or two later.
The proposed change shifts dollars from states with large caseloads to those with large number of new - or incident - cases. So in March, New Haven was cut.
Any choices about money are stark. How do we measure need? Can we keep politics out of it?
Should we send dollars to communities with large numbers of new cases, or to communities maintaining large numbers of people with AIDS? If a community has a large number of new cases, are we rewarding states that fail to prevent the disease?
As might be expected, when money is involved, where you stand depends on where you sit. Last year, the National Black Chamber of Commerce and the Gay Men's Health Crisis were in different corners.
Connecticut is a pioneer in AIDS prevention; beginning in the late 1980s, with needle exchange, we adopted aggressive measures to reduce transmitting the virus. Unlike many states with diverse populations, new cases in Connecticut are more evenly distributed by race, although minorities are still over represented.
Further, Connecticut and New York, for example, are relatively wealthy states. Is the cut political? Is it fair?
Last year, Hillary Clinton said no, at first holding up legislation because of cuts to New York. But Henry Alford of the National Black Chamber of Commerce, citing the threat to minorities in the South, questioned Clinton's action, and others speculated that she was appealing not only to New York, but California, a key state in the Democratic presidential primary.
This year, for the time being, the formula will change as proposed, and reaction has been more muted than last year. Recently, Congress replaced some dollars with supplemental funds, but large gaps remain The Connecticut Appropriations budget adds back dollars to avoid layoffs and homelessness, but those line items are still being negotiated in Hartford.
So - would George Bush divert money from New York, California, and Connecticut to Florida, Georgia, and Texas for political reasons? In a New York minute. But Democratic lawmakers in the South would cheer him on because it helps their communities.
For this year, supplemental funds and state dollars buy time, but avoid painful decisions about rationing dollars and building grassroots support for measures to prevent AIDS.
May 30, 2007
The most serious medical conditions for seniors are mystifying, require teams of physician detectives to diagnose, and require major investments in biomedical research in search for a cure. Right?
Wrong. If you are over 70, a better quality of life, and the choice to stay in your own home rather than a nursing home, could be undone in a flash by a throw rug.
If you slip on a throw rug in your home, you may require surgery for a broken hip, take months to recover, and you may never regain full mobility. You may spend months, or even years, in a nursing home.
One of the most expensive, most common, and most preventable health problems for those over 70 is slipping and falling down. Falls are more frequent than strokes and almost as serious in their consequences, such as hip replacement. Falls lead to a loss of function, decline in activities of daily living, and higher likelihood of placement in long term care. Falling is the leading cause of injury-related deaths in seniors, and costs $20 billon annually.
This year the Democratic state budget proposes to do something about it.
For years, advocates have urged legislators to include prevention programs in the state budget. But when a Senator from Manchester, Sen. Mary Ann Handly, suffered a fall on the punishing marble steps of the state Capitol, the issue had a human face, and legislators paid attention.
As it happens, a New Haven researcher, Dr. Mary Tinetti, authored the groundbreaking article in 1994 that demonstrated the consequences of falls. Most importantly, she argued that falls are preventable, and that preventing falls saves money in health costs.
This year's Appropriations budget proposes a pilot program to assess risks to seniors, and interventions to make seniors safer. If the program survives budget talks, it's a safe bet that seniors will be hearing more about throw rugs.
May 28, 2007
On the eve of this Memorial Day weekend, 70 percent of Americans disapproved of President Bush's job helping returning troops. Professionals testifying before Congress faulted the Department of Defense for failure to identify post traumatic stress (PTSD), predicting a future of "loneliness and family breakdown" if the mental health needs of soldiers and their families are not met.
But in Connecticut, 500 National Guard members returning from Afghanistan - and their families - were the first to share in a unique program to intervene quickly at the sign of mental health or substance abuse problems with veterans in the Guard and reserves along with their families. Although younger veterans of Iraq are at higher risk for suicide, stresses between couples and anxiety in children of soldiers is also common.
The Military Family Support Program is a network of trained psychologists, social workers, and substance abuse counselors available statewide for those who call a confidential hotline, (866) 251-2913. Funded by the proceeds of the sale of Fairfield Hills Hospital, which housed the mentally ill, the program is the first contact and the payer of last resort for the behavioral health needs of military and families who may lack health insurance coverage. Since it is state funded, soldiers can call for counseling and referral without fear of hurting their military careers.
Planning for the program began in 2003, when the Iraq invasion relied heavily on National Guard and reservists who lack the benefits, social supports, and even eligibility of career military. In addition, red tape in federal programs can delay treatment for those who are eligible on paper at a critical time of adjustment.
Today the picture is worse than expected at the outset of the invasion. Extended deployments and the stress of urban warfare have resulted in higher levels of PTSD and suicide than the Vietnam War. It could climb to 35 percent of military, with Iraq veterans at higher risk, and even the Pentagon is taking notice.
Family impact is not known because the Pentagon does not study National Guard or reserve families. In addition to providing timely care for families, learning about the stresses - and gaps in coverage -- of Guard and reserve families through the Connecticut initiative may help in meeting the needs of the uninsured.
You can find GAO reports on veterans here.
May 13, 2007
One public health dispute overshadowed by other health initiatives involves community-based efforts to improve the health of newborns. In the late 1980s, New Haven had the highest infant mortality rate in the country.
At the time the state was paying $1 million to hospitalize babies born early, but there were few prevention efforts. In response, activists and legislators designed and funded a number of programs targeting pregnant women.
One program, FIMR, or Fetal and Infant Mortality Review, based on a national model, brings together providers and community to share information and best practices. New Haven's regional program, which includes 15 towns, has had the most dramatic results.
But FIMR is under siege.This past year, state bureaucrats cut community programs - New Haven was cut 46.3 percent -- and gave the dollars to a researcher at the University of Connecticut. UConn's political power at the capitol is legendary, and it seemed to be winning. This year, the Health Department says it will wipe out remaining local programs.
But a coalition of lawmakers from New Haven, New Britain, Manchester, Hartford, and Willimantic is fighting back, supporting legislation to compel the department to fund community efforts. Many New Haveners, including Maria Damiani of New Haven's Health Department and Dr. Brian Karsif, provided powerful testimony in support of community based health.
Although the dollars are small -- $300,000 in a budget of $16 million -- the stakes are high, especially for African-American babies. Infant mortality is down, but African-American babies are still at risk for low birth weight.
May 9, 2007
This month's rallies for universal health care in Connecticut have been important to create the climate for change in our health system.
At the same time, legislative committees are working to restore or expand the building blocks of our current system.
Legislators were quick to restore a proposed cut of 21 percent in the statewide needle exchange program pioneered in New Haven.
To the Health and Hospitals Subcommittee on Appropriations, cutting $102,000 from a successful program in a $16 billion budget was inexplicable. After all, taking infected needles out of circulation prevents transmission of HIV, and HIV costs both human lives and money in social services and corrections. Without including programs in the Department of Health or Department of Social Services, the cost of medication and hospitalization for HIV-positive inmates in the Department of Corrections alone is $7.75 million. Preventing even one more case would justify the exchange program.
The governor's budget and the Democratic budget are currently $300 million apart, so nothing is totally secure. But so far, the needle exchange has passed the first hurdle.