To the Editor:
The BET’s recommendation for almost a 3 percent increase of city taxes (and its certain approval by the Council) will encourage continued stagnation in city residential properties amidst a national housing recovery and economic recovery into its sixth year.
The growing disparity between the economic vitality of our neighboring towns and Stamford with Norwalk’s depressed condition will only accentuate. Over the past two decades city spending has surged 55 percent while per capita resident income has barely increased — up only about 10 percent. The main beneficiaries of that spending surge have been incomes of city workers — the highest paid of any city in the state. Witness our teacher salaries at fifth highest in the state. City workers return the favor by living elsewhere claiming Norwalk’s taxes are too high!
Mayor Rilling’s claim that 85 percent of the city budget is “mandated” merits attention. The obvious question is mandated by whom? city labor union contracts do not preclude reducing the labor force. The mayor is not precluded from asking city managers to do more with fewer resources — common practice in the private sector. Nor is the mayor precluded from hiring more competent city managers to replace our long tenured ones who only deliver the same services at ever higher cost. Nothing better illustrates the “Norwalk City Hall mentality” than observing what happened during the Great Recession. While cities across the nation were routinely decreasing their budgets Norwalk’s budget and taxes actually increased.
City officials have long complained about our inability to attract new business to Norwalk but seem oblivious to the destructive effectives of ever increasing city budgets in a community whose per captia income has barely grown. Stagnant property values and a declining Grand List serve as bellwethers to the business community to invest elsewhere. Readers of the recent Arbtritation Panel Report on the NFT Contract can learn the details on how Norwalk’s residential properties declined much more during the Great Recession than in surrounding towns. Norwalk’s depressed housing prices have a long history.
Mayor Rilling is continuing the budget and taxation policies of former Mayor Moccia — yearly increases in budget and taxation independent of the city’s near stagnant income growth. Even in real terms city spending is increasing as inflation averaged only about 1 percent the past year. The only way for Norwalk to avoid becoming a “failed city” is for BET and Common Council members to become much more involved in city budget and financing decisions. And to rethink the “wisdom” of rewarding city employees the highest salaries of any city in the state. By any reasonable standard Norwalk overspends relative to the income of its residents. A declining Grand List serves notice.
If Norwalk is to avoid further decline city officials need to mandate budgets that are affordable to the the fairly stagnant income levels of its residents — not the desires of its union employees for ever higher salaries that with benefits now average about $100,000. There’s no obvious benefit to the city with fifth highest paid teachers in the state nor $150,000 managers earning salaries well beyond what they can earn in the private sector. Nor routinely giving every employee raises independent of merit.
Norwalk has made great strides in recent years in rebuilding its public education system under the exceptional leadership of BEO Chairman Mike Lyons, who deserves credit for attracting one of the nation’s pre-eminent Superintendents. But even with these successes persistant stagnant property values — almost unique in the country according to Zilow reports — ought to remind us that Norwalk continues to remain an unattractive community to many potential home buyers. Contrary to the wishful thinking of many if not most of our elected officials there is no magic formula for attracting new business to ease the tax burden. But holding the city budget flat or even engineering modest reductions would demonstrate to both city residents and importantly to the outside world that Norwalk is indeed getting its fiscal house in order.
The “smart monies” are betting that like Humpty Dumpty all of Norwalk’s elected officials and city managers are unequal to that task. Norwalk was once a proud city where residents could not only retire but expect their children to settle here. That hasn’t been true for many years. The recent surge of rental housing being constructed in Norwalk ought to give even the most jaded city official pause. When a city is attractive only to renters, not prospective new home owners, its future is assured.
Mayor Rilling needs pay more attention to city finances and budgets. A good start that he understands the full dimensions of the problem would be hiring better city managers. And appointing the best available candidates to the BET with solid financial credentials — not the ex board chairman of NEON. Unless Mayor Rilling truly believes that city expenses are almost completely “mandated,” in which case Norwalk will surely become another Bridgeport — a city whose officials kept spending vigorously while the fortunes of its residents diminished. We still have many long term residents who fondly remember a vigorous Bridgeport — once Connecticut’s most prominent city.
Peter I Berman
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