Taxpayers & Pensioners Time to Open Your Wallets

     

Story time kids! Word on the street is that Mayor Drew is trying to rid the City of two of his least favorite department directors, and to do so, he is planning to offer a golden handshake (read more details here) of gold shower caliber. Again this political punt is not only at the expense of  hard working individuals who had in the past spoken their minds against the Drew regime, but it is at the expense of tax payers. One of the directors being offered this buy-out is the Personnel Director, former aid to past Mayor Dominique Thornton (D). The Personnel Director’s past actions dealing with the Water & Sewer Department's mismanagement were unfavorable in the eyes of certain key Democratic Council members who presumably felt sold out that the Personnel Director actually worked in a non partisan professional way with the then Republican Mayor and did not entirely do the bidding of the Democratic party who felt that she be indebted to them.     (We will explain the  connection between the Council, Personnel Dept. & Water & Sewer below.)   If half of the eligible employees take this early retirement package, resulting in about a dozen upper management employees cashing out,  it will cost at least half a million dollars in bonuses. The pension fund is self funded; however, these bonuses will come from the general fund - tax payer money. That is not counting the retirement up to 85% of their pay for life which will put all current, and future retirees at risk of the fund running dry and not being able to sustain everyone it was set up to and had been able to.  Dan Drew and the Democrats on Council raised your taxes once already and are about to do it again. Should the Mayor be tethering Middletown to inevitable tax increases for his second year in office with these uncertain economic times over his petty differences with a couple of people in management he wants out??      You seen your water bill?!?? If you noticed a huge increase double or even triple your last bill you are not alone.  The Insider has received numerous reports of bills going out with huge increases, some without even a unit cost per unit shown on the bill! We have a few instances where businesses have be grouped in with other businesses and double billed. If this has happened to you speak up! In a brief synopsis here is why this is happening:       In 2009, then candidate Dan Drew stated on record in an interview with the Wesleyan Argus that:"Not to mention, our city's sewer department is in dire straits financially. If it were privately owned, it would declare bankruptcy. We don't know where we're going right now." Why does the Insider bring up this quote? Fact is Drew acknowledges on the record that the W&S is f***** in 2009, but in 2011 contradicts his own statement by advocating for an investigation to prove that actions taken to remedy a situation he acknowledges existed should not haven happened.  Huh? Yeah no kidding. After much resistance on the part of the Democratically controlled Common Council to remedy the situation, Mayor Giuliano, as any good teacher would with a wayward student- moved the pupil closer to the teacher's desk so to speak in order to keep a closer eye on the issues with the indebted and problematic department. Mayor Giuliano moved the managerial portion of the Water & Sewer Department from their location across town to City Hall. He then followed procedure with a indebted department and had the Finance Department monitoring funds to find out why the department was hemorrhaging money. Also at question was why changes that W&S was supposed to have made as of 2008 after the department had to be taken over by then Finance Director James Reynolds due to lost of funds, had still not been implemented.  In 2008 $100,000 had been spent to overhaul the department including a reorganization plan that according to Mayor Giuliano, was never enacted by W&S Director Guy Russo as ordered. In addition to the extreme departmental debt and numerous warnings to basically fix things before they hit the fan, an  unprecedented number of grievances by employees were filed at this time and on the job accidents spiked leading to the logical conclusion that at the very least management needed to  be scrutinized.         Flash forward to October 2011. In an attempt to legitimize Dan Drew as having some government experience (other than student government)  5 months before he is manufactured into their next Manchurian candidate, the Democrats pony him up to take the spot of Councilman James Loffreddo following his resignation. After this the Common Council,  voted to spend $10,000 to do an independent investigation of not just of the Water & Sewer Department, but the Mayor's Office & Personnel Department to see why they had suggested the moving of the  W&S Department, despite the fact that is was clear as day the department was mismanaging many areas. Dan Drew then is quoted extensively by the Press in no coincidence – as Viktoria Sundquivst is still editor of the Mess and lap dog of the MDTC. Drew went as to far as to accuse Mayor Giuliano of "grandstanding" by ordering the W&S to be looked into.  In March 2012 it was reported to the Common Council that the report was complete and that the Water & Sewer Department would be moving back to its building. Nothing more was said. No copies were made available to Council members, the conclusions were actually summarized to give the appearance of transparency but not full & lawful disclosure. The audit found that the department was in fact far in the red, taxpayers were still finding inaccurate billing incidences in large numbers, but other wise business as usual! The other recommendations by the independent auditors were never put in place, it would be nice to know what they were, but unfortunately this report has never seen the light of day - even though taxpayers paid $10K to find out why the W&S Department is bleeding money. What is there to hide?? How many chances does this director get?      Why is W&S allowed to be mismanaged as a dysfunctional and resource draining department? No one can be certain, but the fact that Majority Leader Councilman Tom Serra (D), a pivotal person & political puppeteer in the Drew regime, is the untouchable first cousin of W & S Department Director Guy Russo could be some cause for concern. Oh what a tangled web.  Now in 2012 nothing has changed and taxpayers are getting screwed with outrages bills & W&S is still in shambles. What say you now Mayor Drew? There is a special WPCA (Water Pollution Control Authority) Commission meeting this Thursday  at 5:30 pm Water & Sewer Dept. located on Berlin Street where citizens can bring water bills they believe to be miscalculated.   Why 5:30 pm when Council orders are to hold all public meetings at 7:00 pm to allow the working class public to attend? Well, some Commissioners just care more about themselves and would rather the public NOT attend.Word on the street is also that the  secret audit ( which by law the tax payers have a right to see since they paid for it!) will be the topic of discussion and with any luck there will be answers to what has been going so wrong in Water & Sewer. Articles for background information referenced above: http://www.middletownpress.com/articles/2011/10/05/news/doc4e8d17df04a0b162206729.txt http://www.middletownpress.com/articles/2009/09/11/news/doc4aab058e09876715608832.txt?viewmode=fullstory http://articles.courant.com/2012-03-12/community/hc-middletown-wpca-investigation-0307-20120312_1_water-and-sewer-director-guy-russo-investigation http://articles.courant.com/2011-10-04/community/hc-middletown-wpca-investigation-1005-20111004_1_sewer-bills-water-and-sewer-investigation

Early Retirement Pay Outs Costly to Taxpayers & Other City Pensioners

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    The following is a draft of a memorandum of understanding proposed between the City and the Teamsters Local #571 offering certain employees an incentive to retire prior to their normal eligibility.  The following is a draft and has not been formalized or accepted by the Council and could change.  We understand that the employees have until November 7th to indicate their interest in the package and until that point the actual cost to the City has not been determined.  

     However, this is going to be an expensive package if implemented:  there are between 40 and 50 members of the union and of course it's unknown how many will take the offer so there are no numbers regarding the impact on the general fund as of now.  For those directors that are not part of the union, it is rumored that the City is offering up to 5 years of service;  so say you've 18 years of service, that could be now 23 years of service which at 2.5% would be 57.5% of the average of the highest 3 years of salary.  If the average salary is $90,000, the annual pension would be $51,750 or $4,312.50 per month.  Now they would be able to start collecting this pension 5 years earlier than they normally could have.

     Pensions from the City are capped at 70% of a set average salary, however this union's contract has adjusted that cap to 80% based on the retiree paying a higher percentage for their health insurance.  This draft offers some employees who have been with the city for 35 years or more a cap at 85%.  If their average salary were $100,000 (which is possible since overtime is included in their base salaries for the calculation), an additional 5% is $5,000.00 per year.

     However, the general rule of thumb has been that a golden handshake only saves money if you don't replace the retiring members; that doesn't seem to be the case here. If the building official retires, are you not going to replace him?  From the council agenda, it appears that the intent is to replace the Director and or Deputy Director of Personnel with Deputy City Attorneys, savings?? 

     Also, during the budget process this year, the pension funds was not funded to the extent that the actuaries had indicated and a special committe was to be formed to review the pension funding.   By giving the highest paid employees effectively a minimum of an additional 5% to their pension for their lifetime is going to be a tremendous hit to the pension fund.  These numbers of course are not available as of yet.  Remember, this union just won at the state labor board a case against the City and BOE where a union member retired and was replaced by a non-union worker, so they've a history of protecting their positions.

     Health insurance should be mentioned here also cause it's not mentioned in the offer at all; so not paying any more or less as a result of getting a higher pension.

     These seems to be an expensive way to get people to retire.  Offering 5 additional years to those employees who are not members of the union just to get them to retire is very generous!  Seems that it would be less expensive to negotiate with those employees who you wish to have leave on an individual basis rather than give away the farm to the whole management tier.

     Drew is cleaning house of directors who did not support him under the "guise" of saving money, however; the fact is that this will over in-flat city government departments and cost more.One can only speculate whom Drew and the Democratic majority/Serracrats have in mind to place in possible new director positions....
Lisa Santangelo? Another unqualified relative of Councilwoman Hope Kasper?