By Nancy R. Rossi
Mayor of West Haven
On my second day as mayor, I was called to a meeting with the Office of Policy and Management Secretary Benjamin Barnes at his office in Hartford. Mr. Barnes wanted to let me know that West Haven would be under the oversight of the new Municipal Accountability Review Board (MARB). The Municipal Accountability Review Board was established by the General Assembly in 2017 to assist distressed municipalities.
The trigger for the MARB oversight was the deficit bonding that was approved and executed by former mayor Ed O’Brien and the previous City Council. The deficit financing in the amount of $17 million was completed five days before I took office on Nov. 29, 2017. Although I inherited the MARB, I welcome the oversight and I think the state board will approve and appreciate the tough decisions my team and I will make during the upcoming budget process.
The MARB generally will have the same authority as our City Council. They will approve collective bargaining labor contracts, all contracts with a value of $100,000 or more for the city and Board of Education, and will review the budget and approve the mill rate. So as you can see they will have significant influence in how West Haven will operate. The MARB oversight does come with up to $8 million in state funding in fiscal years 2018 and 2019. The funding is not automatic and, if approved, will only available for two years. The bottom line is that we will need to cut $8 million from the city budget over the next two years, which is a necessary task but obviously won’t be a pleasant one.
The budget problems in West Haven have been known for years and were made much worse by the prior administration when they more than doubled the general fund deficit from $7.8 million to $16.8 million in four years. To make matters worse, the previous mayor budgeted an additional $8 million in state aid for the current fiscal year that never materialized—so not only did we inherit the MARB oversight but an $8 million deficit!
City Treasurer Michael Last and I asked the previous mayor and city council not to include that $8 million of wishful revenue at budget hearings and City Council meetings; however, our pleas fell on deaf ears. We also both sent written requests to the Office of Policy and Management Secretary Benjamin Barnes requesting that the state not approve the City of West Haven to issue deficit bonding until they could show that fiscal year 2017, which ended on June 30, 2017, was balanced. We were pretty certain that 2017 would run a deficit. Fiscal year 2017 is under audit and we recently learned that the estimated deficit for 2017 is between $1million and $1.5 million. Although this news was disappointing it was not a surprise.
I ran for mayor understanding the dire financial state of West Haven and the lack of financial understanding with the previous mayor and certainly was not under any grand allusions that the situation would be better than it is. With that said, I understood running for mayor, that if elected, my team would be faced with significant challenges—and that is certainly the case! I want to let the residents of West Haven know that my team did hit the ground running and will work tirelessly to turn West Haven’s financial condition around which will open up so many more opportunities for our great city!