Better Late Than Never (or the Transparency Train Derailed)

I just couldn’t pick a title.

“Better late than never” because the Sun finally got its butt in gear and reported on the Hopkinton ticket quota.  ”The Transparency Train derailed” because Felkner is full of  proverbial “no comments” for this story; which is funny because he can’t shut his mouth when it comes to the School Board.  Perhaps he is educable!  Has he learned how not to say the first thing that comes into his head?  Or perhaps he is just angling for a bigger political career and doesn’t want to ruin it by saying something stupid?  Again.

Anyway, the point of the Sun’s article is that the Town Council insists that they did not request the policy, it is the Police Department’s business and the Council knew nothing about it.  I happen to believe their excuse.  I suspect that the Manager did have something to do with it, after all, he is the Chief’s boss, but the Town Council doesn’t have a freaking clue about what is going on in Town, nor do they care, so they are automatically off the hook.

Some delightful quotes from the article:

DiLibero, who is out of town for the week, told The Sun Monday on his cell phone, “I just don’t want to comment on it any further.”

Bad time to go on vacation, eh Billy?  Don’t worry, the cops are actually all over the place all the sudden so I suspect this will fester for a few more months.

Councilor Beverly P. Kenney said that, prior to learning of the leaked policy, “I believe the police department was doing their job.”  She also declined to elaborate on the matter, saying, “I have not had a chance to investigate it.” She said she plans to speak with DiLibero first as “that’s the chain of command for us.”

Excellent.  I am ever so comforted when Delores Umbridge speaks.  Call out the High Inquisitors!

Capalbo declined to say what she thought of the policy because of conflicting statements from Baruti and Police Chief John S. Scuncio reported in the Journal story on why it was implemented.

I’m sure she was thinking, “colossal stupidity”.  I know I am.

Thompson said she is confident the issue will be resolved internally by the department, saying — like Capalbo — it is a personnel matter to be dealt with administratively, not by the council. She said she does not plan to tell the police department what to do with the policy.

It is a good thing we didn’t elect these people to actually do anything!   The Town Council cannot interfere in an investigation, they can tell the Police Department to cut it out with the quota.  But that would require some  testicles, figuratively speaking.

Although Thompson noted she has yet to read the email on the policy, she said, “As a resident, I find it distasteful.”

I am glad someone does.

Scuncio and Baruti did not return repeated phone calls seeking comment. 

Smart move, their first one so far.

And life goes on.  Keep you eyes open, in the past 3 days I have seen more Hopkinton cops than I have seen in the past year.  They are diligently working on their quota and they are coming for you!

It’s Official, The Hopkinton Police Department Sucks

From today’s Providence Journal (see the Projo for the whole article, I’ve just taken excerpts from it):

 Police have ticket ‘target’ in Hopkinton

By Bruce Landis, Journal Staff Writer 

If you drive through Hopkinton, keep this in mind: The officers you see are each required to write 20 traffic tickets per month, “more or less,” under a new Police Department policy.

Excuses, like being busy doing something else, or having taken vacation days, “are not acceptable,” Lt. Daniel C. Baruti said in a March 3 internal e-mail that spells out the policy.

The point of a police department is to enforce laws, not generate revenue for the town coffers.  But instead of cutting the Town budget and reining in spending, we’re trying to bilk the public out of more cash.  I guess we need to make sure the Municipal Court pays for itself!

The e-mail says, in bold, italic type, “Do not forward this e-mail.”

Clearly, the HPD is also stupid because if you put anything in an email, it will end up becoming public knowledge.  And the juicier it is, the more likely it will end up in the papers.

Baruti, Police Chief John S. Scuncio and Town Manager William A. DiLibero acknowledged Hopkinton’s policy after The Journal obtained a copy of the e-mail.

However, they denied that it amounts to a ticket quota. Instead, the lieutenant described the numerical goal as a “target.” He said he was surprised that the term “quota” has popped up. “I didn’t even think of the word ‘quota’ ” until a sergeant brought it up, he said.

A rose by any other name is still a rose.  So is a duck…

Baruti and the other local officials said that the policy is a management tool intended to make the police more productive. Although it has drawn some criticism, Baruti said, the policy is legal and that they have no intention of abandoning it.

Making up crimes and giving out unnecessary tickets is not an indicator of productivity.  Making up crimes to charge people with is criminal.

Baruti’s e-mail said that the department’s “production level” has fallen and that the town manager and some members of the Town Council “are very dissatisfied with our numbers.” He said he thinks a decline in the department’s ticket production reflects a lack of motivation.

Uh, duh.  We have too many goddamn cops and there is not enough to do.  It appears to me that the HPD is trying to justify their existence when in fact, there is very little justification for having 16 officers on the HPD.

The e-mail also looks ahead, saying, “The plan is to focus on traffic tickets to start. We will look at arrests and incidents later.” Baruti said that doesn’t mean setting targets for arrests.

Well that’s good!  I would hate to have the police show up to arrest me because they needed to arrest SOMEONE!

Baruti said it isn’t aimed at individual officers. DiLibero said, similarly, that he and some council members were concerned about a “lack of activity” by the police in general.

Once again, because there is nothing for them to do.

Scuncio, on the other hand, said the policy is aimed at a single officer who does practically no work. One example of his lack of effort, the chief said, is that month after month, the officer writes no tickets at all. The chief said the officer’s inactivity “really creates problems” because new officers “see this guy doing nothing.” He didn’t identify the officer, saying he didn’t want to single the officer out.

And this is not grounds for dismissal?  But then again, when the police chief is actually a member of the police union, things tend to a get a little “cozy”.

Chief Scuncio said the new policy hasn’t had the desired effect. “He still hasn’t written any tickets,” the chief said. “Nothing’s changed.”

And so you continue to promulgate the policy?  That’s pretty dumb, don’t you agree?

He said he’s reluctant to try to discipline the officer because of the difficulty under the legal and contractual protections provided to Rhode Island police.

Perhaps the Town should more aggressively negotiate police contracts in the future?  To prevent this from happening?  

Capt. David A. Ricciarelli, assistant director of the Rhode Island Municipal Police Academy, said he knows of no similar policy in other departments. He gave several reasons why ticket quotas should be avoided. They are “publicly distasteful,” he said, and give the public a negative impression when the police depend on the public’s help to enforce the law.

Well, I guess Hopkinton is just special that way.

“A quota policy can only generate disrespect for, and cynicism about, law enforcement,” Brown [the RI ACLU Executive Director] said , and it suggests that “police enforcement is more about making money” than enforcing the law.

That’s OK Mr. Brown, we don’t have much respect for the HPD anyway.  This just gives us another reason to consider cutting their budget.

Thanks to Bruce Landis, this was a great article.  Someone is finally shedding some light on the crap going on in Hopkinton government.

Next Moves

I have been thinking about how the Felkner/Chariho Budget issues are going to be addressed and I have some predictions.  Mind you, I don’t have a lot more insight into the decision making processes of the people involved than anyone else, but there are some options which are strategically more sound than others.

Felkner:  Felkner won’t be able to accomplish much or make much noise on the Town Council.  They don’t really do much.  The Town Manager runs the Town and he is a status-quo-type guy.  The Town Council is a giant rubber stamp.  So Felkner will probably resign the Town Council and be appointed to the School Board.  The Town Council will get along just fine without Felkner (they can usually muster at least a 3 vote majority anyway) and they want someone on the School Board who will make some noise: that’s Felkner.  Until his ego got the better of him and Felkner decided to take two elected positions, I had some respect for him.  I have a lot less now but he can still fight windmills effectively, or as effectively as anyone can fight a windmill.

Chariho:  I’m not sure if they will sue until the next budget gets busted.  I suspect that Ricci will make some token cuts, maybe $200K worth, and send the budget back to the voters.  And it will probably pass the next time around.  I don’t think Ricci expected it to fail and I don’t think he and the School Board “got out the vote”, so to speak.  They will the next time around.  The budget failed by 1 vote.  People who voted “no” last time are satisfied but those who voted “yes” are pissed.  Anger can work miracles.  Look at the 2006 and 2008 elections, the Dems won on the basis of angry people.  I may be wrong but I think all the “no” votes have been cast, we’ve seen all those angry people.  Now it is time for the rest.

Wow, a Tuesday Twofer!

It’s not Tuesday anymore, but both of these things happened yesterday:

1.  As you probably know, the Chariho budget failed by one vote, 526-527.  Town by town:  Charlestown was 224-142, Richmond was 142-125 and Hopkinton was 160-260.

2.  The RI Supreme Court says that Felkner cannot be on the Town Council and the School Board.  Thus he can keep his Town job but has effectively resigned the School Board.

I’m not so surprised about the Chariho vote.  I expected Richmond to stomp the budget but they did not.  They did have a lot of “no” votes relative to “yes” votes and they likely pushed it over the line.  Now we get to watch the fireworks.  Will they sue or will Chariho fix its budget?  I’m betting on a lawsuit.

I was, however, extremely surprised by the Felkner decision.  I expected him to win although it seemed that the RI SC was somewhat antagonistic during the hearing.  They used the Town Charter and the doctrine of incompatibility against him.  I still can’t see using the Charter.  The damn thing is so full of holes you can argue either position and I think the stronger position is the one that allows him to do exactly what he was doing.  But that was because of the technical language.  The court made a point of interpreting intent.  It is a harder thing to do but I think they got that right, the framers of the Charter never envisioned allowing someone to serve on both the Council and the Board.  Regardless, I am honestly pleased to see the decision which was ultimately produced.  In the end, it may have been a political decision but I’m not sure we’ll ever know.

Personally, I think that the conflict of interest between sitting on the Town Council and the School Board is significant.  No one has attempted to do this since Chariho was founded.  It’s just common sense to most people, you don’t take 2 elected positions, especially two that are so likely to be in conflict!

Thanks for all the fun, Bill.  I guess your life will be a lot quieter sitting on the Town Council (they don’t really do all that much but complain about Chariho- you fit in perfectly).  But you could always start hacking away at the municipal budget if you get lonely and want to see your name in the papers some more!  Heck, why not rewrite the Charter to let yourself serve on two elected positions?  Now there is an idea, provided you show up to some of the meetings….

North Stonington cuts Town Budget by 8.1%

According to the Westerly Sun’s Chris Sheldon, North Stonington, the Town RIGHT NEXT TO US across the State Line has dropped their Municipal budget from $5,923,323 to $5,443,768.  Hopkinton is about $380,000 short in its budget, North Stonington is only $181,000 short.  So our CT neighbor lost less in revenue and was able to cut almost $500K from their budget.  If we were able to do that, our taxes would decrease by >3%, instead of increasing by that amount.  So far, Hopkinton has only been able to cut $41,000 from our budget.

So North Stonington is proof that it CAN be done.  Why CAN’T we do it?  Any answers, Town Council?  Town Manager?  Are we just fat and lazy, as I suspect?  Or are we going to keep blaming contracts, the same type of contracts that North Providence has gotten a judge to overturn?

Good job Town Council!  Or not.

This is also made more amusing by Felkner’s letter to the Sun.  He bemoans the fact that the title, “Seniors could lose free lunch”, was unfair to the Town Council and apparently pissed him off.  Welcome to Rhode Island, Bill. Despite the fact that I quote the Sun incessantly, as a newspaper it is self-serving and generally of pretty poor journalistic quality.  Although in the past year, the new editor has improved things quite a bit.  But that is besides the point.  My point is, stop being such a whiner.  I was thinking of titling this post, “Felkner continues to whine”.  In the context of the pissant cut that removing the meals director will result in, you are making a mountain our of a mole-hill by writing a letter to the Sun.  So go take a look at the North Stonington budget and then make some real “change” in Hopkinton instead of pretending that you are doing something when you are CLEARLY not.

Oh, and how’s that fight with the School Board going?

Thank You, Mr. DiLibero

The Westerly Sun reports that the Town Council is proposing to cut the Director of Senior Meals (is that the official title?) but the seniors will still get their meals. The only change will be administration.  The current Director, Mark Radicioni, is pretty pissed and intends to see if the union can help him keep his job.  Personally, I think he should be put in charge of the GIS Department and save us some money that way.   But the article goes on to say,

 Because the meal site director was a position included in a union contract with the town, DiLibero told the council Radicioni may be able to file a grievance.

Well, we only have one person to blame for the union contracts:  William DiLibero.  Ok, that may not be entirely true.  DiLibero may not have been involved in all the current Town contracts, but he has been involved in some.  I would like to know if he was involved in this one?  And if so, why is it written in such a way to permit a person to file a greivance/etc. if they are let go when their department is closed down?  It seems like a pretty simple contract clause to me:  If your department is shut down for any reason, you can and will be fired.  Apparently not.  Bill, please write that down and keep it in a safe place for future reference (ie the next contract negotiation).  Here is a better thought, hire a professional to negotiate our contracts next time.  Preferably one from out-of-state!  Lets stop being pennywise and pound foolish, shall we?

Analyzing the Hopkinton Budget

Since Mrs. Buck was happy to tell me that voting down the current Hopkinton Budget would increase our tax rate from 3% to 4.5%, I thought this might be worth a little investigation.  Luckily, the budget is posted online and she passed on the link:

http://www.hopkintonri.org/pdfs_downloads/Finance/budget0910PublishedDraft_all.pdf

 

Now lets pick it apart:

2008 Total Budget:  $23,500,248   

2009 Total Budget:  $23,446,077

 

So based on just the totals, we will be spending $54,171 less this year than next.  Now that should relate to a flat budget, assuming Chariho holds to the numbers listed in the budget.  However, I have no idea if those numbers are a guess or are an actual commitment from Chariho.  But hey, that’s great!  But if we reverted to last years budget, however, that $50K does not amount to a 1.5% increase, does it?  The math:  50K/$23,500,248 = 0.25%.  It’s even less when we consider that amount is probably a percentage of $15 million, but I’ll get there in a minute.

So where does that additional money come from?  In other words, what is different about this years budget that is going to save us 1.5% over last years budget.  If you look at the numbers, this year’s budget is a decrease of 0.25%, yet our taxes are going to go up by 3%.  Now obviously, the tax rate is determined by not only how much we spend but by how much we earn.  If we are spending 0.25% less but our taxes go up by 3%, we are earning less money than we did last year.  This is not unexpected, the economy is in the toilet.  Mrs. Bucks contention is that the savings are actually from Chariho, because they are spending surplus on the operating budget, and we will pay less.  But the budget published online does not bare that out.  In 2008, we paid Chariho  $17,720,106.   In 2009, we expect to pay Chariho $17,720,353.  So as far as I can tell, voting down the budget will cost us exactly $54,418 more than going with the new budget.  So in the end, it is probably better to go with the new budget than the old budget, we are actually spending less.  But only 0.25% less.

What becomes imperative now are the revenue projections.  However, the data in the budget is pretty useless.  The reason that it is useless is that the budget makes the calculation that we will raise exactly as much as we will spend.  Ultimately we will, but it does not show you the numbers that get us to that place.   It does not show us the shortfall and what is required t o make it up, or at least, I can’t find it.

If the Town Council had done a better job of crafting a budget, we would have a 0% tax increase.  But that is not the case.  Some rough math for you.  The budget is about $23.5 million.  We need to raise an additional 3% in taxes to cover this cost (this math is rough, I don’t have all the figures to do this right because the budget does not tell us how much we will earn if we don’t raise taxes, but bare with me).  That amounts t0 $702,000.  Our revenues are $702,000 short of our expenses.  Please dispute this figure if it is in error, I don’t know our actual shortfall so this is a guess.  I suspect the number is actually closer to $450,000, however, because the 3% increase will be on property taxes and the total amount we generated on property last year was $15,069,614, not $23.4 million (3% of 23.4 million is about $702,000).

The reason our taxes are going to increase either 3% or 4.5% is that 1.) we did not generate enough money to cover our expenses, even after we drop $50K from the budget and 2.) we spend too much money.  The only way to make this money up in the short term is to cut departmental expenses or to tax us into the stone age. Unfortunately, the only department that really took a hit was Emergency Management.  They went from $38,000 to $8,000.  That accounts for 55% of the budget cut this year.  And that was because of two one-time expenses.   Examining the budget, it appears that general government, the tax assessor and the tax collector also saw some sizable cuts to the tune of about $70K combined.  Great.  What about everyone else:

Town Clerk 2008 to 2009 increase:  $1497 (0.6%)

Planner 2008 to 2009 increase:  $1178 (1.0%)

Police 2008 to 2009 increase:  $19,281 (1.1%)

Public Works 2008 to 2009 increase:  $127,564 (11%) 

Town Manager 2008 to 2009 increase:  $1102 (0.9%)

Zoning 2008 to 2009 increase:  :  $1500 (46%)

So what does the budget tell us?  It tells us that some departments got cut, other departments got increases and we’re robbing Peter to pay Paul.  What we have here folks, is a classic shell game.  Sure, we cut $54K from the total budget, but not all departments got cuts.  If each department listed was about flat, the budget would have been cut by an additional $152K.  If these departments had been cut, we may have seen an additional $200K decrease.  But we decided that some departments and some people were more important than others. Is anyone in Hopkinton surprised that during the first year of the Second Great Depression, the Hopkinton Police Department continued to get increases?

Warwick is cutting police hours, salaries and uniform allowances.  Hopkinton is not.  I would argue that Warwick needs their cops a heck of alot more than we need ours. All over Rhode Island, Towns are cutting budgets.  North Providence, Woonsocket, Warwick, etc.  But not us. 

For the Town Council to cry about Chariho is disgraceful when the citizens can see how poorly we are managing our money.  In the end, it does not matter if we vote the budget down or not, all the Town Council has done is shift money from General Government into Public Works, from the Tax Assessor into the Police Department.  But I guess the threat of the budget being voted down has kept them from spending more, they just continue to spend what they have inappropriately. 

As Mrs. Busk noted, “Perhaps the 3% can become lower. ”  Ya think?

New taxes anyone?

According to Ms. Vicki Goff of the Westerly Sun, Hopkinton’s tax rate may increase by as much as 3%.  Initially, the Town was predicting a marginal raise of less than 1% but obviously, things have changed.  I am not surprised.  The Town kept the tax rate stable last year by using some overly optimistic numbers about how much money we would actually collect.  When you monkey around with the numbers, you can expect to eventually pay the piper.  But the Town Manger did not still expect to be in Hopkinton, so the hit-and-run tactics are completely understandable.  This year we are losing a good bit of state aid and we can expect to collect fewer taxes.  So unless we spend less, you and I need to come up with the cash.

But there is a bright side.  You can keep your taxes stable by voting down the budget in June.  Other Towns are cutting staff and laying people off and THE COURTS ARE LETTING THEM!  If the Town Council is hesitant to lay people off, we can do it for them by voting the budget down.  It’s that easy.  A rejected budget means a flat budget, the same one as last year.

The Pot Calling the Kettle Black

In yesterdays Westerly Sun, the following sentence led off an article about Hopkinton and Chariho:

HOPKINTON — Members of the Town Council criticized the Chariho Regional School District’s proposed $53.32-million spending plan for 2009-10, accusing the School Committee of not following orders from town officials to slash expenses below those allocated for this year. [Following orders?  I did not realize that School Board reports to the Town Council- wouldn't that be a hell of a conflict-of-interest for Felkner, to have to report to himself?]

Followed by:

Councilors said they fear that if potential cuts in state aid are not set off by reductions in education expenses, they will have to cut town services. Education is about 75 percent of Hopkinton’s spending plan for the next fiscal year, which begins July 1. [I wonder how much goes towards duplicate policing, you know, the work we pay the Hopkinton Police to do that the State Police already do?]

With this sprinkled in for good measure:

Capalbo also noted that taxpayers in Stonington rejected the town’s proposed budget four times last summer, forcing officials to make further reductions, including education funds.
  “If that’s what it takes, I would like to see that,” she said.

 

Now here is the thing:  I don’t give a rats furry ass about “Town Services” in Hopkinton.  I don’t use them.  And since this seems to be the rationale we use to assail Chariho (despite how stupid this rationale is), I can use it here for my purposes.  The Town of Hopkinton proposes to raise our taxes on municipal services this year.  Admittedly, I think the Town has done a good job by proposing a small raise, but it is still a raise.  Hopkinton IS NOT laying anyone off to keep the municipal budget level funded, nor are they cutting salaries like up in Northern RI.  So why should Chariho do any better?  Chariho is planning a small increase (about 1%) and Hopkinton is planning a small increase (less than 1%).  And in fact, Hopkinton’s share of the Chariho budget is down 0.23% from last year.  Obviously, we have no idea how much state-aid is going to get chopped so theoretically, we could be on the hook for a 5% tax increase (can’t go higher than that, State law, right-  HA HA HA, like they won’t just get a legislative over ride and screw us for 18% again).  But if Hopkinton can’t clean up its own house by dumping useless positions (I mean you, GIS guy) and cutting to the bone, why should the school district?  On a single day, Chariho SERVICES more people than Hopkinton does in a month (albeit most of them are small and can’t vote and are thus considered worthless citizens).  

This is a case of the Hopkinton Town Council saying, “do what we say, not as we do”.  When the Town Council (and Mr. Manager) can cut Hopkinton’s budget, then they can strong-arm Chariho with the appropriate amount of self-righteousness.

Oh, and Mrs. Capalbo, how about we vote down the Hopkinton Budget in June?  Should we obstruct all those important Town Services by voting against the Hopkinton budget and forcing you to deal with level funding?  And even if we do, Chariho will still get their cut!  The only way to stop them is to vote down the Chariho referendum and I doubt we’ve got the votes for that.  Besides, threatening Chariho has gotten so passe.  Foist the blame on someone else all you want, you are doing nothing to solve our Towns financial woes and have become quite transparent in your scapegoating.

A Guy Without A Clue

Here’s a letter to the editor of the Sun that deserves a retort: 

Town, state employees should try seeing how others live

I triple dog dare all politicians, school teachers and just plain faculty, emergency personnel and all town employees here in the entire state of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, to take a pay cut of 50 percent of their pay for one month.  No complaints either on this dare. Just be grateful you have a job. Do this dare for one month. After one month, I want to see each town report as to how much they just saved and how much it helped the budget. This is especially directed to the governor and everyone working for him.  I personally challenge him and for him to man up to his own requests. But just remember, I live on $200 a week and with that weekly amount comes my half of rent, food, bills and cigarettes.  Again, I triple dog dare every last one of you. And the first person to com plain about my dare is “yeller.” Hope Gomes Westerly

To some degree, I concur.  The Governor should give up his private driver and all those perks that make him feel important, yet do little to improve the governance of the State.  Governor Carcieri is used to being wealthy and I do not expect him to live like the rest of us anytime soon.  He’s a spoiled pig of a man and will continue to be one.  Has Rhode Island ever had a Governor that was not a rich spoiled pig? And I will not be surprised when the State and teacher’s unions give up pay increases for the next 3-5 years and start paying bigger chunks of their benefits.  They are, in fact, happy to have jobs and will ultimately do what it takes to keep them.  But there are a number of problems with this idiot letter.

1.  A Chariho teacher went to 5-6 years of college.  They are professionals.  And they would not be doing what they are doing for $10,000 a year, or even $20,000,  as Hope Gomes suggests they should.  I’m sorry if Hope Gomes thinks all our teachers should be flipping burgers.  Clearly his education let him down and his paycheck reflects it.  I’m not sure why he thinks teachers and DOT employees are all wealthy.  They are not, they are middle class Americans.  And many of them have likely seen some degree of poverty.  For a man that does not even pay property taxes, it doesn’t make a lot of sense for Hope Gomes to be crying about the state deficit.  It’s not coming out of his pocket.  As a matter of fact, they are the ones supporting him via the American welfare system, supplying him with an unemployment check.

2.  Adults don’t “triple-dog-dare” each other to do anything.  It’s just not how we behave. I’ll point to his probable  lack of quality education here again.

3.  Mr. Gomes pays for “rent, food, bills and cigarettes”.  I suggest he give up smoking.  He’s probably spending $25-$50 a week on cigarettes.  And if he has that much money for a luxury like cigarettes, he clearly has plenty of discretionary income.  I am assuming that he lost his job recently, as he commands state and municipal employees to be happy they have a job.  Is he spending $50 a week of unemployment checks on cigarettes?

Its much easier to blame others for our failures than to take personal responsibility for them.