Municipal Budgets: Just Vote No

April 29, 2010

Monroe voters have declined, for the second time this year, to approve their town’s proposed budget.

Elected officials reduced their increase request by nearly $1 million, but it wasn’t enough to convince a majority of folks who went to the polls April 27. The result didn’t differ dramatically from the initial vote on April 6.

Monroe is the “New Hampshire” of Connecticut municipal-budget referenda. Every spring, it’s the first town in the state to ask residents and property owners to approve a tax-and-expenditure plan for the fiscal year that starts July 1.

Given the condition of Connecticut’s economy and the greed of public employees, look for more “no” votes in 2010. Incomes are down, and so are jobs -- nearly 100,000 since the recession hit the state in March 2008. Few of those vanished positions were in government. Voters know this, and they’re acting accordingly.

The governor’s Office of Policy and Management (OPM) publishes “Municipal Fiscal Indicators,” a useful compendium of data on the state’s cities and towns. To keep things simple, let’s look at the publication’s figures for the decade between 1998 and 2008.

In inflation-adjusted terms, municipal expenditures ballooned by 31.6 percent. (Didn’t Connecticut’s population rise in that era? Yes, but not by much. OPM’s estimate is a mere 6.9 percent.)

State largesse, thanks in part to big-spending Governor M. Jodi Rell, contributed to local government’s spree. But the bulk of the increase was funded by the property tax, the total bill for which rose from $6.5 billion to $8.1 billion. Guess politicians in Hartford prefer to talk about property-tax relief rather than enact it.

It’s clear what caused most of the splurge: A soaring number of bureaucrats. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, municipalities’ full-time-equivalent employees -- that’s full- and part-time jobs added together -- rose by 21.5 percent between 1998 and 2008.

Many of the new workers got gigs in government schools, which comprise 62.2 percent of cities’ and towns’ spending. Districts saw positions on their payrolls grow by a staggering 31 percent. (Didn’t government-school enrollment expand in that period? Yes, but once again, not by much. OPM’s estimate is 8.1 percent.)

Plunging labor productivity -- i.e., adding far more employees than “customers” -- is exacerbated by outrageously out-of-whack compensation. Research by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reveals that in the Hartford region, average hourly pay in state and local government is 48 percent higher than for comparable jobs in the private sector. For service-oriented positions, the disparity is 109.3 percent. Executive employment is often assumed to be lower in government. Not in Connecticut, where the “management, professional, and related” category of work enjoyed a wage bonus of 14.7 percent in the public sector.

The (Manchester) Journal Inquirer recently disclosed the top 25 salaries for employees of East Windsor, a low-income town in north-central Connecticut. The municipality’s chief executive wasn’t on the list, of course, but plenty of educrats and cops were. A tenured art teacher makes $88,129. A “reading specialist” makes $91,969. A police sergeant makes $104,235. An assistant principal makes $107,001.

Every analysis ever undertaken of non-wage compensation in Connecticut has found that the pay bias extends to benefits. Health-insurance premiums are lower, as are copays. Defined-benefit pensions, which are disappearing in the private sector, are the norm. Paid leave is extravagant. (Employees regularly depart “public service” with tens of thousands of dollars in cashed-in vacation and sick time.) Job security is all but assured. Accountability is virtually nonexistent. Unions and their friends in elective office protect incompetents and lollygaggers.

No one bothers to track the cost of local governments’ unfunded pension liabilities. But we are starting to learn the price taxpayers will bear for retiree benefits beyond pensions. Connecticut’s ten largest municipalities -- remember, there are 169 in all -- have health- and life-insurance obligations of $3.1 billion. Very few dollars have been set aside to cover these costs.

Monroe’s citizens and property owners have every reason to continue shooting down budget proposals that don’t contain significant cuts. OPM numbers show that the town boosted its spending by 55.5 percent in real terms between 1998 and 2008. Population growth was 4.3 percent. Monroe’s government schools hiked expenditures by 78.4 percent, despite enrollment growth of only 17.1 percent. Spending per pupil grew from $10,120 to $15,410. The property-tax bill for each citizen rose 37.3 percent.

Ignore the spin and slanders of government-union bosses and PTA propagandists. Casting a ballot against your town’s budget request isn’t misguided selfishness. It’s an act of fiscal patriotism.

D. Dowd Muska is a writer, commentator and lecturer. His website is www.dowdmuska.com.

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