10 Responses for "Malloy Working Hard to Tax Citizens More"

1. JK March 30th, 2008 at 9:34 pm 1

   I always find it interesting in the discussion about taxes that everyone seems okay that you have principals vice principals and assistants to the principle making 6 figures, that police make as much on over time and cry fowl that they need more pay. Then I find it interesting that the Board of rec offers so much for people with kids and that the schools try to keep the busy at more and more after school activities and then you get the large congregation of kids at the malls with nothing to do. I do work at the city and I took the job knowing I would get 30% or so less than in private industry, but thought the work and hours worth it. I am one of those who also lives in Stamford, so I feel the tax crunch also and it gets me mad, but all I can do is a good job.

2. Mr. Stamford March 31st, 2008 at 10:12 pm 2

   JK - What is it like working for the city? Do most city employees like their jobs? It sounds like you see a lot of misallocated funds?

3. JK April 1st, 2008 at 4:30 pm 3

   I hope you realize that with this question you are going to get a dissertation.
   To the question what is it like working for the city, I would say wonderful, horrible and frustrating. Wonderful because, at least my position, I get to help, assist, educate and protest (and no I am NOT a cop, nor do I have any “enforcement powers). The work I do is exciting – can honestly say I never know what is going to come through our door. The work done by my department has been recognized state wide, so they callus when they are in a pinch and nationally (it has helped develop national policy). Sometimes it seems that we have to know everything in order to do our job, but between the three of us we handle it fairly well. I would also say that for the most part we have a very good relation with the citizens of Stamford. Most times we get to protect the health of people and sometimes what we do gets to save a life.
   Horrible because, while we seem to be able to rise above politics most of the time, it still is a factor and because of that the department has gone from 6 fulltime employees (including secretarial) to 3 fulltime (including 1 secretarial) and a part time boss. One of those positions was lost because a director decided to cut it as a political move, because we would surely get it back and of course that didn’t happen. Horrible, because, particularly in the summer, the workload is incredible and if one person is out, something can’t be done. I also can’t stand the pettiness that goes on within and between departments. If you do not know someone and need to find info to get a job done, sometimes roadblocks occur. And don’t get me started on the lack of information sharing. If the Fire Marshall’s see a health violation in a restaurant do you think they would tell a Health Department official? NOT! And if a Health department inspector sees a building department problem, no communication. Each department is still its own fiefdom with managers and directors that think they are all that is important. The best example I can give is something that happened outside a restaurant where sewage was being smelled. I reported it 5 times to each of several departments before they investigated and that only happened after other people also started to complain. The problem was that all the sewage from a restaurant was being piped into the storm drain. It had been inspected by building and passed, by health and passed. After looking at it more carefully, someone found all the waste was being dumped into a sump pump basin and pushed into the storm drain. It got better though! After they fixed the problem, I still smelled a problem and did the same thing. This time the response was a bit quicker and they found that the main sewage drain (no longer the sump) was piped to the storm drain! This actually took 6 months to resolve from the time of my first complaint!
   Frustrating because getting new equipment is almost impossible. The best example I can give is when we needed an instrument, which new was $100,000.00. Without it we would no longer be able to do a significant part of our work due to changing regulations. Someone told me of a college which was getting rid of their old instrument because they were getting a new one. I t took 3 months to get approval to pickup a free machine and even then, I had to personally rent a truck and get a friend to help pick it up from New Jersey or else I would have had to wait another 3 months and lost the opportunity. I am currently working with an instrument, which was built in 1967, cause I am handy, it is still running.
   I get to work without any secretarial help because the one who worked here retired and had enough cumulated time to leave us ‘budget empty’ from the end of October to February and ‘process empty’ to leave the position open till sometime in April, maybe.

   Do most employees like their job? Most do, most of the time. Some do because it is easy, some do because it gives them power, many really enjoy helping people. Most get frustrated by what they can and cannot do or what they are asked or told to do. Since most live in Stamford, they are not unfamiliar with the same gripes that every other citizen has, but there are limitations on what can be done.

   As far as waste goes, it is a harder question. The principals and vice-principals I sited have argued that they are necessary because of all the additional paper work. That is due to increased regulation from the state and federal government, which is absurdly unnecessary. The budget process in Stamford creates its own waste, because what is not spent in a budget year is not only lost, it is considered unnecessary for the next budget cycle. That means that all the money budgeted for a year is going to get used if it was needed or not. If you are budgeted for 10 new rakes this year and you only need 3, you are going to buy 10 new rakes and throw out 7 still usable ones, because next year when you need to replace the other 7, you will only have money for 3. If this sounds stupid, it is. I disagreed with the whole combination of Housing code and Environmental Health because it meant fewer inspectors were doing more work and less was being accomplished. It meant that housing Code persons were then paid the same as Environmental Health persons and they down graded the education requirements.
   The waste of the Kronos system is more interesting – a time clock was put in so that you could keep track of employees’ time. First there were and still are people who abuse time, but there are fewer of them than the employees who would come in early and stay late and now there is a form of punishment if you come in early (because you can’t clock in early) get involved in your work and forget to punch in on time. And if you are busy at the end of the day, you have to wrap it up or run out and punch out, because there is no over time available for that sort of thing. So if Ms. Jones comes in at 4:25 and needs help and it takes longer than 5 minutes, Ms. Jones is going to have to come back tomorrow. I think the city lost a lot with that system.

   Well that my dissertation, I hope you found it entertaining.

4. Doc April 2nd, 2008 at 12:46 pm 4

   Yeh, these taxes are killing me as well. While I’m not sure what the answer is, I think a good first step would be to try do more with less.

   Not to offend anyone in the public sector, but I personally would like to see a system in which the city would pay for performance. I have no problem paying high salaries provided its merit-based , not how long someone has been in their job. Just my opinion.

5. JK April 2nd, 2008 at 8:26 pm 5

   There are several issue Doc raised - the big one - increases based on merit has been pushed around for years and always dead-ends. In my 28 years, I was given a job review once. I worked at other places where that occur every 6 months. I like job reviews, I like my job and what I do. I do put more into it than I am ’suppose’ to and would love merit raises. There have been more than a few times that I have been tempted to hold back what I felt was right because it just didn’t matter, I didn’t hold back. The problem with merit can be shown in one example…a person who was favored by a Department head went out on ‘workman’s comp’, while they were out with a back injury, they has 2 babies and were seen out dancing. They got away with it for YEARS, because they were favored by the Department head. The same thing could and unfortunately would happen with merit raises. To me it is one of those frustrations that I talked earlier about. As for the less than more, I don’t think that is an issue, those who are working are working at a high level with still fewer and older tools than they should (ee my earlier comments). You will loose service or quality of service with that approach. You ever try to call the government center? Almost everything goes into voice mail, because either they are out in the field and there is not enough secretarial help or they are busy with othwer people who are in the building or they don’t want to be bothered until they are good and ready to answer the phone. All three senerios are valid!

6. Stamford Talk April 3rd, 2008 at 6:16 am 6

   The Fairfield Weekly has a good article up about the proposed sales tax. I don’t know much about the situation, but it seems to me that a sales tax is a good idea because then it’s not only homeowners who are taxed. Spread the pain around a little…

   http://www.fairfieldweekly.com/article.cfm?aid=6998

   Also, Mr. Stamford, what services would you like to see reduced?

7. JK April 3rd, 2008 at 9:32 pm 7

   I have also been dismayed the way the tax burden is spread - the corporate offices get sweet tax deals courtesy of the state to bring them in to our town, they build and just when the tax breaks are about to expire they leave - ie. xerox on Long Ridge, Exxon in the same area and any number of others…Pitney Bowes was a great example of we want our way, they get it and then they leave anyway! The point is the tax burden is Always left on the shoulders of those who live here. Which is of course why a sales tax might be helpful as long as the others were reduced!

8. Mr. Stamford April 4th, 2008 at 8:15 pm 8

   My whole point is don’t raise any taxes! If you cannot balance the budget and need more money…cut services. Its never a popular choice, but the Mayor has to make tough decisions. Close the library if you have to, whatever it takes!

9. Patty April 6th, 2008 at 8:53 pm 9

   I’d be right there with you. Mr. Stamford, if the services to be cut included, say, the $5 mm proposed for artificial turf soccer fields (and for the record, my kid plays SYSL every season). Closing schools? Not so much.

10. JK April 13th, 2008 at 8:57 pm 10

    is it not just funny that the last thing on the chopping blocks is the waste? You ever wonder about this? When I first started with the city, the director was one of those who would put in a budget exactly as he intended to spend it and at that time it was always common practice to increase a budget by 5% over what you needed so that the BOF or BOR could look good cutting the budget by 5%. Wish we could get to those days…$5 M for artificial turf????????