Luke Bronin has criticized his predecessor, Pedro Segarra, for taking a year-by-year, patch-the-hole approach.
When Luke Bronin was running to be Hartford’s mayor, he said he wanted to spend some time looking under the hood at the city’s finances. He’s done that now, and what he's seen isn't good. In advance of his state of the city address tonight, Bronin sat down with WNPR to share his take on the city's budget.
Last week didn’t end well. One of the country's major credit ratings agencies took a look at the city’s finances, found “significant budget gaps,” and downgraded its rating for the city going forward. In his office at city hall, Bronin -- who took office in January -- said the news wasn’t exactly a shocker.
"They’re looking at the same numbers that we’re looking at," he said. "They’re looking at the same history of large structural deficits that haven’t been solved with a long-term solution."
When Bronin says structural deficits, what he means is this: The city’s expenses are greater than its revenues, and it’s been that way for a number of years. Next year’s deficit looks to be more than $30 million, and the out years look even worse. By a lot.
Bronin has criticized his predecessor, Mayor Pedro Segarra, for taking a year-by-year, patch-the-hole approach -- using one-time fixes like selling a parking garage to help make ends meet. But the problems persist.
First, Bronin said the city has borrowed a lot of money. And it’s time to pay up.
"We’re about to step into the years where we need to pay that off," he said. "So our debt service starts rising by about $10 million a year over the next few years."
Speaking of borrowing, Bronin is trashing another assumption of Segarra’s: that the roughly $60 million baseball stadium development project would pay for itself.
"Our first payment due on the debt that built that stadium is in early 2017," Bronin said. "And that’s a $2.7 million payment. So I am assuming that we’re not going to get all or even close to all of that money back in revenue on that project by the time we need to make that payment."
Second, the city is facing a crushing burden with its pensions. That's in part because of the downturn in the economy, in part because of overtime.
"Because for our police officers, their pension is based on a percentage of their final few years' pay. And that pay includes overtime," Bronin said. "It's not all that uncommon right now for the city of Hartford to be paying far more than base pay in the pension every single year... In some cases double."
Complicating things further is that the city is a regional hub that has a shrinking tax base and a population in poverty. But aside from state revenue, it only has one real way of raising more money: the property tax. Bronin said that’s a lever he’s unwilling to pull.
"The tax rate in Hartford is so high already that if you raise it, especially on our small businesses, you risk killing a city," he said.
So if raising taxes is unlikely, Bronin is going to have to work with employees to cut salaries and benefits.
"And it’s not about what’s fair or what’s right or even what’s in the best interest of recruiting the best workers to the city of Hartford," he said. "It’s simply facing the reality that we don’t have nearly enough money to support the services we need to deliver to the people of Hartford."
Residents should also expect the city to reach out to the state for help -- if not for money, then for some sort of relief that translates into money. After that, Bronin said residents should expect painful, deep cuts.
"We're not talking about cutting fat," Bronin said. "We're not talking about cutting muscle or cutting bone. In some cases we're saying, are there limbs that we could live without?"
And as Bronin gets ready to give his first state of the city address, his message is going to be tough.
"Hartford is resilient. Hartford is rich in cultural assets," the mayor said. "Hartford has an unbelievable range of diverse, distinct neighborhoods with great character. Hartford is a great city. But the state of Hartford’s finances is dire."
Bronin's first budget is due in April.
