Back to that $4.4 Million Error
By Editor at November 28, 2023 | 8:15 am | Print
If you read Mayor Erin Stewart’s letter to City Departments, it is clear the City is still in debt.
Most of it is due to Former Mayor Tim O’Brien and Alderman Michael Trueworthy.
O’Brien mistakenly (he claims not mistakenly) put $4 million in the wrong area of the budget causing the City to owe the Board of Education an additionally $4.4 million this year. To make matters worse Mr. Trueworthy then proposed a budget in July adding the $4.4 million into the Mayor’s proposal, but not saying where it would come from. Instead of cutting or making the budget balance, Trueworthy just claimed it would be paid from “somewhere”.
The problem is that “somewhere” has not happened.
Both of these actions were totally irresponsible. Now, New Britain once again faces a deficit of almost $7 million.
The City has seven months to find those dollars. The bad decisions done in the past continue to haunt this City.
It is up to Mayor Stewart to find a way to make this budget work. Some of the debt will be made up by the union contract negotiations. The remainder is a mystery.
Although saving $7 million in half a year is not an undoable task, it will be a difficult one that involves watching every dollar.
It will be up to Mayor Stewart and Council members to this time make the right decisions where City funds are involved.
