As we head into , or maybe more appropriately , as we try to work our way out of very difficult budget times. Every dollar of savings counts. we might not find the million dollar fix, but all ideas will add up.
Please feel free to leave your comments here and any thoughts for savings or any way to do business leaner and smarter for the City of Hartford
Comment away ,and please stay positive. And trust me, people that can make a difference are reading also. Let's be part of the solution.
9 comments:
Let me get the ball rolling here. There is so much waste in the City budget and much of it is politically driven. Many of the non profits funded by the City are not based on the services they provide (or fail to provide) but how they are politically connected and do they provide votes at election time. Millions could be saved by making sure we are funding services that actually provide a service and a benefit to Hartford. Cut off non profits that are nothing more than leeches on the City budget
I suggest a more protectionist approach on procurement dollars. Years ago I won a bid to do some work for the city but was deemed "unfit" and the contract was awarded to someone outside of the city of Hartford. With all the auto repair shops within the city limits we were farming out our wheel alignments to a place in East Hartford. My small company has survived in Hartford since 1959 and is still going, contributing a staggering near-half-a-million dollars in property tax. We are far from unfit by any stretch of the imagination.
One thing that I have noticed is that it appears there is little oversight on work done to city facilities by outside contractors. Over the course of many years, I've seen very shoddy work done and this is a tremendous waste of taxpayer dollars. The City should have someone that watches over these contractors to ensure that the taxpayers are getting good work for their money. More importantly, weed out the contractors that are repeatedly screwing the City and it's taxpaying residents. I suppose that there may also be a political patronage component to this problem too.
After working for the City for many years, and this was one of the thing I noticed and thought at times unfair, the old saying "You get what you pay for" keeps coming to mind here, yes there are many employees that work for the City, and some very good ones, educated ones, and some not, and over the years many of us had talked about this over and over, the City should take away the resident application, there are so many people that would be a help to the City and hard working people that would love to work for the City, but they are not residents, we often felt that if a person applied for a position for the City, and they were the right candidate, then why not hire them, many times the City did not hire a person because they lived outside the City, which we felt was wrong, so the City needs to look beyond the residents at times, and look outside the window.
The City needs to look at the practice of "detached assignment" for the Police and Fire Union Presidents (I think the Teacher's Union President also). These are salaries we can not and should not afford to be paying. What is the benefit of giving away those salaries for no show jobs, and does anyone audit the hours to see if they even put in a full work week or are they off running their businesses on the side. Difficult times require difficult decisions.
Evaluate projects in hartford that involve State Reps and you will make a significant savings in tax dollars. Cost over runs, incomplete work, and the law suites the city has to fight because of the substandard work. Millions will be saved.
If anyone has evidence of fraud and or abuse please feel free to contact internal audit either directly or through the fraud hot line on the City web site.
@8:02
Too late for me to report. I saw grand thief by a retiring employee in front of me 15 years ago but I was unable to stop it. No need to go into detail now. I only suggest that the city take inventory of all of its possessions and be particularly interested with any environments where employees are leaving. This happens all the time. Why? Because it can.
Do year round continual recruitment of Hartford residents with no application closing date . Also do a comprehensive review of diversity in the dept .
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