Federation of Connecticut Taxpayer Organizations

From: The Federation of Connecticut Taxpayer Organizations
Contact: Susan Kniep, President
Website: http://ctact.org/
Email: fctopresident@aol.com
Telephone: 860-841-8032

Again, The Federation of Connecticut Taxpayer Organizations Recognizes

Flo Stahl

President of the Avon Taxpayers Association

Flo Stahl is recognized for being an effective spokesperson and activist not only for her taxpayer organization but for taxpayers throughout Connecticut as she garners� the necessary information to provide taxpayers with the tools they need to determine how and where their tax dollars are being spent.

On the local level, Flo Stahl, undaunted in her quest for transparency in government, has again led the Avon Taxpayers Association in the successful production of their annual report on Avon Employee Compensation for Fiscal Year 2015-2016.� �

Flo�s narrative on this project, which is highlighted below, is not only thought provoking but lends insight into why property owners throughout the State should be garnering similar information in their towns.� Among the 169 Towns in Connecticut, approximately 80% to 90% of local property taxes are dedicated to personnel related expenses for both Town and Board of Education employees.��

The Federation has attached Flo�s report in its entirety.�

It�s timely release coincides with a report recently released by WALLETHUB which analyzed how state and local tax rates compare to the national median in all 50 states to include the District of Columbia.� With 51 being the highest taxed state on real estate, and 1 being the lowest, New Jersey, was ranked as the highest� at 51,� Hawaii the lowest at 1, and Connecticut at 46.

Regarding automobile/vehicle taxes, Rhode Island is ranked the highest at 51.� Connecticut is ranked at 47.� Many states charge no taxes on registered vehicles and are therefore listed as 1.�� They include Alaska, Delaware, District of Columbia, Florida, George, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Louisiana, Maryland, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, and Vermont.

Flo�s narrative on this year�s project follows.� We have also attached the complete report on �

TOWN OF AVON

EMPLOYEE COMPENSATION

2015-2016

As of March 2015

�� 498�� Board of Education Employees

�� 159 �� Town Employees

All material contained in this report is public information.

About 80% of the total budget represents negotiated salaries and benefits.

We thank the Town and Board of Education for their help in providing this information.

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Once upon a time no one dared ask their government for a copy of a letter, a memo, a contract or a salary list. That all changed with the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) in 1967. In pre-FOIA days, requests of this nature were considered an affront, an attack on the integrity of public officials. Now, transparency is not only expected, it is embraced.� Some municipalities even post their accounts payable online in a program called �Open Checkbook.�

A relic of willful obscurity that has no basis in law is the murkiness of public union negotiations. Closed door discussions are not mandated. Transparency could easily occur if both parties agree to it. It�s that simple. Yet we somehow convince ourselves that secret negotiations are normal and unavoidable. [There is an important distinction between public and private sector unions: one is basically financed by public tax dollars and has overtones of a monopoly; the other is shaped by shareholder and free market forces, and is not part of this inquiry.]

Unions were initially established to outlaw child labor and protect workers from appalling working conditions. President John F. Kennedy allowed federal employees to unionize in 1962, thus expanding collective bargaining to the public sector. This formed the basis for today�s public employee unions.�

We are not advocating an end to collective bargaining. We are not testing our right to interrupt or intimidate. It�s not a game of gotcha. We are merely asking for observer status on behalf of all taxpayers when millions of their tax dollars are being discussed, apportioned, and committed for years to come. As with other aspects of public governance, public union negotiations should be transparent.�

�� Florence Stahl, President, Avon Taxpayers Association

�� Tom Mortimer, Researcher and Analyst

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Benefits Available To All Employees

�

MEDICAL/DENTAL INSURANCE

PAID VACATION & PERSONAL TIME

OVERTIME

TERM LIFE INSURANCE

DISABILITY INSURANCE

LONG TERM CARE INSURANCE

RETIREMENT CONTRIBUTIONS

TUITION REIMBURSEMENT

PAID SICK LEAVE & FAMILY LEAVE

PAID HOLIDAYS

PAY FOR ACCUMULATED SICK TIME

PAY FOR ACCUMULATED VACATION TIME

For an electronic copy send request to morttj@hotmail.com

Presented by Avon Taxpayers Association, P.O. Box 934, Avon, CT 06

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The Federation extends a sincere thank you to Flo Stahl for her many years of hard work and we look forward to many more and the information she brings to us. �

The following two previously written editorials by Flo lend insight into what we are facing today as public employee salaries ultimately translate to taxpayer funded public employee pensions.�

Especially, as many public employee pension plans throughout the country are grossly underfunded to include Connecticut as noted within�� Bad News For State Public Pension Plans - Forbes.

Blames Public Unions For Detroit's Woes - Courant.com.

Flo Stahl, Hartford Courant, December 05, 2013|Letter to the editor

Detroit is like a "Ghost of Municipal Mistakes Past, Present and Future" [Dec. 4, news, "Detroit Ruled Eligible For Bankruptcy Protection"]. The result of compensation largesse enforced by statutes and union pressure, this "Ghost" will come back to haunt every town in Connecticut.

Let's be clear about the difference between public and private unions. The Teamsters or the Ladies Garment Workers have little in common with public employees, especially those earning six figures. In the absence of private sector constraints, these employees receive benefits supported perpetually by public tax revenue.

Every municipality wants happy, well-paid employees. After all, service matters. But as revenues are increasingly overwhelmed by compensation agreements, this consideration occurs at the expense of other municipal commitments. Adjustments in co-pays, sick days or other marginal components, while giving negotiators political cover when aggregated, sound wonderful but mean little compared to the cumulative effect of mill rate increases. General wage increases that appear small often obscure escalations and perks that far exceed fiscal caution.

Public unions have come a long way since their "Tiny Tim" days and municipal decision-makers can't hide from this "Ghost" indefinitely. Together they must stop killing the goose that lays those golden eggs.

Florence Stahl, Avon
The writer is president of the Avon Taxpayers Association.

http://articles.courant.com/2013-12-05/news/hcrs-17798--20131204_1_ghost-public-employees-avon-taxpayers-association

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Let the Sunshine In!

A Request for Transparency in

Public Sector Union Contract Negotiations

By Flo Stahl, President of the Avon Taxpayers Association, and Board Member of The Federation of Connecticut Taxpayer Organizations, March, 2012

Every year a municipality somewhere in Connecticut implores �yes� and a public union somewhere in Connecticut declares �no.�� What they are doing is negotiating ground rules for expiring contracts and addressing the prickly question of whether these negotiations should be open or closed. By �open� we mean allowing passive observation by community members.

It is an intractable stalemate of their own making, since there is no legislation, no understanding, no policy whatsoever that prohibits the public from witnessing these negotiations. All it takes is agreement between the parties.�

At a recent negotiation session in Avon, a union lawyer rejected the town�s request, saying �It would be a circus.� If open negotiations are a circus, then the union would be its ring master. With its overwhelming power, any union could extract the most stringent control in exchange for merely allowing people in the room. Yet his statement went unchallenged because no municipality has ever gone to the mat for open negotiations.� Unlike the occasional binding arbitration cases regarding compensation and work rules, there is not one instance of municipal pushback on the issue of open negotiations. And who could blame them? It would require protracted litigation involving the State Labor Relations Board, a dreaded binding arbitration procedure, and advocacy for an intangible called �transparency.�

What makes the practice of closed negotiations insidious is that it perpetuates a culture of mystery and opaqueness. This is the same culture that is charged with producing the equivalent of a financial hammer because we live or die by these contract decisions for years. When the secretly negotiated contract finally does become public, its opaqueness continues with language that almost always requires knowledge of prior provisions and terms to make any sense of it.

The International Brotherhood of Teamsters, the United Auto Workers of America, or the United Farm Workers, to name a few, are all free-market labor organizations not reliant on local property taxes for their lifeblood. These fundamentally different, private sector unions exist in a climate of competition-driven consumer choice, global labor variables, and even world monetary policy. It is not a moral imperative that their negotiations be held in the open. Municipal unions, however, are shielded from all these pressures. They are in a special � one might say � honored, relationship with the public they serve.

So, why the secrecy? Why the license to repeatedly reject open sessions? One partner in this dialog must acknowledge that closed negotiations are indefensible. It raises profound questions about the union-community relationship and, most damaging, it reveals a cynical mindset toward the public it serves. Let the sunshine in. It�s the right thing to do.