Council Democrats Override Mayoral Budget Veto

The 8 Democratic Council members voted to override Mayor Giuliano's line-item veto of the budget at a meeting on Friday night. The mayor and some of the Republican Council members were in Hartford attending the State convention, none attended the Council meeting.

The meeting opened with the election of Tom Serra, majority leader, as chair, in the absence of the Mayor and Deputy Mayor. The only real order of business was the veto override, but Serra allowed considerable discussion about the legality of the meeting and the absence of the Republicans. Serra acknowledged that the agenda was being stretched somewhat by his colleagues' statements and questions, "We are elasticating this."

The primary issue in the budget discussions this year has been whether union employees who are not teachers but work in the school district should be paid out of the city budget or out of the schools budget. Union leaders have said that these employees are not treated fairly by the schools administration, and have lobbied the Mayor and Common Council for this budgetary change. The mayor agreed with the Union, but the Council did not.

One of the reasons Council members have given for disagreeing with the mayor is that State statutes provide for a substantial penalty if a municipality reduces funding for education. Councilman James Streeto said to me after the meeting that he supported helping the union workers, but he was afraid of financial penalties from the State.

Friday, about 10 members of the public attended the meeting, with two reiterating support for moving the salary and benefits for unionized non-teaching positions to the city budget.

The Council first focused on whether the meeting they were holding was legal. Councilman James Streeto, a lawyer by day, tried to lead Corporation Counsel Bill Howard to say that there was no cause to be concerned about the legality of the meeting. Howard, who had earlier in the day expressed his concerns that the meeting may not have been noticed properly, refused to concede that point. He described a case in Killingworth where an aggrieved party had sued to block a Commission action, over a seemingly minor technicality in the noticing of a meeting. He suggested that the Council not take any chances about lawsuits, and to postpone the meeting, "If you have time here to fit this in without any cloud, ... it's worth doing that."

Council members would have none of it. Councilman Gerald Daley said "[though] the mayor could take us back to court on this issue, we need to be cognizant of the court of public opinion." He said that everybody knew about the meeting, "We all had to make choices. ... We made a choice to be here to do the City's business."

After this philosophical and legal discussion about holding the meeting, Councilman Vincent Loffredo left the pretense behind, giving a forthright explanation about why the meeting was held this Friday night. He said the only important votes were the Democrats, because 8 votes were needed to override the veto, implying that it did not really matter whether the Republicans were present, "We are the 8 votes."

The discussion over the resolution to override the Mayor's veto was considerably shorter than the discussion over the legality of the meeting. Daley voiced fury over Giuliano's recent actions which apparently was shared by all of the Democrats on the Council. "I feel it was a reckless action by the Mayor and Police Chief to station police at the Board of Ed building." Serra reminded him to restrict his remarks to the issue on the agenda.

The 8 Council Members voted unanimously to override, and thus the budgetary item for paying unionized non-teaching staff working within the school district will be part of the Board of Education budget for the coming fiscal year.

After the meeting I asked councilmen Streeto, Daley, and Santangelo what next step the Council would take in moving forward with the audit of the Board of Education finances. They were noncommittal.