hot potato

Hot Potato

Not since redevelopment of Willimantic's downtown in the seventies have we seen such construction and re-construction the likes of which we have witnessed over the past year and a half. I'm not referring to the “major parcel” (Jillson Square), mind you, but Windham's schools. Steven Adamowski, the former superintendent of Hartford Public Schools, arrived in August 2011 — not with a shovel or backhoe — but with a mandate from the state board of education to fix 20 years of neglect and to lift our schools out of the education cellar.

Since his arrival, Adamowski has attempted to transform a failing school system into a competitive institution that will assure future student achievement, an acceptable graduation rate, and students’ ability to meet life challenges and workplace goals.

Recently Special Master Adamowski has focused attention on what appears to be an accounting/legal error committed by the school board in financing a $5.2 million dollar energy upgrade in 2007/2008 to all school buildings except Kramer (the Energy Performance Contract (EPC), i.e. “the Hot Potato”.) Adamowski claims and the state agrees that the capitol lease that the board of education committed to is illegal. He claims a school district is not supposed to pay for debt interest and principal out of its operating budget, It is the town's responsibility to cover these expenses.

On April 16, 2013 the board of finance voted to assume half of $506,000 principal and interest payment FY 2013-14 and assume the remaining yearly payments until the debt is paid off. This obligation was assigned to the town's general fund and will amount to several million dollars.

Dr Adomowski

This "Hot Potato" thing got me curious. Not how it developed but why? There has been accusations toward Dr. Adamowski's "illegal" tactics and of the town manager and the mayor's willingness to take on BOE liabilities behind the backs of the town council. I assumed that Adamowski was shedding an obligation from another poor decision of the board of education. I was wrong.

The energy performance contract has live up to its promises and then some:

Comparing 2007/08 to 2011/12 (energy use) 

• electricity (kw hours) down 39% 
• oil (gallons) down 35% 
• natural gas (btu's) down 11% 

Translated into dollar savings (2011 - 2012)

• electricity $21,152.00 
• oil          $257,924.00 
• nat gas   $261,185.00

Savings $540,261.00

While the EPC (Hot Potato) was carried out a smaller project was completed. Nine sets of solar panels were installed on the roofs of Windham's schools. The solar collectors contribute an annual savings of $14,400.00

In 2007, the school system entered into an Energy Performance Contract for $5.2 million dollars. The project was financed with a master equipment lease-purchase agreement which will mature in 2021.

This is a major energy improvement program conducted by CL&P. The board of education was guarantee that the savings from all types of energy costs would cover the monthly expense of the lease payment. And if the energies savings were lower then the lease payments CL&P would pay the difference as long as the system was used properly

Each of theses projects were vetted by the town, boe and bond attorneys. Each project has documentation between the boe and selectmen. The bond attorney has issued another letter recently confirming the processes used to set up these projects.

The BOE signed a Memorandum of Understanding that their attorney approved, agreeing to make the energy performance contract and lease payments with the savings from their utility bills.

The BOE paid its bill under the energy performance contract for several years, and that such payments were budgeted, were repeatedly approved by the BOE and the voters, were part of several BOE's reports to the state Dept. of Education, were audited by two different auditors, and nothing inappropriate was noted by any of these persons or entities.

Until, Steven Adamowski brought up a potential flaw in the EPC. A flaw not recognized by town attorneys, a bond attorney. auditors or the board of education.

The board of finance approved a 50-50 split with the boe where by the town government picks up approximately half of the $506,000.00 energy debt and deducts a like amount from the boe budget. Will this arrangement continue through the term of the agreement, ending in 2021? How will this arrangement effect the MBR? (minimum budget requirement) finally there is a possibility of a $1 million dollar tax liability exposure, precipitated by Adamowski's bookkeeping "maneuvers."


The school board should be commended for implementing a successful energy performance contract at no taxpayer expense. Our students will benefit from a better education covered by utility savings. At least that was the plan until Adamowski came along and opened a can of worms.

Conn. Politicians; Stop Running and Start Managing!

As if we needed more evidence, yet another sobering nonpartisan report came out last week projecting a bleak economic future for the Nutmeg State.

OP-ED | Interested In The Truth? Listen To Carstensen and Lembo

by Terry D. Cowgill | Apr 26, 2013 5:30am
(6) Comments | Log in to Post a Comment
Posted to: Economics, Labor, Opinion, State Budget

TERRY COWGILL

As if we needed more evidence, yet another sobering nonpartisan report came out last week projecting a bleak economic future for the Nutmeg State.

At the Capitol, Gov. Dannel P. Malloy’s chief budget flak Ben Barnes has, since his boss took office, consistently underestimated the size of the budget deficit and painted a rosier picture of the state’s economic future than analysts who don’t report to the governor. And partisan leaders in the General Assembly obviously have their own political agendas. They either want to make the governor look good, or in the case of Sen. John McKinney and Rep. Larry Cafero, they’re considering a run for the Republican nomination for governor next year.

CTNEWSJUNKIE FILE PHOTO

Prof. Fred Carstensen

Fortunately, for those interested in objectivity, there is the Connecticut Center for Economic Analysis at UConn. Economics professor Fred Carstensen heads the center and has never been shy about giving his take on where the state is headed economically (click here and herefor recent examples).
Last week, CT News Junkie reported that Carstensen and former U.S. Comptroller David Walker, who heads the Comeback America Initiative, found that Connecticut has “some of the highest — if not the highest — total liabilities and unfunded obligations per taxpayer of any state in the nation.”

Those liabilities mostly take the form of state employee pensions, retiree health care coverage, and bonded debt: “Beginning in the 1990s, state employee retirement programs were expanded considerably,” the report said. “For several years now, elected officials have not made the necessary contributions to fund the promised benefits.”

CTNEWSJUNKIE FILE PHOTO

State Comptroller Kevin Lembo, left

Why? The answer is really quite simple. As state controller Kevin Lembo told WNPR’s John Dankosky onWednesday’s Where We Live, the years of inadequate employee retirement funding correspond roughly with economic downturns: the early 90s recession; the dotcom bust of the late 90s; the great recession of 2008-09.

“Do we cut a vital service or underfund the pensions?” the independently elected Lembo asked.

We all know the answer to Lembo’s rhetorical question. Rather than make the tough choices about spending, elected officials kicked the proverbial can down the road.

The problem is especially acute in states like Illinois and Connecticut, where lawmakers are closely aligned with public employee unions. While Connecticut had assets to cover only 53 percent of its pension obligations in 2010, North Carolina, South Dakota, Washington, and Wisconsin were able to cover 95 percent of their obligations. The deadbeat state of Illinois clocked in at 40.4 percent, the worst in the nation.

State employee salary increases, on the other hand, have remained reasonable. The governor’s office, which in Connecticut is charged with negotiating state labor contracts, realizes that large raises would make for big headlines. So they sweeten the pot with generous pension benefits that go largely unnoticed and which do not have to be funded until decades after the ink is dry on the labor agreement.

Most state employees can retire with full pension benefits after only 25 years. Employees who work in what the state classifies as “hazardous duty” (mainly correction officers and police) can retire after only 20 years. Compounding the problem is that many hourly employees pile on the overtime in their last three highest earning years in order to artificially boost retirement benefits. Sadly, the Connecticut Mirror’s Keith Phaneuf told Dankosky he has seen no indication that lawmakers are considering ending such abuses.

I don’t begrudge the right of any employee to enjoy a decent retirement. I’m not too far away from calling it a career myself. But paying retirees not to work for 40 years is the embodiment of fiscal insanity.

One can only hope that Gov. Malloy realizes this and ultimately provides the necessary leadership. After Moody’s downgraded Connecticut’s bond rating early this year, based in part on the state’s appalling pension liabilities, Malloy proposedto achieve 80 percent funding by 2025 and 100 percent by 2032.

But it will take more than funnelling additional taxpayer money into those retirement funds. When the current John Rowland-negotiated labor agreement expires in 2017, the state’s elected officials should rein in the pension abuses, enact reforms, and hammer out a sustainable deal. Otherwise, we’ll be little better than Chicago writ small.

Terry Cowgill blogs at ctdevilsadvocate.com and was an editor and senior writer for The Lakeville Journal Company. He can be found on Twitter @terrycowgill.

Tags: terry cowgill, Pension, labor agreements, governor, economics, Fred Carstensen,David Walker, Malloy, cafero, McKinney, Lembo, Connecticut Center for Economic Analysis,dh

Share this story with others.

More Sharing ServicesShare|Share on facebookShare on twitter

Share on emailShare on favoritesShare on print

(6) Comments

posted by: HandyManny | April 26, 2013  8:13am

Amen.  This is not a Democrat or Republican issue.  This is simple and disturbing math.  These future liabilities will swamp us all if we don’t take action soon.

posted by: Noteworthy | April 26, 2013  9:47am

This is exactly right and in the meantime, this state needs to reign in hiring and limit its additional debt. However, there is no indication that Malloy or the Democrat controlled legislature has any intention of do that any time soon. Their goal is to keep painting a rosy picture and hope.

posted by: ASTANVET | April 26, 2013  11:09am

we will continue down this road of economic failure until the good people of CT realize it is a result of decades of a failed philosophy.  You cannot over tax, you cannot over spend, you need to be mindful of the public treasury.  You may want all manner of committee, councils, programs, entitlements - but that is what got us here.  It is time for a real conversation about the condition our state is in.  When funds are earmarked (i.e. gas tax) for infrastructure maintenance and improvement - but those funds get diverted, you need to connect those dots.  So much for the deep blue paradise that so many have bought into… unlike the previous comment, i do believe this is a liberal/conservative issue.  Small governments are just not as expensive.  More money in your pocket is good for the people - and attracts more people/business.  The trick is to not be fooled by the ability to grow government at every turn.  It takes discipline, and fortitude to keep govt small enough to manage the state, but not big enough to swallow it.  We do not have those kinds of people in Hartford today.  We haven’t had them in a long time.

posted by: ALD | April 26, 2013  2:03pm

Terry you say:

“The governor’s office, which in Connecticut is charged with negotiating state labor contracts, realizes that large raises would make for big headlines. So they sweeten the pot with generous pension benefits that go largely unnoticed”

I have long suspected exactly what you say here.  The pensions have not been properly funded with the agreement of the state worker labor unions or at least their leadership.  A private company in the real world could not get away with this. But we are talking the state here, and unlike a private company there is virtually no risk the state will default on these pensions.  The unions know the state will drain the taxpayers dry of every last dime first.

Best yet if your part of this deal you get your raises now, your pensions latter, and the general public, always ready to put it’s head in the sand and not pay attention, does not have the slightest idea just how much we are really spending per state worker, because those who make these deals can avoid the tax increases now to pay for them latter.

It’s a perfect example of what happens when you put the foxes in charge of the chicken coop, and the trusting farmer takes a long nap.

posted by: Not that Michael Brown | April 26, 2013  2:05pm

Sure that’s Lembo and Cartstensen, but what do Reinhart and Rogoff have to say about CT’s debt (read snark).  The former US Comptroller has no legitimacy.  He is paid handsomely by the Peter G. Peterson Foundation to spout this nonsense.  I’m checking on who funds Cartstensen.  Lembo is the most credible because he doesn’t do that silly ratio [expletive].

posted by: BrianO | April 26, 2013  3:22pm

Fiscal conservatism is not political conservatism.

Lose the labels and don’t blame one party over another.  Republicans funded prisons, UConn expansion, the Juvenile Justice Facility in Middletown, the LOB, very sweet Union contracts…etc. while cutting taxes, borrowing and working around debt ceilings.  How do you cut taxes and spend more?  Democrats watched it happen and always want higher taxes to fund admittedly growing social service needs.  Neither party understands long term fiscal planning tied to projected revenues. 

The best social service program is a job.

Boom

This bombing thing is a bummer.  This kid.  He really was what used to be known as:  The American Dream. 

Poor, born in Chechnya, raised here.  Gets educated.  Wrestles.  Becomes an American, Has friends.  Goes to the Senior Prom.  Scholarship to College.  Likes to dance and have fun.  All around American teen...but, he's got this older brother.  A malcontent, can't get his life together, abusive to his wife...finds  Allah.  And for some reason chaos occurs.

Now he drags his little brother into this.  He makes him an accomplice.  Why?  For Allah.

Allah?  What God would call for the destruction of humanity, though I guess ours did in OLD testament...

Of course Moses murdered a guy, and David certainly slept around but Jesus showed us the true and simple path to God.  Being in unity with God.  Being one.  With God.  And you probably know the key.   You were perhaps taught it in catechism.  And so it was love.  Love.  Love God.  Love your Neighbor.  Embody unconditional Love.  And that's all.

Hate cripples us.  It turns our insides sour.  It burns our hearts away and destroys our soul.

Sure love might make you angry, you might have to overturn a few tables here and there but you only should do that to wake people up when they are being lazy, or willfully stupid. 

Murder.  Bombs.  Slaughter of innocence.  Those times need to be over.  God wants us to make each other better, not dead.

The thing people have the most trouble with though, the thing most people find unnervingly frustrating, the thing  they simply cannot fathom entirely of course is...its simplicity.  How can it be that simple?  Well, it just is.  Well, that's God.

As a favorite science teaching colleague of mine once responded to the biological question of an AP student:  Because God Said.

We are currently wreaking our own havoc environmentally with which we must contend, and which is neither pretty nor easy.  Please do not get crazy over the wacko muslims (or wacko anyones for that matter), let the FBI do that.  They catch those people.  Clearly.

Have faith in Christ.  Ultimately, he will protect you and not let you go.  (I was reminded of this today).

David Fenn

Latino Migration Exhibit at the Windham Textile Museum

Welcome to The Mill Museum!

Latest News

=========================

Latino Migration Exhibit at the Windham Textile Museum

Read all about it here and here!

==========================

town pride

35 New Images at Claire's Italian Garden

Al makes a stop at Claire's Italian Garden

Travel over to Italian Garden. Claire has just put up 35 more  pictures.

Check them out

Walking Home From Fenway

April 15, 2013  Patriots Day 

DIANNE WRITES:

We walked after we were evacuated from the T
It was a very long walk

I think by now we all know this was the act of one lone man with a dark mission.  Why are some consumed by death and its disruption in our lives?  It is the work of Satan himself.  And where his works are so lay death.  The mission of Christ above all was to reveal love as our truth.  Destruction manifests an absence of love.  Oh, you might say, as Carol Burnett once did, I had to love my daughter enough to let her hate me...but she was acting out of love.  These muslim yahoos, these i don't know, mad schemers, these active terrorists...they serve an ill cause.  Ultimately, their cause is death.  But christians have a trick up their sleeve called faith and it mitigates the fear of losing ones' life.  For no man knows the hour or moment on earth...or something like that.

There is though a supremely ironic moment in Boston yesterday, where my family had gathered, a father crosses the finish line into the embrace of his son, elated, filled, joyous and then ... no more.   My prayer is that that boy only feel that unconditional love of that moment for the rest of eternity.

What cowards must resort to such violence in order for their small and fecund voice to be heard?  We were put here to make this place better.  Not destroy it.  Fools.  Damned Damned Damned Fools!

On the other hand, something actually good has happened in our schools.

Believe it or not but, it is my understanding that a miracle may have occurred here in Windham.  Or at least 75% of one anyway.  It is rumored, though I have not seen it written anywhere, that Adamowski has replaced back into the budget the appropriate funding to re-instate the elementary music teacher, re-instate the choral/orchestral position, beginning the process of schedule modifications at the middle school to meet state requirements and they are replacing and repairing all of the instruments that the kids need.  In fact, as soon as the choral guy graduates from UCONN (that's its real name now you know,) this Spring, he will be starting at the high school!

I am not a betting man, but if I were I say that in 3 years we will have a 10 to 17% increase in test scores, minimally.  People love a dem test scores.  Not to mention some very good music.

Isn't it amazing what just one man can do that 9 cannot.

He can raise a school system up or tear a Marathon down.

David Fenn

Lets Get Out and Dance, April 27th

We can't wait 'til 3rd Thursday to start dancing, so we're bringing Dr. Ya Ya's Gumbo Party to Willimantic in April! 

When Dr. Ya Ya's Gumbo Party comes to town, shoutin' and paradin' with that BIG second-line beat, tossing colored Mardi Gras Beads and doubloons to everyone, you're in for some of the best Louisiana - style musical cookin' north of Lake Porchartrain!  Here, outside of the tropical south, everybody deserves a Mardi Gras 400 days a year, and we really need some heat this year. To administer a remedy, Dr. Ya Ya dispatches his musical minions, who resemble past & present members of rootsy rockin' bands like The Bandidos, Hot Skillet Papas, Eight to the Bar, B. Willie Smith, The Convertibles and more. .This will be a jambalaya of New Orleans music:  zydeco, rhythm and blues, funk--my toes are dancing just thinking about it :).

Our great line-up for the evening will have you dancing from the first number, when Karen Lussier and Full Tilt start us off.  You've probably heard Karen's great vocals at Fenway Parkor with Kenny Chesney,Toby Keith, Brooks and Dunn, Ricky Skaggs. Karen is back after a 10 year hiatus with a brand new band whose names you'll recognize:  Ed Metal, George Butterick, Brian Tyler, and Steve Carini. They'll perform standard classic rock and roll with Johnny b Goode, Rock n Roll, by Led Zepplin, a Janice Joplin favorite with a special twist, some Martina McBride, Heart and a few originals that are bound to turn heads. The band is all about having fun and getting the crowd having a dancin' good time.

Our night will rock out with Chaug River Blues Band.  You know these guys:  Sean Rock, Brian Zawodniak, Rick Brosseau, Brian Laflamme, Seth Sharp.  They'll be playing the music we love.  Blues.  Be prepared to stay up past your bedtime.

3rd Thursday's long-awaited annual dance is happening April 27th, at the Elks, music starting at 7, doors open at 6:30.  BYO snacks, cash bar.  $15 per person. Tickets available at the Willi Food Coop or 860.450.0918 

Be prepared to stay up past your bedtime.  We'll be working 'til midnight.

Mill of the Month - April 27, 2013

American Linen Co, Willimantic Ct

The Windham Textile and History Museum
Presents the
April Mill of the Month
The Willimantic Thread Company
April 27, 2013, 10 am
Meet at the Windham Textile Museum

Another Mill of the Month Tour
Mill of the Month Upcoming Tours

Point - Counter Point #4 The Arts, Sweet Sue and Jessica Rabbit

Dear Johnny,

It was good seeing you. You gotta change that sweater, ok?

You asked me why I hadn't written about what happened at that Magical Board of Education meeting for music and the arts.

It is because I am nonplussed. Which means I am surprised and confused so much so that I don't know how to react. Defeated a bit perhaps, by the board of ed? I'm not sure.

I guess it's because it is so easy to be lulled by their supercilious, frivolous manner, that I almost buy it. Their ridiculous tones and fears. I feel the meeting was an enormous failure.

Pamela presented a very nice well thought out cogent plan. It makes sense, and even given the state our music program is in, it is highly economic. Finally, it will not only fix the problem but go on to create an amazing school system with highly musically literate students. And it could happen next year. It could perhaps even begin this year.

Though each board of education member said publicly to me they understood not only one reason, but I believe Dr. Switchenko said the variety of reasons music education is good, they really don't care enough to provide it.

I know when I asked another specific question being: How do you justify spending 130 thousand dollars on phones for central services instead of giving the students an elementary music teacher, suddenly "this was not a dialogue" though to that point board members were highly enthused and involved in other speakers' comments. And public session was introduced by Dr. Sewall as a question and comment period which it had been to that point, after I spoken we suddenly leapt to the "rules" with which, by the way, these jokers play with faster and looser than Jessica Rabbit at a Saturday dance.

They are an impenetrable mass. I'm not even 100% sure it's their fault. It's the institution itself. It needs reorganizing. Five members at most.

And as for the Council standing up to the Board of Education, I do remember not too long ago them dethroning Sweet Sue and her crew on the Magnet School. Perhaps they should do that again.

Even though they screwed up every possible step of the journey, once Tom took it over he got the work done. Imagine if Tom had gotten it before they bought that land, Tuckie Road would be less of a disaster than it has been and will most likely continue to be.

The truth is Johnny, those kids aren't going to get their music teacher at the elementary schools with these guys in charge. They gotta spend 130 thousand dollars so they can call each other instead.

If they put the full $300 grand in the budget to fix this problem which they have created, it will be a miracle. But then I am told other ones have happened in this very town, so only God knows. My bet is Board of Ed wins, Kids Lose. Why shouldn't history repeat itself yet again in Windham, Connecticut. Claiming superiority in a cloak of mediocrity.

Anyway, did I mention you look like crap?

See you soon




David

David, that's my writing sweater. Granted it has a couple tiny burn holes from smoking self rolled cigarettes and those white specks are from a Klondike Bar or two.  I eat from the wrapper. I know if I used a spoon and bowl it would be neater but a Klondike only taste good from its wrapper.

Don't think I'm going to be overly "pointy" today in our counterpoint  discussion. The arts  are the tie that binds academics. Unfortunately Windham has treated the arts as a step child through the years, witness Windham's academic achievement or lack of it over the past decades. Take a look at this: 

Lab School of Finance and Technology offers a "Robust Art and Music Program." 

 Research show that arts education is crucial in children’s learning process and development. Studies show that children exposed to arts education throughout childhood through primary, secondary and tertiary school show greater scores on academic achievements as well as greater social, cultural, emotional and cognitive development. Some of the measured improvements are greater self-confidence, communicative skills, cultural awareness and sensitivity alongside greater stimulated creativity and overall academic achievement.

Why the agitation with the board of education?  I didn't know their power had been restored. The last I knew the special master was running the show and if funds were to be appropriated for the arts, it would come from the master. Today's sitting board is "playing" board of education. It's "make believe land." They are powerless, they have no say in the affairs of the education of our students and the longer they have no say, the longer our staff, teachers and students  will be better off. 

And you are correct David. The town council did pull its collective will together and ousted the magnet school (non)building committee. It's probably the most important legislation, along with the appointment of the current building committee, that the council has accomplished in the past four years or decades. I'm a believer that if something is free go with it. While the school wasn't quite free it was a great bargain. We may not like the location or the decorating but Windham will be the recipient of a great educational asset. Come August when the school is turned over to the board of education we can only hope that those waiting for the keys will be gone come November.

Thanks for tuning in,

John 

Lab School of Finance and Technology offers a "Robust Art and Music Program." 

Off Putting : provoking uneasiness, dislike, annoyance, or repugnance; disturbing or disagreeable.

 Due to current economic recession many schools across see their arts programs cut off in favor of core curriculum subject such as English, math and science. Despite the lack of apparent and secure job possibilities within the arts and a pressuring need for a strong work force within the STEM fields (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) research show that arts education is crucial in children’s learning process and development. Studies show that children exposed to arts education throughout childhood through primary, secondary and tertiary school show greater scores on academic achievements as well as greater social, cultural, emotional and cognitive development. Some of the measured improvement are greater self-confidence, communicative skills, cultural awareness and sensitivity alongside greater stimulated creativity and overall academic achievement.