The real budget for the city of Hartford is ~$660,000,000. This has been bugging me so I wanted to do a quick post:
The proposed 2012-2013 budget for Hartford is:
$546, 640, 339
BUT....
The budgeted amount for education is:
$284, 008, 188
The proposed Budget for the Hartford Board of Education is:
$400, 109, 906
You'll notice the city budget amount and the Board of Education amount don't match. (Off by around $111,000,000) Why? Nothing more than smoke and mirrors trickery on the part of our civic leadership. They keep them separate knowing full well if they combined the two it would cause heart attacks city and state wide.
The claim will be that the remaining amount is taken care of by federal and state grants and funding. HOWEVER...this is not guaranteed money in that the state and the federal government are, in case you haven't been following the news...broke. And not the "Hey can I borrow a couple bucks until payday" broke. Catastrophic "European style" failure broke.
So if either (or both) cut funding, the city of Hartford is still on the line for the money. In much the same way as if you're uncle is helping you out paying your credit card bill and he calls up one day to say "Sorry, I can't help you out, your aunt got caught in the goat tub again and medical bills are eating up my savings."
The credit card company won't accept excuses. Either will the teachers union and, since over 80% of the education budget is salaries and benefits, they're going to have to get paid. Remember California and the "pay vouchers"? That ought to go over well here in Connecticut.
Revenue for the city, as per the proposed budget (and not the Mayors "We're $50 million short, what do we do?" chicken little impersonation) we have $284, 782, 690 in revenue. To put that in household terms:
You make $28,000 a year but spend $66,000 a year. Try that some time and see how far you get with your personal expenses.
Only in government could you get away with it. Wait...the Federal government has an unsustainable debt load? Oh, then the state will help us...wait...Connecticut is facing a massive deficit?
Well, now. Looks like it's a bad time to be in the budget business. Anyone know a good civic bankruptcy attorney?
