Year after year at the formal city budget hearings there seems to be a number of common themes, all of which, unfortunately, show no change year after year. In my opinion those themes can be summed up into the following:

Lack of Accountability, All Talk No Action, Lack of Transparency, and Higher Taxes. This year in addition to the common themes, we also watched as virtually every service line item to the community was cut, yet raises, bonuses, and expenditures such as overtime, blew the roof off the taxpayer coffers. In the end, the city council past the budget and was unable to find five pennies to cut out of almost a 290 million dollar budget. How can that be possible? Let’s examine some of the recent events and you make your own decision as to how this dysfunctional fiscal behavior continues year after year.

Let’s go back to 2013 and discuss accountability. If you the taxpayer have been paying attention you will remember that the Mayor touted a three-year wage freeze and the windfall of savings that the city would realize from the wage freeze. In 2014 just weeks before the mayor declared to run for office again, he announced a $1,000 bonus for all union employees. Most critics called this maneuver exactly what it was seen as, a vote bribe. Nevertheless, the wage freeze was well discussed, especially by the fire department. As an example of the discussion, please refer to this Warwick Beacon article (warwickonline.com/stories/firefighters-wont-take-1k-bonus, 97101). The obvious question then becomes - If there was a three year wage freeze how did virtually every firefighter see anywhere from $8,000 to $30,000 in pay increases during the wage freeze period? A recent request for public records that I made shows exactly that. I am happy to share those documents, particularly the W2’s of three random firefighters that showed an increase in wages of $238,180 during the “wage freeze period.” DPW was not much different. The documents indicate numerous employees with five-figure increases in wages during the wage freeze period. The budget documents also indicate massive increases in overtime. In my analysis, there seems to be a direct correlation between wage increases during a wage freeze period and overtime costs to the taxpayer. However, the mayor and the beneficiaries of the well contrived scam will say the increases are due to “step increases” or “promotions.” If that is true, what the hell does the term wage freeze mean?

Each year at the budget hearings the city council discusses the overtime issue, in particular, lengthy discussions are always held with the chief of the fire department. For the last six years we have heard from the chiefs that the department is understaffed, and that with a new fire school and full complement of firefighters that overtime “would be eliminated” (Quotes from Sullivan and Armstrong). Well we had just that, and in addition we had a 3.1 million dollar grant to pay for the firefighter school that brought the department up to its 220 man full complement. Yet as you can expect, the budgeted overtime was once again dramatically exceeded. The mayor sat silent, as well as the council did nothing to curtail the expenses. No audit was performed of the department, nor has an audit ever been performed, nor will it ever be under this mayor and this council. At any time, any council member could have requested the documents that I received and been able to make a factual argument at the budget hearings and demand accountability. Yet no council member did that. Only the typical mumblings and warnings about budget busting overtime, yet no one was held accountable, no one questioned the mayor, and the budget was passed again.

During the hearings the fire chief stated that there was an enormous amount of firefighters out sick which contributed to the soaring overtime costs, however, when the sick pay bonus documents were procured from the city and examined, we find that virtually no sick time was accounted for and that of the 114 men that received the bonus, the vast majority received the maximum, meaning simply, no one took sick time. Again, these documents are instantly available to the city council members yet not one member did the simplest form of research so as to develop budgetary questions based on fact. The fire chief stated under public question that he had all of the sick time documentation in terms of days etc…as well as all of the substitution documentation required by contract. When asked for those documents the reply was “no such documents exist”. Is the picture that I am painting becoming any clearer to you yet?

The fire chief continued stating that the overtime was also due largely in part to “special training” costs that were performed during overtime hours. Yet neither the chief nor any member of the city council or the mayor discussed the fact that the special training that the chief spoke about was paid for by a FEMA grant.

I constantly have to ask the question: Is anyone paying attention to your tax dollars? Let’s go back just one year ago at the 2015 budget hearings. In addition to the lack of accountability, lack of cuts, let’s look at transparency. The city council was not privy to the new union contracts prior to having to vote on the budget. They had no idea how the contracts would impact the proposed budget yet they passed the budget as usual. When the contracts were finally revealed to the council they were all ratified with little to no discussion. The fire department contract was most disturbing as it contained a clause to increase the sick pay bonus by 50 percent. This newspaper addressed this issue recently, after I brought the facts to the attention of the editor, in this article. warwickonline.com/stories/firefighters-get-bonus-for-being-healthy, 112553

The startling fact is that six of the seven members of the council that voted in favor of the contract openly admitted to never reading the contract. In addition, six of the seven members all took donations from the Warwick Fire Union shortly prior to voting on the nice little added perk (that the taxpayer can’t afford). So my question to you is simply, who do they represent? Don’t you think that it’s time to begin to hold your elected officials accountable. News flash people, you keep electing the same unaccountable people!

Let me sum it up as I see it and as the official documents suggest. The soaring overtime costs are carefully contrived and planned by the department. The behavior has been going on for decades and the current chief, as well as the previous chiefs, all at one point in time, were beneficiaries of the scheme. The scheme is simply this. One employee calls out sick, he is paid for the day, he is not docked a sick day due to the contract language, and he is replaced by another employee who is paid time and a half to cover the shift. They rotate this carefully contrived method of wage enhancement and at the end of the year, wages are increased, the budget is always exceeded, and your taxes are increased. Let me reiterate once again that all of the official documents that have been received through the APRA requests, suggest exactly what I have explained above. Unfortunately, the mayor, finance director, fire chief, and finance chair of the council, have no documentation to suggest otherwise. Has it become any clearer to you as to who “they” represent?

One last thing, during the discussion of pay raises, bonuses, and promotions, and with the addition of $4.7 million in tax revenue, there was not one second of conversation had pertaining to reducing the burden of car taxes on the residents of this city. Plenty of money for raises, no money for tax relief, yet the council meetings continue to lack resident participation. Go figure?

A Warwick resident, Rob Cote regularly attends City Council meetings. He led the Car Tax Revolt to have motor vehicles assessed for tax purposes on their market, rather than best value. He has also been in the forefront of criticizing the policy of allowing firefighters to make food-shopping runs while on duty with city apparatus and of paying firefighters for unused sick days.