New Castle County/ public employees reach sweet deal with taxpayer dollars

Readers of this blog will remember back in January when we did a story on a report from the Wilmington News Journal confirming an allegation made during the 2010 U.S. Senate campaign that New Castle County was broke.  Dace Blaskowitz, a political independent, found that the "NCCo government is simply unsustainable" and that the answer to their rampant overspending has consistently been higher and higher property taxes and sewer fees.  You may also remember that Mr. Blaskowitz found that 75% of New Castle County government costs are tied up in personnel and that is after a 2.5%paycut in 2009 and anotherin 2010.

Blaskowitz suggested a reduction in staff levels and contraction of benefit obligations yet New Castle County has gone on a hiring spree lately.  He also suggested some minimal concessions from the unions with regard to pay/benefits might be necessary to close the gap between revenue and expenditures.  The Clark Administration has said that it will work with the unions but that it is getting serious about the County finances.  Today however, sources within the County unions confirm that a deal has been reached and will be signed tomorrow.  The deal is reported to be a two year deal with county employees contributing $1200 per year to a healthcare savings fund.  In exchange for this surcharge payment, county employees will get a 5% increase (covering their two 2.5% reductions in the past 2 years) plus 3 new paid fulough days each year.  County employees will not have any holidays or current off time taken away.  Sources say that County Council Executive Paul Clark will sign the deal tomorrow afternoon.

Does this mean that our County finances are back in order?  Just a month ago when County Council passed the FY 2012 budget, Clark was talking about another 2.5% cut and other concessions from the unions.  In fact, his budget passed, despite strong opposition from Council President Kovach with the specific plan to make those cuts.  Kovach cited concerns that the budget did not properly address the current debt and also questions as to how unions would rollback 5% of their pay and then agree to ANOTHER cut of 2.5%.  Also, is it possible that the 3 extra paid furlough days are equal to that 2.5% cut?

New Castle County Democrats on the Lamb Wisconsin Style

I received an email last night from a good friend in the Delaware conservative movement who was warning about an impending power play by the New Castle County Council.  This is the message:

Tue March 1st at the New Castle County Bldg at 800 N. French Street at 4:30pm New Castle Council meets.  The New Castle Council will meet to try to strip Tom Kovach of some of his powers and undo rules of order that address the corruption in bidding and development.

We need you there. 

I immediately thought that I should go to this.  It was last minute, and with 4 kids, last minute sometimes just doesn't work out.  My wife and I scrambled to make sure we had kid coverage and I was able to leave (albeit a little late) for Wilmington.  I walked in about 25 mins late and was greeted by an almost empty room.  Well, almost empty of legislators.  By the time I arrived only Council President Kovach and Councilman Weiner were still in the room.  I later found out that of the 13 members of council, the following showed up:

1. Councilwoman Diller (D)
2. Councilman Powers (D)
3. Councilman Tackett (D)
4. Councilman Weiner (R)
5. Council President Kovach (R)

Councilwoman Kilpatrick called in sick and Councilman Cartier was out of town, both announced their intent not to show.  The rest of County Council were no shows.  They'd pulled a Wisconsin.  Why?  Well they'd gotten word that THE PEOPLE had been notified that there was to be a vote to strip the Council President of some of his powers.  Word got out that we would show.  And so the Democrats (minus the few good government supporters above) decided since we WERE going to show, that they would not. 

But their motion is not going away.  Instead they are going to wait until the next Finance Committee meeting to bring it up.  That meeting takes place next Tuesday at 1:30PM.  They're doing it then because they figure that many of us who came, wanted to come or tried to come tonight will not be able to come then.  They don't want the public to know what is going on in County Council.  People like Tim Sheldon and George Smiley are neck deep in some serious corruption when it comes to land use and they've been using suspect methods to pass their bills.  Kovach has called them out on their misdeeds and now Council is reacting viciously.  Adam Taylor over at the News Journal (one of the few good guys) has an EXCELLENT piece on the moves Council has made to restrict Kovach's ability to check the Democrats.

I say we show up enmasse on Tuesday at 1:30PM at the City County Building on the 8th Floor.  It's time we stood up for the people attempting to stand up for us.  In addition, if any of the following are your councilmembers, please send them an email about being absent from their duties today:

1st District - Joe Reda

4th District - Penrose Hollins

7th District - George Smiley

8th District - John Cartier - he was excused from the meeting but is in favor of changing the rules because Kovach is calling the Dems bluff

9th District - Tim Sheldon

10th District - Jea P. Street

12th District - Bill Bell

Kovach wins NCC President!

The New Castle County GOP united today and supported a good man and a good candidate for the New Castle County Council President race.  Republican Tom Kovach defeated former AFL-CIO VP Tim Sheldon in a blowout 57%-41%.  All corners of the GOP came together behind Mr. Kovach.  In stark contrast to the divided November elections when the TEA Party element was at odds with the establishment, Kovach enjoyed broad support from both conservatives and moderates in the New Castle County GOP.  The advocacy group Common Sense Communities Society even endorsed Kovach and turned out their voters to ensure his victory tonight.  Even Christine O'Donnell, who was the subject of moderate Republican ire in November and who lost largely due to that ire, chipped in the maximum amount allowed to Mr. Kovach.  This was truly a united effort and let me say that I am proud of Mr. Kovach and look forward to holding him accountable in County Council.  Afterall, Tom is a TEA Partier:

Blaskowitz lays out his report

Yesterday, Dace Blaskovitz, who set New Castle County a buzz with his report on county government finances and their dire situation, wrote an op-ed in which he detailed what he believes is the problem with county government.  His report received lots of attention when columnist Ron Williams wrote his own opinion piece agreeing with Dace.  Blaskovitz states that "NCCo government is simply unsustainable" in his report and points out that "from 2005 to 2010, NCCo property tax rates increased 55 percent. Sewer rates increased more than 60 percent from 2005 to 2011."  Despite these increases, New Castle County government outspent revenues and blew through a previous surplus.  "From 2000 to 2009, pension assets increased $9 million, while the county's unfunded accrued actuarial liabilities increased over $140 million."  This includes problems like "The county pension assets currently total about $350 million", and "The retiree health care cost is a nearly $250 million unspoken future black cloud."

Blaskovitz takes particular aim at the county's pension, retiree health care and the number of employees because the county has let things get so out of control.  He cites an example of retired New Castle County police officers who "receive a never-ending, no-cap 3 percent compounding COLA. Therefore, most NCCo police will average...the same compensation in their retirement as when they were employed. For reference, an NCCo police officer with five years experience is paid around $85,000 a year (in salary alone)."  Dace points out that 75% of the county's spending occurs in the personnel field.  The size of county government is astounding, the county employs around 1,500 people and most are full time employees.  This places New Castle County government in the list as the 5th largest employer in the State of Delaware, with more employees than Barclays Bank and ING Direct combined (state government is the largest).  New Castle County has "Almost 100 full-time county employees are paid close to or more than $100,000. With few exceptions, gold-plated health care extends to the grave."

Blaskovitz smacks readers in the face with his honest assessment of the county financial situation (where was this in October when former County Executive Chris Coons was lying to the public about New Castle County I wonder) when he writes, "after years of delaying executive decisions, hoping an economic bounce would magically undo the dilemma, dwindling reserves are now forcing a day of reckoning."  Dace further points out that the unions aren't done asking for more and more county tax payers.  He doesn't just spotlight the county problems, Dace presents solutions that I for one agree with.  He suggests that "citizens should demand a reduction in head-count. NCCo's actuary has pension and health care proposals waiting for action. Salaries have to reflect the balance sheet. Perhaps a spending oversight board would assist in fiscal restraint."  He even calls for the possibility of merging or consolidating New Castle County, municipal and city infrastructure where practicable which is something that Republican County Council President candidate Tom Kovach has pointed to as an area he would work to attack immediately.  While the Democrats who joined Blaskovitz and Republican Wayne Smith on the committee that put together the report issued a suggestion that the county raise taxes AGAIN, Dace suggests that " it is unconscionable for "revenue enhancements" to even be mentioned in our report."  He calls for county government to tighten its belt instead of heaping their bad financial practices on the people of Delaware.

A case for Tom Kovach

Regular readers of this blog will recall that I laid out a compelling case for why I think Tom Kovach deserves a look when we go to the polls on Jan 13th to vote for a new New Castle County President.  Most importantly, Tom's opponent, Tim Sheldon, is a former VP of the AFL-CIO (I mean, can you GET anymore Progressive than that?).  Some folks have gotten hung up on the fact that Kovach has been labeled as the "hand picked candidate" of former Congressman Mike Castle.  C'est la vie folks and we have to deal with it.  We could stay home, protest our vote and say we won't vote for Castle's guy.  We could vote for the Libertarian candidate James Christina and he might get just under 10% of the vote.  In the end that does one thing, it ensures that Tim Sheldon, former VP of the AFL/CIO has a smooth road to NCC President. 

Sure, Kovach went on with Glen Urquhart on WILM today and espoused the wonders of the RGGI that has continuously depressed jobs, shrunk the economy and driven up the price of energy but he didn't sound real confident in those statements so I think we can still talk him down from the regional cap and trade ledge.  Look, the fact is that we tried the whole "elect the radicals to prove a point" thing in 2008 and we got Universal Healthcare....you put Tim Sheldon in the Presidents seat and you might as well call us the New Castle Socialist County.  Besides, if Tim Sheldon were to beat Mike Castle's hand picked candidate for Council President, that would leave the DE GOP leadership looking...well worse than it already does and we can't have that now can we?  C.R. also has a pretty compelling reason why Kovach is the choice over at Resolute Determination.

Why Tom...Why Now...Why Not

As a T.E.A. Party leader and Republican I am uniquely positioned to understand the concerns of both sides as they struggle to achieve a balance in a new political climate.  The establishment has been running things for a very long time and now some new upstarts are threatening to cut in on their action.  The "upstarts" happen to be the electorate as a whole which is actually the way our government was designed.  The problem is that it hasn't been run that way in more than 100 years so the establishment has become complacent in their dominance. 

Delaware, like New York, Chicago and most other small geographical  locations has been controlled by a powerful few for many years.  These powerful few come from all political affiliations and they control the most important decisions in the state.  While the people retain the power to vote of course and appear to be in control of the process, it is the elite few that control who runs, how they are covered in the media and what support they get from the political parties.  It's been said that the only place that plays Chicago politics as good as Chicago, is Delaware.

So it's not surprising that after a divisive Primary election where establishment favorite Mike Castle was beaten by TEA Party favorite Christine O'Donnell, that the two factions would be suspicious of one another.  The Democrats are riding a high after their General election victories and they are feeling confident about the Special Election for New Castle County President.  They've nominated Tim Sheldon, the current 9th District County Council Representative and former Vice President of Delaware's AFL-CIO.  He's still employed by the unions, now serving as the Chief Administrative Officer of the regional bricklayers union and like fellow Democrat Velda Jones-Potter, he's dipping into government resources through another level as well.  While not a paid position, Sheldon serves on the board of the Delaware Solid Waste Authority.  DSWA is a public/private partnership whose board is appointed by the Governor (and confirmed by the State Senate) and who controls landfill and trash removal in the state. 

Councilman Sheldon is paid $27,500 per year by the New Castle County taxpayers part time to serve on County Council and also likely pulls down 6 figures from his full time union job (Not to mention the benefits!).  He doesn't really need the money so it's OK that the DSWA appointment comes without pay, what it gives him is an inside track to ensure that his union gets in on the government contract action.  It may not be illegal but morally, we have to wonder, is it right? 

On the other hand, the Republicans have nominated former State Representative Tom Kovach who was caught on the wrong side of the wave election this year.  Kovach is the hand picked candidate of Mike Castle which likely harmed him among conservative voters in his district and may have cost him the election there.  This past election was unfortunate as good Republicans lost in places they never should have for various reasons.  Some lost because people didn't like O'Donnell and others because of their allegiance to Castle.  Whatever the case, unfortunately the good was taken out with the bad.  Tom Kovach, for all his bedfellows, is one of the good ones.  As a State Representative he served ably in Dover and he stood up for conservative fiscal values.  He's a lawyer who specializes in corporate environmental law and intellectual property.  He has experience with the land use issues that County Council will be working on and he understands the importance of fiscal responsibility at all levels of government.  Tom is perceived as a moderate, "Mike Castle Republican" because he has not been overt about his views on social issues.  What we do know about Tom is that he understands that we need cut spending, decrease the tax burden and get government out of the way of the free market to create jobs.  These are the things that matter and these are the things that Tom will work to fix in County Council.  So what if Mike Castle endorsed Tom Kovach?  There has been a lot of talk about working together and uniting to ensure that our economy improves and I believe that Tom Kovach is a candidate that we can all agree will fight to make that happen.  With that in mind, consider this my official endorsement of Tom Kovach for New Castle County President.  I hope that the members of the Patriot Movement will join me in supporting Tom and standing up against the harmful policies of Paul Clark and Tim Sheldon.  Please consider voting for Tom Kovach on Jan. 13th, 2011 in the Special Election for New Castle County Council President.

Mike Castle or "Mike Castle Republicans"?

There has been much posted about how the "extreme right wing" T.E.A. Party people won't support "Mike Castle Republicans" and how that will be the downfall of the GOP in New Castle County.  Much of it stems from the fact that conservative activist Christine O'Donnell defeated long time Republican Congressman Mike Castle in the recent U.S. Senate Primary.  That has left a sour taste in the mouths of some moderate Republicans who have projected a race between two individuals onto an entire group of people.  The fact is that the 2010 U.S. Senate Republican Primary was about Mike Castle and Christine O'Donnell.  Mike had drifted too far away from his base and had lost even the mantra of a fiscal conservative by voting time and again for bailouts, spending without limits and massive government growth.  Long ago Congressman Castle had shed the skin of social conservatism and alienated many in not just the southern part of the state but the north as well. 

For the T.E.A. Party groups, this election was about limiting government to the boundaries of the Constitution, stopping spending and keeping markets free.  Mike Castle had become someone who did not represent these values.  By contrast, Christine O'Donnell offered fresh ideas, a chance to stop the Obama policies that Castle had largely supported and a set of policies that would return America to the roots of prosperity that we have consistently returned to in times of trouble.  Castle also seemed to feel as though he was owed the U.S. Senate seat.  He did not feel like he should be accountable to the people of Delaware and specifically, he felt no need to listen to the T.E.A. Party groups.  It was clear that Congressman Castle had escaped his base in 2009 during a town hall meeting about the Obamacare legislation when he was asked a question about where in the Constitution it states that the government can be involved in health care.  His answer was that the Constitution doesn't PROHIBIT the Federal Government from that activity which ignores the whole premise of the Constitution.  The Constitution lays out specifically what the federal government MAY do and specifically (10th Amendment) leaves the rest to the people and to the states.  Christine O'Donnell by comparison had studied Constitutional government and understood the founding document.  In fact, in the General Election she would display her knowledge at a debate with the eventual winner of the General Election, Chris Coons which was held at Widener Law School.  Coons asserted that the phrase "separation of church and state" appears in the 1st Amendment of the Constitution and O'Donnell smartly challenged him.  As Coons backtracked, the student body of the law school showed their ignorance with laughter at Ms. O'Donnell's position.  The media of course went into red alert mode and tried to paint Christine into a corner.  Sadly, they showed the ignorance of their positions as the phrase "separation of church and state" does not appear in any of our founding documents but instead, in a letter from Thomas Jefferson to a group of Baptist Ministers in Danbury Connecticut written in 1802 which is not formal policy but rather a reassurance to the delegation that the United States would never adopt a national religion like England did.

The fact that Mike Castle was pro-choice and Christine O'Donnell was pro-life was not an insignificant position by any means but to make the leap that the media did in claiming that it was a deciding factor for TEA Party members is flat out absurd.  In fact, for all the work that the media and left wing did to paint Christine as a far right social activist, the truth bears a different story.  Christine stood for a limited government approach to many social issues by calling for those decisions to be made at the local or state level and not by the federal government.  She was also in favor of maintaining a healthy planet, reducing emissions and being good stewards of the land God has given us.  Another myth was presented when GLBT groups began protesting against O'Donnell and asserting that she was anti-homosexual.  The fact is that her staff was made up of perhaps the most diverse group of people ever assembled.  Nearly every race, gender, religion and sexual orientation was represented and she even had members from every mainstream political party working for her.  Christine is far from a bigot when it comes to any of these labels and looked for the best people for the job and not what they looked like, what they did in their personal lives or what religion they practiced. 

So you see, this was not an election about an ideologically pure ultraconservative candidate being nominated in a state overrun with leftists the way the media and the establishment has claimed.  Nor was it a referendum on all moderate Republicans.  It was about Mike Castle and a set of principles that he had abandoned.  It was about the base of the Republican Party standing up and being heard by the establishment that had made all of the decisions over the years and it was about busting up the backroom deals and "The Delaware Way" which was designed to keep the powerful in power and the regular citizens in the dark.  Christine accomplished something that many others had failed at in the past and while she didn't accomplish the ultimate goal, she has NOTHING to be ashamed of.  She's made it possible for regular people to run for office in Delaware again and she's inspired people to stand up for what they believe in.  She combined the very conservative folks in southern Delaware with the TEA Party folks all across the state and created a coalition across party lines that stood on principle regardless of the outcome. 

For many years, those conservatives and TEA Party folks had voted for Mike Castle and others like him under that old mantra that you vote for the most conservative candidate who can get elected.  The TEA Party itself is a melting pot of individuals from hardcore conservatives to moderate Democrats who are united around 3 main principles:

1. A government limited by the Constitution and all of the rules it contains.
2. A government that is responsible with taxpayer dollars and keeps taxes low.
3. Markets that are free and open to the people.

This is what makes the TEA Party continue to grow and what unites people across political party lines and despite establishment claims, this is what will unite the TEA Party and conservatives with establishment Republicans in supporting people like Tom Kovach in New Castle County.