Wilson:
Cockayne’s Election Year Promises Are Dangerous.
Democratic Mayoral
candidate Chris Wilson thinks his opponent, Ken Cockayne, needs to be straight
with voters about how he plans to pay for his latest campaign promises. "Additionally,
Ken Cockayne has had six years on the Bristol City Council to make even one of
the several proposals he's now made in the days leading up to the 2013
election. Where’s he been for six years?” Wilson stated.
Wilson contends Mr.
Cockayne either doesn't have a thorough understanding of city finances or he's
simply pandering to Bristol's seniors. Regardless, Wilson points out that
Cockayne offers no hint of how he'd pay for his campaign promises. “I've
said it over and over, what Mr. Cockayne is doing isn't leadership. I doubt
Bristol voters will be fooled by Ken’s all too recent campaign pledges,"
Wilson continued.
Most egregious though,
Wilson says, is the fact that Mr. Cockayne knows that Bristol residents, not
the State of Connecticut, will need to find ways to pick up the tab for both a
volunteer rebate and/or a Revolving Fund associated with a tax-freeze.
"The state doesn't have the money to cover Ken’s campaign promises,
so Bristol tax-payers, including seniors, will need to cover the costs or
suffer damaging service cuts.
Wilson finds it ironic
that Cockayne, a self-proclaimed fiscal conservative and taxpayer watchdog
could turn into a tax-and-spend-liberal over night. "Over the past few
weeks, Ken has been throwing our tax-dollars around like a drunken sailor.
He's promised $250,000 for blight,
volunteer rebates and now tax-freezes. But what Mr. Cockayne refuses to
tell anyone is how he expects to pay for any of this without either
dramatically raising taxes or slashing city services to the bone. Mr.
Cockayne's campaign promises strain credibility.” Wilson added.
“For many Bristol
families, the equity in their homes is a big part of their life’s savings. Now, Ken Cockayne wants to pin that equity
to property taxes and turn local governments into the bank that controls their
property. I can’t speak for everyone,
but personally, the last group in the world I want controlling any more of my
finances right now is the government.
Maybe Ken hasn’t noticed but the government is shut down because they
can’t handle the financial responsibilities that have right now.” Wilson said.
Unlike Cockayne’s recent
campaign promises, Chris Wilson has proposed a “regular, rigorous, review”
of Bristol’s city budget. Wilson believes Bristol can unlock wasted resources by
adopting real budget reform that reflects the fiscal practice known as
Performance Based Budgeting. PBB practitioners, a. establish priorities
that differentiate between what the city council wants and what Bristol
taxpayers can afford; b. set performance standards for every city department
and c. conduct regular reviews of performance.
“As a businessman, if
my company is spending money on something and we aren’t getting a reasonable
return on that investment, I need to think long and hard about whether or not
we continue that spending? I want to apply that same mentality to city tax dollars.”
Wilson stated.
Wilson went on to say,
“On the Board of Education, we returned $4,800,000.00 in surplus dollars to
Bristol taxpayers, we received Zero school budget increases and we've kept
Bristol schools strong. Additionally, the BOE recovered $4,000,000.00
dollars from school renovation projects and came in $18 million dollars under
budget on school construction projects. That’s accountability to
taxpayers. That’s doing more with less. Taxpayers are tired of Mr.
Cockayne's lip service. They want results,” Wilson stated.
Wilson contends that
in 2013-14; Bristol will spend about $185 million dollars. He says the
problem is that the City Council spends almost the entire budget process
focusing on the 5 percent they cut rather than the 95 percent we keep.
The overwhelming majority of Bristol’s nearly one-fifth of a billion dollar
budget will be spent without asking what we are trying to achieve by this
spending, whether we are producing the results we expect to achieve, whether we
can achieve better results through other means, or even whether we should be
spending this money in the first place.
“The fact is, under
the current City Council’s watch, including my opponent Mr. Cockayne; the city
budget went up by more than 20% over the past five years. Now that Mr. Cockayne
is running for mayor, he wants us to believe he’s going to initiate
consolidation and find savings all while giving away the farm. If he’s
such a fiscal watchdog, why has he waited so long to announce efforts to create
efficiencies? He’s had six years. The fact is, while I’ve been on
the Board of Education and Chairman, the city’s share of the education budget
decreased, we gave $4,800,000.00 back to taxpayers. My opponent may not like
these facts, but facts they remain.” Wilson stated.
Wilson concluded with,
“a 1% savings from PBB could mean $1,850,000.00 for public safety, economic
development, education and to fill the blight/code-enforcement officer position
that Mr. Cockayne left vacant. All without raising taxes one dime or
making unsustainable promises to Bristol voters.”
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