LETTER: Enfield Residents Should Demand Answers From Their Elected Officials

On March 21, 2016, town manager Lee Erdman made a public presentation to the Town Council outlining the budget for next year. During this presentation, he asserted that the police department was responsible for a 23% increase in pension while at the same time calling for a hiring freeze. He also said that there was an increase in medical costs for police officers which also affected the budget. What Erdmann did not say in the public forum (but did apparently tell the Council privately) was that there was mismanagement on the part of his predecessors. Though recently, he has admitted that “they goofed” in not making the payments they were obliged to make into the health insurance fund over the past three years; now there is a large bill that must be paid to provide workers with health insurance.

One has to wonder if this explains the sudden departure last year of all three town managers and the finance director in the short span of six months. Has the town conducted an audit to make sure there were no other fiscal anomalies?

We have also recently learned that the pension increase is based on the premise that police officers are living longer, so the town needs to put more into the retirement fund. While we appreciate the town making the proper payments to the town, we also fear that since the pension fund is currently well funded at somewhere between 87%-93% they could withdraw this money after the budget passes to fund the neglected health insurance plan.

The town does seem to recognize recently that the people they have in place currently are not capable of conducting its own business. Despite being in woeful fiscal times as they profess and regardless of all the law degrees at Town Hall, they have hired Saranne Murray from the prestigious (read “expensive”) law firm of Shipman & Goodwin to resolve an action the union has brought against the town for another pension issue.

Rather than publicly holding accountable those that failed to exercise their fiduciary responsibility in managing the affairs of the town over the years, Mr. Erdmann has chosen to capitalize on the nascent wave of anti-police sentiment to change the narrative and shift the onus onto the benefits the Enfield police officers receive.

The people of Enfield deserve to know the real reason why their taxes are rising, and need to start demanding answers and action from their elected officials.

Doug Montas – President
Enfield Police Union – Local 798