FAIRFIELD COUNTY
BUSINESS JOURNAL April 18, 2016 | VOL. 52, No. 16
20 | GETTING MONEY SMART
24 | GOOD THINGS HAPPENING westfaironline.com
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NY Fed president says risks remain for economy BY REECE ALVAREZ
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ralvarez@westfairinc.com n remarks to the academic and business community at the University of Bridgeport, New York Federal Reserve President and CEO William Dudley delivered a tempered assessment of the current state and future outlook of the national and regional economies. Focusing half of his speech on Fairfield County, Dudley honed in on the county’s sluggish growth, particularly in comparison with New York City. “Only recently has employment approached its pre-recession levels, and it is still well shy of where it was back in 2000,” he said.
The housing market has yet to fully recovery in regard to housing prices as well as the amount of homes in foreclosure and up for foreclosure sale while New York has experienced an “exceptionally strong” recovery, he said. Dudley said the reason for the disparity is twofold. While Both New York and Fairfield County have had slow employment growth in the financial sector throughout the Great Recession recovery, New York has rebounded with strong employment in the technology, construction, retail and advertising industries, whereas Fairfield County has had to contend with losses from the relocations of RBS, UBS and the impending departure of » FED, page 6
New York Federal Reserve President and CEO William Dudley. Photo courtesy of University of Bridgeport
Stamford mayor bullish on city’s future
DAVID MARTIN TOUTS POPULATION GROWTH, FINANCIAL STRENGTHS IN STATE OF THE CITY ADDRESS BY REECE ALVAREZ ralvarez@westfairinc.com STAMFORD MAYOR DAVID MARTIN’S RECENT State of the City Address to the business community was marked by numerous positive indicators of the city’s growth with only sparse mention of the challenges facing the state’s
second-largest, and fastest-growing, city. Beginning with the city’s finances, Martin touted Standard & Poor’s AAA bond rating, which has allowed the city to receive low interest rates when it seeks support for bonds and refinancing. “We can fund capital proj-
ects at a lower rate, which means we have lower taxes because of it,” Martin told the Stamford Chamber of Commerce at the Stamford Hilton hotel on April 7. “That is something that is pretty rare for a community over 100,000 people and it is pretty rare for a city that is diverse as ours,” he said. Among the many points of pride highlighted by Martin was his recent $536 million budget proposal, which included no service cuts, a smaller tax increase (3.8 percent) than years prior and considerable progress in corralling massive employee benefit
obligations exerting pressure on the budget. In the 2016-17 budget the total amount spent on city employee benefits is expected to jump by 13.9 percent to over $65 million from the previous fiscal year and account for 30.7 percent of the city’s operating budget. “Pension and retiree health benefits are the single most important driver of our expenses,” he said. “When you have got almost a third of your budget increasing almost 14 percent a year, you are going to be severely challenged. If this trend continues, we would basically have half of the city bud-
get going to employee benefits, primarily pensions and OPEB (other post-employment benefits).” But Martin said significant progress on benefits has been made, including a historic first for the city. According to Martin, twothirds of city employees have signed contracts or entered into agreements that address longterm OPEB and pension obligations in addition to the city fully funding required OPEB and pension contributions for the first time in its history. “As I have said before, we will » MAYOR, page 6