Spring is here. The temperature is rising, flowers are poking through the ground, and in support of yet another massive tax increase, New London Mayor Daryl Finizio is again peddling the same fabricated story of evil city councilors manipulating budgets to ensure re-election. As one of the accused, I must take a break from dastardly twirling my mustache and tying damsels to railroad tracks, to set the record straight.

In his 2015 State of the City Address, Finizio once more accused a prior council of nefariously manipulating the 2011-2012 budget. He even included, “After decades of deficit spending.” Decades of deficit spending? Really?

Granted, the fiscal-year 2012 deficit could have resulted from unrealized, educated and professionally recommended assumptions made during the budget process. However, such a deficit should have been a few hundred thousand dollars, not a few million, which is what the mayor was evidently intent on causing for his political purposes, then and now.

In an April 25, 2011 email, then interim City Manager Denise Rose approved Finance Director James Lathrop’s request to forward to the City Council on which I served (at our request) his recommendations for reducing the proposed fiscal-year 2012 mill rate. That email includes $350,000 in revenue increases and $982,000 in expenditure decreases to balance the budget without a tax increase.

Finizio took office six months into the fiscal year, assuming responsibility to manage that budget. What he fails to note in his criticism are the budget changes never approved by the City Council but implemented by incoming Finance Director Jeff Smith. In a Feb. 2, 2012 email from then Personnel Coordinator Bernadette Welsh to then Chief Administrative Officer Jane Glover, and copied to the mayor, the personnel coordinator states in referring to the FY2012 budget that, “the adopted budget (the one online) is not actually correct.” She also states that, “the online budget was not final and contained errors” and that, “no department head paid much heed to the online document.”

Is it any wonder that financial problems occurred during FY2012?

Exacerbating the fiscal problems was the mayor’s inaction. Budgeted income from taxable personal property audits, transfer station changes, and increased parking enforcement went unrealized. This amounted to potential lost revenue of over $370,000.

Through the mayor’s actions, meanwhile, the city incurred unbudgeted expenses from employee separation and termination agreements, increased salaries, unvested retirement payments, City Hall refurbishments, unemployment payments, added employee positions, etc. Limited space prevents me from listing everything, but unauthorized money spent includes $43,481 to the former interim city manager, $344,960 to two police captains and a deputy chief, and $39,048 to the former public works director.

These are just what I have documented. Numerous other city officials were replaced during the first few months of the Finizio administration. What did those severance packages cost the city?

Add up all the unbudgeted expenses and the Finizio administration's failure to pursue revenues outlined in the budget and it's no wonder the deficit reached $3.7 million

Then there is the March 5, 2012 memo from the finance director to the council president that defined a path for avoiding such overruns (i.e., how to solve the problem). Why wasn’t the plan implemented? Perhaps because addressing the situation would not have fit with the mayor’s fulfillment of his prophecy.

By the way, a thorough examination of the causes of the deficit would have been contained in the Operational Audit ordered by the council — including detailed expenditures of 10 departments. It was never completed. I wonder why?

Mayor Finizio nurtured the $3.7 million 2011-2012 deficit to reality. The public should not perceive his spurious story as truth simply because he keeps repeating it.

Adam Sprecace is a New London resident and former member of its City Council.