Finkle, McKay at the Starting Gate

It wasn’t too long ago that Ken McKay said he was considering a run for mayor this November. It wasn’t too long ago that John Finkle declared his candidacy for the same. Then last Thursday, the two Republican men announced they had decided to team up: Finkle would stay on the mayoral track and McKay would take the one for town clerk.

On Sunday afternoon inside The Rib House (owned by Finkle), the political partners talked about their nascent campaign, the $5.19 million deficit, the school department’s chronic accounting flaws and how town biz was run by the last Republican mayor.

No primary

McKay said he didn’t mind stepping aside for the top job. Finkle said the prospect of a primary was starting to crack his party’s foundation.

“People kind of portrayed it as Kenny versus John. We’ve been friends for a long time,” said Finkle, 49, who was Board of Ed chair from 1997-2007, during the same time McKay, 60, chaired the Town Council.

“We could see some divisions starting to happen on the town committee,” said McKay, still a councilman. “It’s for the better of the party and the town, too. Unification is what it‘s all about.”

Neither man would say who was deemed a more viable mayoral candidate. In fact, Finkle said that wasn’t taken into consideration during the decision-making. “Kenny and I never got to that,” he said.

McKay said he conceded to Finkle because “because John ran before” and knew the territory. Finkle said he could probably put together a committee and raise money more easily than his friend because he did so two years ago when he unsuccessfully challenged Democratic Mayor April Capone, who has not yet officially said whether she‘ll go for a third term.

Fixing the fiscal house

The running mates said they’re raring to go to Town Hall to clean up the fiscal house. They were asked to shun the campaign rhetoric of keeping taxes flat and decreasing spending while not cutting services and to instead offer specific solutions.

Finkle said he didn‘t have any specifics.

“We don’t have a crystal ball,” said McKay.

But Finkle said if the voters send him to Town Hall, he’d freeze all spending and contracts “right away” while he assessed the financial situation and would then make recommendations.

Fiscal troubles at school, too

Along with revealing the town’s $5.19 million deficit, the FY ’10 audit revealed the Board of Education’s deficiencies in seven areas, such as not having a viable general ledger. Finkle said the same deficiencies have been cited year after year. As school board chair for 10 years and a member for 12, he said he was never concerned.

“The  bottom line was, we didn’t micromanage. We spent time on education,” said Finkle. “Did we have a ledger? No. But they didn’t have one for 25 years. Not having a ledger never caused a problem. It only became a problem when (Capone) came on and started to play around with the finances of the Board of Education.”

Furthermore, Finkle said the school finance department didn’t have enough manpower to create and maintain a ledger. “You can only ask six people to do so much,” he said.

Finkle said Republican Mayor Joe Maturo (1997-2007) kept his nose out of school business.

“I had no political interference,” said Finkle. “Now (the board) is about politics and power. They do every single thing the mayor tells them to. I didn’t have letters from the mayor about the Dodge Avenue leases” or to merge maintenance operations. (Click here and here for background stories on the school rentals at 290 Dodge Ave. and here and here for stories on the proposed maintenance plan.)

Drive it like Ford

“Here’s how it was different,” said Finkle of Maturo’s and Capone’s leadership. “For the entire time (Maturo) was in (office), he worked on building up the fund balance. The last year he was in office -- and it’s documented in an audit -- there was $4 million in the fund balance.” Finkle said Maturo never ran a deficit.

“The town has to be run as a business,” not as a government, said Finkle, and offered up the 2010 recovery of the Ford Motor Company to illustrate his point.

“How did Ford turn around in a year?” he said.

Ford was the only car company not to get a piece of the president’s bailout. “They had to reevaluate their entire process and they made cuts but they still produce a quality car,” he said.

Finkle questioned some of the bonds the town has issued, such as the $1.25 million to pay off legal settlements and the $1.6 million for the solar panels and new roofs on the schools.

Since payments on the lawsuits are structured over three years, Finkle said bonding wasn’t needed; the money could come out of the general fund. And much of the money borrowed for the solar jobs should have been repaid, he said, when the town was reimbursed for about $1.1 million of the cost. Instead, Finkle said the money was thrown into the general fund and he said he‘d like to know how it was used.

“Holy cow, we must really be in trouble. We are truly living on borrowed money,” he said. “People have to be held accountable. We’re talking millions of dollars. East Haven is getting a bad reputation. Democrats have an open checkbook mentality. Republicans are frugal.”

Gonna leave Capone alone

The candidates said it’s too soon to talk campaign strategy except to indicate they won’t go negative on Capone this time.

“We’re going to leave the mayor alone,” said Finkle. “If she wants to run on her record -- a $5.19 million deficit in three years -- then let it be.”

Asked if he’d bring back some of Maturo’s people if he makes it to Town Hall, Finkle said, “I don’t think it’s a question of I wouldn’t. I have to assess those positions.” He was referring to the jobs held by mayoral aides Paul Hongo and Ralph Mauro.