New Haven Independent

New Haven’s outgoing police chief, Cisco Ortiz, currently makes $108,000 per year. His salary range is capped at $115,000. To make the job “market competitive” as the city undergoes a national search for Ortiz’s replacement, the administration proposed creating a new range for the chief’s salary: $100,000 to $160,000.

After some disagreement at its meeting Wednesday night, the aldermanic Finance Committee voted 7 to 1 to approve that new salary range.

“We’re looking for someone to come in and remake the department,” argued aldermanic president Carl Goldfield. “We’re looking for someone extraordinary.” A new salary range might outweigh the downsides of the job, Goldfield argued. Those downsides include: Moving, perhaps across the country, to New Haven; settling down inside New Haven lines; taking Connecticut POST classes if necessary for out-of-staters; and only being guaranteed employment for two years.

Two years?

That’s right, testified Chief Administrative Officer Rob Smuts (pictured). Ortiz’s term ends in Feb 2010. (He’s leaving this year to take a security post at Yale’s new western campus.) The new chief will fill out Ortiz’s term, but won’t be guaranteed reappointment, said Smuts.

Why? It’s against city charter to fire a chief without cause, but there’s a legal “gray area” as to whether lack of reappointment would be considered termination, Smuts explained. So the city can guarantee only two years.

To show the new salary range is “market competitive,” Smuts rattled off a list of other towns chief salaries: Hartford’s at $145,000; Bridgeport at $118,000; Providence $152,000; Stamford $114,000.

Lowell, Massachusetts, population 103,000, pays its chief $133,000.

The national search is being done by the Police Executive Research Forum, a group of policing experts the city hired to take a fresh look at the police department in the wake of an ongoing corruption scandal. PERF recommended the city raise its salary range to attract a top-notch candidate, Smuts said.

A report by the US Department of Justice put the average chief’s salary for cities of New Haven’s size at $95,000 to $123,000 in 2003. Adjusted at a 3 percent increase per year, that puts New Haven’s current salary below the bottom of that range.

Some at the aldermanic table thought raising New Haven’s range to reach $160,000 was going too far.

Hill Alderman Jorge Perez (pictured) proposed a range of $100,000 to $150,000 instead, arguing the city could come back to raise the cap if need be. That would “give us the opportunity to see how the chief is performing,” Perez reasoned, and see whether a raise is warranted.

Alderman Alex Rhodeen (pictured at the top of this story) agreed with Perez’s proposal, arguing the shift to 160G to 150G wouldn’t “make or break” a deal.

Goldfield balked at the idea - “Why bring it back for 10,000 bucks?” he asked. “Go do the negotiation. I believe they’ll negotiate as hard as they can. I don’t see the necessity to come back. We’re just tying hands. It doesn’t make sense to me to tie hands.”

Perez’s 150G amendment died in stalemate, in a 4-4 vote with one abstention.

One member of the public, budget watchdog Ken Joyner, showed up to the hearing to testify. He called the requirements — a four-year college degree and five years of command experience in a New Haven-sized town — too low. Taxpayers would have a tough time coughing up $160,000 for a chief with only those baseline qualifications, he argued.

Westville Alderwoman Ina Silverman responded the city is trying merely to “cast a wide net,” and will still have high expectations of its candidates.

Others at the table took issue with the city’s job description, calling it incomplete. Downtown Alderwoman Bitsie Clark said she trusts the city’s headhunters, PERF, to explain the job once candidates get past the screening point.

PERF is due to send a short list of candidates back to the city in March, Smuts said. So far, no one from the New Haven police department has applied, he said.