Despite Promise, "Longevity" Bonuses Arrive

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Despite Promise, “Longevity” Bonuses Arrive

by Thomas MacMillan & Melissa Bailey | Jan 28, 2011 10:59 am

(24) Comments | Commenting has been closed | E-mail the Author

Posted to: City Hall, City Budget

Top city workers Friday are receiving “longevity payments” for another year despite a mayoral vow to the contrary. But the practice may finally be on its way out, along with a rule that allows assistant police chiefs to retire with pensions nearly $20,000 higher than their salaries.

The Board of Aldermen’s Finance Committee voted to recommend doing away with one of those budget-busting rules at a meeting in City Hall on Wednesday evening. The vote was part of a larger examination of the rules that cover executive management and confidential employees—upper level staffers and support people, who don’t belong to unions.

Those rules will be considered at an upcoming meeting of the Finance Committee. The change to prevent the extra-lucrative police pensions, now approved by the committee, will be voted on at the next meeting of the full Board of Aldermen.

Aldermen will also soon be considering eliminating the practice of “longevity payments,” which award upper-level non-union staffers with an annual bonus based on the number of years they have served. This group of about 40 workers, called “executive management and confidential employees,” comprises top city directors like Chief Administrative Officer Rob Smuts, as well as secretaries and staffers in the mayor’s office.

When angry union workers stormed the mayor’s office in September and complained about being asked to give up their longevity payments, Mayor John DeStefano told them that he had already done away with the bonuses for his staff.

Turns out that wasn’t true. Top staff will receive their annual payments on Friday.

On Friday, longevity payments will be dispensed as follows to executive management and confidential employees: People employed for between six and nine years will receive a bonus equal to 1 percent of their salaries. For those who have been with the city for between 10 and 20 years, 3 percent. More than 20 years? 4 percent.

Thomas MacMillan Photo CAO Smuts portrayed the payments as the result of a mistake when he appeared before the aldermanic Finance Committee Wednesday evening.

The mistake was caused by a misconception that the mayor could do away with longevity payments unilaterally, Smuts said. While the mayor does have the power to change certain work rules on his own, changing that particular rule requires an ordinance amendment by the Board of Aldermen, Smuts said. By the time the administration realized that, it was too late to get it done before the bonuses were to be given out, on Friday, he said.

“We missed this year,” Smuts said.

When she learned of the coming payments, AFSCME Local 3144 President Cherlyn Poindexter accused the mayor of “doubletalk.”

“He does one thing and he says another,” Poindexter said. Her union, which represents 400 management workers, is one of 13 currently embroiled in tense contract negotiations heading into a tough fiscal year.

“The bottom line is that by rewarding executive management, the mayor contradicts his administration’s own calls for shared sacrifice. While he attempts to eliminate the jobs and services provided by front-line workers, he continues to reward the upper ranks of management who helped manufacture the crisis in which the city of New Haven finds itself,” said Larry Dorman, spokesman for ASCME Council 4, which represents city and Board of Ed employees.

Reached Thursday at an unrelated event, Mayor DeStefano issued a fiery rebuttal. He didn’t portray Friday’s payments as the result of an administrative mistake.

Executive management benefits are supposed to mirror those of Local 3144, he said. However, the non-unionized workers have made a larger sacrifice than those in the union, he argued.

Over the last three years, executive management has gotten one pay increase of 3 percent when Local 3144 got three consecutive raises adding up to 9 percent, the mayor said.

“We have eliminated the defined benefit pension plan for executive management hires, while the management union has got to keep their defined benefit plan,” DeStefano continued. The city increased medical co-pays for executive management, while the management union has “kept theirs at what is.”

“My commitment to do longevity had to do with mirroring an agreement with the management union, which has generally been the case over the years,” DeStefano said. He said because Local 3144 has not given up longevity payments, he will not do so for his own top staff.

“I am going to eliminate longevity for one person in the city—for myself,” DeStefano said.

With a salary of $127,070, the mayor would be due a bonus of 4 percent, or $5,082.80. He said he is giving up that payment “to demonstrate good faith with the intent to eliminate longevity.”

“That said, I find it unfortunate and disturbing that the management union continues to use executive management as some kind of piñata, when they have taken dramatically less pay increases, the elimination of the defined benefit pension plan,” and increased health care payments.

DeStefano spokes in a room where two dozen top city staffers and mayoral aides were working the phones at the Emergency Operations Center underneath 200 Orange St. Many of them had arisen in the wee hours to respond to the aftermath of a major snowstorm.

“All of the executive management people that are in this room today are working without additional compensation,” DeStefano noted. “So I think executive management and confidential employees have led the way in setting examples.”

“I think that there is this attitude of ‘No, the city’s financial condition is not my concern,’” DeStefano added. “Folks continue to say no instead of seriously dealing with the city’s financial problems. It’s going to make it difficult to fix it.”

Poindexter has said her union seeks to sit down with the mayor to discuss cost-cutting ideas, but that communication has broken down.

Pension Reform

The longevity payments come due to the rules enshrined in the Executive Management and Confidential Employees Personnel and Procedures Manual. The removal of the longevity bonuses provision is part of a larger overhaul of the manual, changes that require aldermanic approval. While most of the changes are not time-sensitive (since the window to end longevity payments this year has closed), alderman considered one pressing change on Wednesday.

It’s the provision that recently allowed Asst. Chief Ariel Melendez to retire with a pension of $124,500, when his highest salary had been $105,000 per year. Melendez was the second assistant chief to enjoy such a plush deal, after Stephanie Redding.

The mayor has vowed not to hire any new assistant police chiefs until the rule is changed. Hence the rush to have aldermen approve the change, since the department is down to two of four possible assistant chiefs.

In his testimony to aldermen on Wednesday, Smuts began by explaining how the so-called “Plus One” rule works. According to the aforementioned procedures manual, workers who are promoted out of the police union into executive positions—like assistant chiefs—continue to be covered by some rules that are essentially the same as the rules of the police union. One of these is a provision that calculates pension. Under certain criteria, this provision allows employees to retire with the rate of pay of the next highest rank.

The rule wasn’t really a problem until the Board of Aldermen voted a couple years ago to increase the salary of the police chief, Smuts said. That was done in order to attract better candidates for the job during a time when the city was looking for new leadership to guide the department out of damaging scandals. That pay hike created a big—$45,000—differential between the assistant police chief salary and the chief’s, and thus a huge “Plus One” payout for those who retire, Smuts said.

“This is something we should have caught and we didn’t catch,” he said.

The changes to the manual on this rule include comprehensive, explicit, “belt and suspenders-type language” that should eradicate “Plus One,” Smuts said.

Too Many Chiefs?

After hearing from Smuts, aldermanic deliberations included a brief discussion of how many assistant police chiefs are really necessary. Downtown Alderwoman Bitsie Clark said that it can depend on the leadership style of a particular chief. Time was, the department had only one or two assistant chiefs, Clark said. Then Chief James Lewis (hired after the increase to the chief’s salary) won approval to have four assistant chiefs.

“It was always funny to me that this guy needed to have so many assistant chiefs,” Clark said. “I’m sorry I voted for four.”

West River Alderman Yusuf Shah said that assistant chiefs can provide necessary supervision to prevent police misconduct. “We don’t want any more Billy Whites.”

The Finance Committee voted unanimously to recommend the changes that will do away with “Plus One.”

Comments

posted by: Fact Check on January 28, 2011 11:48am

The mayor is mistaken when he states that Local 3144 has received raises for the last 3 years totalling 9%. There was no salary increase in 2010. Increases for the last 3 years total 6%.

The mayor is also mistaken when he states that the membership of Local 3144 is covered by a defined benefit pension plan. Approximately 1/3 of the membership of Local 3144 has no retirement benefits at all.

posted by: streever on January 28, 2011 12:06pm

Assistant Chiefs can provide oversight, except when like the out-going one, they break the constitutional rights of citizens. I’m sorry, but that Assistant Chief should face criminal charges, and if the Mayor/NHPD can’t see that done, they have lost any and all credibility in my book.

I witnessed a taxi cab run a red light last night at Church & Broadway as I was crossing, with a pedestrian symbol. I called the police at 9 pm and was told someone would come by to take a statement.

I stayed up until after 12 (unusual for me) waiting for an officer or a call. Nothing.

At FOUR AM Dispatch calls me to see if I “still want to make a report”.

Well, yes, but not at 4 am, and what the hell were they thinking calling me then? Why not call me at 8 the next morning?

Look, I understand that the police are busy, and I don’t mind if I have to wait 24 hours or even come in person to make a report. That is fine. What I DO mind is that someone would call me at 4 am to ask if I want to see a cop right then.

That is basic incompetence.

posted by: Bill on January 28, 2011 12:07pm

Wow, looks like the “upper staff” needs to get on the same page about the lies they tell the public? My recommendation; drop the naive “it’s a mistake” Mr. Smuts, and go for the tried and true “it’s the city workers’ fault we are paid so much”. Recently, the mayor has turned the demonization of city workers into his sole policy platform. Maybe if he had concentrated on quality of life and bringing jobs into the city over his many years as mayor, instead of turning New Haven into a giant tax exempt zone, we wouldn’t have these problems to such a degree.

posted by: Swatty on January 28, 2011 12:25pm

“This is something we should have caught and we didn’t catch,” he said.

I looked that up in the dictionary. It’s under the word incompetence!

posted by: JAK on January 28, 2011 12:55pm

Streever - Its not incompetence. Don’t you think that they know very well who they are calling at 4:00am?

posted by: ignoranceisbliss on January 28, 2011 1:32pm

Streever,

Enough with the rants. Please cite the provision of CT law that would permit a criminal prosecution against Mr. Melendez. And then if you can find some grounds go call a criminal attorney of your choice and ask what the chances are that the Chief State’s Attorney would bring charges (despite your fantasies of an all powerful (all evil) Mayor-he cannot prosecute so you can’t blame him) and that a judge would sustain the prosecution or that a jury would convict.

Then you can join us in the real world.

posted by: Anon on January 28, 2011 1:45pm

Streever—
Would you rather the cop ringing your doorbell at 4am?

posted by: Gary Doyens on January 28, 2011 1:51pm

... This is not a mistake. ... When you say you are doing away with them, it means you are ending the practice. When you haven’t looked into the matter, let alone dispensed with the longevity payments, .. If after all these years of running the city, the mayor hasn’t figured out what rules govern his direct reports and confidential employees, this city has bigger problems than I think.

The mayor also said through his then HR person, that the practice of double dipping consultants was over. Is that true .../ I understand we still have some on the payroll.

Addressing his now fiery retort that the executives running the emergency operation were there without overtime or additional compensation - I’ll say this: It’s insulting to the intelligence and integrity of the tens of thousands of New Haven residents, who earn salaries 60 - to 80% LESS than the people sitting in that room, and don’t get additional compensation for working extra duty or the occasional long day. They don’t get longevity pay and most barely get a thank you. On a normal work day, they are expected to show up. Likewise, these people are expected to show up on the rare “emergency day” and at the salaries they’re paid, they should be happy to do so.

People in that room, I promise you are all or nearly all making well in excess of $75K and some are well into six figures. If they can’t pull a little OT without grumbling, fire them. And further, the very idea that executive compensation is mirrored after ANY union contract is laughable on its face and again, shows a lack of management acumen of the mayor.

One final note on longevity payments: If the city is $10 million in the red THIS YEAR and you are months away from a charter dictated mandate to balance the books, why in hell was this allowed to go on this long, and if it is a true oversight, why not fast track it with Finance just like you did on the rain tax - a $4 million tax hike?

Truth has a way of coming out… - it will find a path and show up where and when you least expect it. When that happens, you have a crisis of integrity together with the original crisis that precipitated it.

posted by: RKan on January 28, 2011 2:06pm

“While the mayor does have the power to change certain work rules on his own, changing that particular rule requires an ordinance amendment by the Board of Aldermen, Smuts said. By the time the administration realized that, it was too late to get it done before the bonuses were to be given out, on Friday, he said.

“We missed this year,” Smuts said.

....

Either way, it seems pretty clear that they shouldn’t be entrusted to manager our city’s affairs.

posted by: streever on January 28, 2011 2:56pm

Anon:
I’d rather the officer call me at 8:30 the next morning.

I called Dispatch and spoke to them about it an hour ago and they assured me that that is what is SUPPOSED to happen—they someone must have made a mistake.

Ignoranceisbliss:
In America, it has been legal to take photos of people in public without consent for longer than either of us have been alive: and I don’t even know your age.

Chief Melendez confiscated and deleted images taken of an arrest (in a public place) and arrested the photographer. The deletion of the images is a serious offense, which could lead to criminal and civil charges.

Did you miss the recent case where a similar incident happened (although the photographer did not have his imagery deleted) and it cost NYC over 30,000 in fees? Or what about the Miami photographer who has been arrested falsely twice and been exonerated?

What Melendez did is illegal and immoral.

posted by: anon on January 28, 2011 4:14pm

@ Fact Check, thank you for speaking the facts.. As a matter of fact, I would venture to say the % of employees in 3144 w/out a pension is even higher.
As for the Mayor saying:
“We have eliminated the defined benefit pension plan for executive management hires, while the management union has got to keep their defined benefit plan,”
Ask him about the 401a plans that were created for his top staff..And what is the City’s contributions??

posted by: Blame the Mayor on January 28, 2011 10:01pm

Rob Smuts has done such a super-duper-colossally-good job of snow removal, he deserves his bonus!

posted by: richgetricher on January 29, 2011 2:50am

The Mayor is right to use the term pinata. But it applies to the way he consistently and viciously attacks union 3144, his management union. While the mayor tirelessly protects and rewards his executive and confidential staff under his executive umbrella, he has filed a petition questioning whether the members of 3144 even belong in the management union!! 3144 is working without a raise, pays high medical premiums and a large portion of them have no pension whatsoever. In addition, they have been constantly bullied by attempts to remove members from the union and to seek major unilateral concessions. 3144 is ready to make concessions in good faith to the city they love, but this Mayor seems intent on crushing them and making massive layoffs. It appears that this Mayor is more intent on destroying the union than on finding solutions to the city’s fiscal issues.

posted by: take them out on January 29, 2011 7:58am

i am tired of this mayor and all his lies at what point are we as taxpayers in our city going to step up against this administration. i am against our taxes going up but i have to start to agree with a lot of these union members. it is not right that you want to go afterall the workers and you keep telling lie after lie. you did say there will be no longevity payments for executive management and you did say no more double dippers and here we are longevity payments for exec management and double dippers.you want to attack all the unions but the worst people get rewardedthe administrators get raises, if we are in a deficit no one gets raises including all unions and all non union members. let me see you ran this city into what you claim is god knows what kind of deficit you should be impeached. the school system that my children attend has been failing for years thank you dr mayo. you need to be ashamed of yourself,you (mayo ), will clark , and garth (whatever his name is)need to all be replaced. there are too many administrators and the schools are still failing lets give them another raise

posted by: Democracy at Work on January 29, 2011 10:33am

Its an election year. Johnny Boy needs all the cash he can get. What does he do. He reneges on a past promise and gives his executives their longevity. They now have more cash in their pockets to pay into his campaign, and more to pay for all those $150 a pop fund raisers. There’s no limit on how many of those you can pay into. So I reckon Johnny Boy has just raised about $30,000 to $50,000 for his campaign this fall. Its easy really. His executives depend on him for their jobs and can’t refuse to pay up.

All us poor tax payers who are already paying sky high property taxes are now being subtly milked by the Mayor. This is really brilliant. He’s the one who put the taxes up, and now he’s using those taxes to stay in office. Guess what he’ll do when he gets re-elected. He’ll put taxes up even more.

Smuts says this is a mistake. Ha Ha. No, it’s a brilliant ploy by a master politician.

posted by: we have the power to vote on January 29, 2011 2:57pm

If you are a city of New Haven Resident /Union employee please sign up to “new haven labor union alliance” on Facebook. Together we can help new haven be a better place for everyone.

posted by: In the know on January 29, 2011 7:40pm

FYI: Local 3144 and every other City and BOE union had a cost share increase this past July!

posted by: Just Not True on January 30, 2011 12:03pm

In the Know.

...No city union had any increase in July. The contracts of most city unions have expired and they are in binding arbitration. DeStefano has refused to negotiate with the unions.

posted by: Morris Cove Mom on January 30, 2011 8:35pm

And the mayor wonders why we are angry with him. Thanks for passing on your $5,000+ bonus, but how about reducing your salary to $60,000? It’s more than most in this city make anyway, more than most 2-income households make! To hand out these bonuses in any economy is bad form, it’s just the boys rewarding their inner circle again, and again, with my tax money.

But to had out the bonuses in a bad economy, where there’s a city budget deficit, and break the promise about it, is ridiculous.

We didn’t get a raise, but you raised our taxes. We didn’t get a bonus, but you did. We barely had faith in you last year, now we have none.

If only someone can find an intelligent person to run against DeStefano, I’d campaign for him from day one. I think most of us would. We’re just so sick of hearing about the broken promises and the outright lies.

posted by: Tom Burns on January 30, 2011 11:50pm

Thank you Mayor Destefano for taking the lead in not accepting your 4% in these tough times——-your lead w/o hurting others is what most endears me to your leadership——but along with these kudos I would hope you take a bit of advice—-Binding arbitration is a good thing—-heck—you have won every time——so unless you plan to gut all the agreements to date, you have no reason to go down this path———These are tough times (divided we will fail) but together we can accomplish great things—fear not the budget—think BIG as you always have done—-and bring the unions together to work with you on a solution—this I humbly ask—-Tom Burns

posted by: JAK on January 31, 2011 8:35am

3/4 of the union members don’t even live in New Haven. When you start to pay taxes here then you get a vote. In general, the costs of city labor are high relative to the quality of services.

Unions want binding arbitration because its the only leverage they have. Why? Because most DON’T LIVE HERE. so they can’t bully the mayor or threaten him. And it turns out that they are very replaceable with other hungrier workers, workers who actually live in new haven and care about the city and pay rent or property taxes.

With binding arbitration, there is no real ability for the mayor to make radical change to the contracts because the arbitrators are in the union pockets and it is a “split the baby” process. WE NEED TO GET RID OF BINDING ARBITRATION.

Radical change is needed. If you want to know what that looks like, let’s start with the same kind of radical change that the private sector has already undergone in terms of job loss, salary and benefit reductions, longer hours etc. Oh, and I forgot about 8-10% property tax increases in New Haven so that we taxpayers have the pleasure of carrying fat union contracts on our backs a little longer.

Unions want to negotiate? Here’s some “advice”. If I were you, I’d start by offering a lower price and better service guarantees than the private firms which are angling to replace you.

And btw, if you move to New Haven you’ll get a vote.

posted by: Confused on January 31, 2011 11:30am

If there is such a big deficit and the outlook for next year is much worse why is City Hall not in a hiring freeze? Mayor John is taxing us to dealth and threatening other city workers while he is not practicing what he is preaching. Why has he just hired 10 more Corporation Counsel this week (Mayoral Appointments). Granted they are only supposed to be here for 12 months but don’t we already have a corporation counsel group? What are they doing and why do we need all these new additional people - Two Deputies of Corp Counsel, 7 Assistant Corp Counsel, and 1 senior Counsel for Corp Counsel. Where is the money coming from (around $675,000)? Why is the mayor still spending when we are forced to tighten our belts?

posted by: RKan on January 31, 2011 12:55pm

Hmmmm, thanks NHI comment editor for opting to cut my previous comment in such a way as to make it totally unintelligible. What’s the point of that? Either accept the comment or reject it. Don’t misconstrue my point (or in this case totally eviscerate it) by selectively choosing my word FOR me.

Thanks again

posted by: Unbelievable on January 31, 2011 5:33pm

Well, this exposed Rob Smut’s fibbing to the aldermen(which is putting it mildly). So aldermen, what are you going to do about it? Smuts has become quite polished at this, don’t you think.
And mayor, you lied and did what you wanted anyway. The taxpayers are pretty fed up with you. Stop beefing up your administrations pockets and chopping off the heads of your rank and file employees. What in the world are you doing mayor? You don’t have to be a kind and gentle soul, but you have taken this over the top! I guess you are begging not to be re-elected huh? No, problem mayor, we are here to serve the king!

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