Thomas MacMIllan Photo
“¿Como le gustaría entrar en un salón y no poder comprender lo que le han dicho?” Alder Dolores Colon asked, turning to face her colleagues in City Hall.
“Now tell me what I said,” Colon continued. “if you can’t tell me what I said, now you know how Spanish-speaking residents feel when they come to City Hall.”
The Hill alder (pictured) was making a point about the need for a bilingual receptionist in the mayor’s office, one of three new city government positions that alders voted to create Wednesday night, effective this fiscal year.
In addition to the new $40,000-per-year receptionist job, alders approved a new director of minority and small business initiatives ($80,000) and a new director of development and policy ($116,000) — someone who will seek out new sources of grant funding for the city.
The new positions are budget-neutral, paid for through leftover grant money and obsolete loan funds.
The vote represents the partial fulfillment of new Mayor Toni Harp’s first big “ask” of the Board of Alders. She didn’t get all she wanted.
Harp initially proposed the creation of seven new positions — the three approved Wednesday, plus a legislative director, and three more for a grant-writing department under the new development director. Alders in the Finance Committee cut the number down to three.
Some alders tried to cut it down to zero Wednesday night.
The vote to create the new jobs came after contentious debate, featuring some last-minute amendment attempts from People’s Caucus Alders Michael Stratton and Anna Festa of East Rock, who sought to block the new positions and cut a proposed salary.
Bilingual Website?
Before the voting, several alders spoke in favor of having a bilingual receptionist in the mayor’s office. Alders Adam Marchand of Westville and Tyisha Walker of West River noted that nearly a third of the city’s population is Latino, and the city seeks to be welcoming to immigrants.
“This is not a ‘want,’” Walker said. “It’s a necessity.”
Stratton (pictured), Festa, and Downtown Alderwoman Roth said that while it’s important to make City Hall accessible to all, but the city can’t afford it right now.
Stratton proposed an amendment: The city must look for a way to transfer an existing bilingual employee into the mayor’s office to avoid creating a new position; if that can be done, the city should put the savings — $40,000 — toward making the city’s phone system and website fully bilingual.
Stratton said he didn’t know how far $40,000 would go toward that goal, but that it would be a start.
The amendment failed.
Base + Bonuses?
The debate over the development director position followed similar lines.
“We have grant writers all over the city,” Stratton said. Lots of city employees are already writing grants, he argued; why do we need another one?
He noted that the Board of Ed has a grant manager who earns far less than the $116,000 the new development director would get. The Board of Ed’s grant manager earns $74,062 in the current fiscal year, according to the school board’s proposed budget for next year.
“If you have people writing grants here, people writing grants there, what you have is a mess,” said Fair Haven Alder Santiago Berrios-Bones, one of several alders who spoke for the new position. The city needs a “coordinated effort” overseen by the new director, he said.
Stratton offered an amendment that would have reduced the development director’s salary from $116,000 to $70,000 and used the difference to hire a bilingual community liaison for the library, a position the library requested but the mayor didn’t include in her budget.
That amendment also failed.
Alder Festa (pictured) proposed another amendment, an idea she said had just occurred to her: Give the development director a “base” salary of $70,000 and allow him or her to earn bonuses for landing grants. Winning a $100,000 to $250,000 grant would earn a $1,000 bonus. Grants over $250,000 would be worth a $1,500 bonus.
Alder Colon said she opposed the amendment. The city wants to attract the best candidate. “They will not come to us if they’re going to be nickel-and-dimed to make a living,” Colon argued.
The development director should be not just a grant writer, but “the best in the field,” someone who “knows a good grant when she sees it” and can make all the city’s grants better, Colon said.
Festa’s amendment failed.
Three alders — Stratton, Festa, and Roth — voted against creating the small and minority business director position. Twenty-three alders voted for it.
Five alders — Stratton, Festa, Roth, Richard Spears, and Carlton Staggers — voted against creating the bilingual receptionist and development director positions. Twenty-one alders voted for them.
Next Year
The three positions approved Wednesday are for only the current fiscal year, which ends June 30. The Harp administration sought to put them in place as soon as possible so that the new grants director could take advantage of funding opportunities coming from the new federal budget, said Michael Harris, the mayor’s liaison to the Board of Alders.
For the remainder of this fiscal year, the small and minority business director job will be paid for by leftover money from a “revolving loan fund” for small businesses.
The development director and the bilingual receptionist will be paid out of unused grant money.
The three new positions — plus the four others the mayor originally requested — are included in the mayor’s proposed budget for the fiscal year starting July 1. Alders are likely to eliminate the same four they did in Finance Committee, and approve the ones they created Wednesday night, perhaps amid another contentious debate.
Next year, the small and minority business director job would still be paid for by revolving loan fund money. The other positions would be be funded by eliminating unfilled jobs elsewhere in city government.
Board of Alders President Jorge Perez said he supports continuing the three positions that were created Wednesday night into the coming fiscal year. “Considering that it’s budget neutral, that would be what I would want to have happen.”
Inventing positions as payback for campaign "volunteers" is not "budget neutral." Using money that would have reduced the budget so that redundant positions can be invented is not "budget neutral".