Thomas MacMillan Photo
Aldermen Paolillo (left) and Antunes.
As aldermen shut a salary loophole and opened a door to hiring new assistant police chiefs, two lawmakers moved to hold off on hiring more police brass and hire back 16 fired rookies instead — even as those rookies were already lining up new jobs in other towns.
That legislative action happened Monday night in City Hall, where the Board of Aldermen held its regular meeting.
The board voted unanimously to make changes to work rules that will prevent assistant police chiefs from retiring with pensions nearly $20,000 higher than their salaries, as the last two chiefs to retire have. That opens the way for the city to start hiring replacements for at least some of the three out of four assistant chief slots that are open. (The third of these three slots is expected to open Tuesday as Assistant Chief Wheeler resigns.)
Meanwhile, Aldermen Al Paolillo and Gerald Antunes, a retired police captain, introduced a resolution that, if passed, would urge Mayor John DeStefano to re-hire 16 cops the city fired last month. Those cops were among dozens of city employees to lose their jobs, as the administration moved to close a $5.5 million budget gap in the current fiscal year.
Paolillo and Antunes plan to submit their proposal for unanimous consent at the next Board of Aldermen meeting.
Aldermen also debated another bill that could affect municipal employment. The board voted unanimously to urge the state legislature to allow cities to make residency a condition of employment. But the board stopped short of calling for a citywide ballot referendum on a residency requirement.
Loophole Closed
Retiring assistant police chiefs will no longer be able to retire with a pension equivalent to the salary of a police chief. That’s a perk that only top police brass enjoyed, thanks to an oversight by the city when it raised the police chief’s salary a couple years ago. See background here.
After two assistant chiefs retired with pensions nearly $20,000 more than their salaries, the mayor vowed not hire more chiefs until the pension rule was changed.
One of those was former Asst. Chief Ariel Melendez, the 52-year-old cop who retired in January with a pension of $124,500. An internal affairs report released last week found he violated a man’s rights last fall by falsely arresting him and then deleting a video from his phone. Melendez has also been faulted for his supervision of a police raid on a private Yale party last fall.
Monday’s vote by the Board of Alderman clears the way for the hire of more assistant chiefs. The department has slots for four. Two are now occupied, but when Asst. Chief Wheeler retires on Tuesday, that will leave but one assistant chief, Tobin Hensgen, and three vacancies. Chief Frank Limon has said he’d like all four slots filled.
Chief Administrative Officer Rob Smuts said it will take 10 days for the new rules to take effect. He said he doesn’t know who the new assistant chiefs are likely to be. Some rumored names: Capts. Pat Redding and Denise Blanchard, Lts. John Velleca, Petisia Adger, Thaddeus Reddish, and Kenny Howell.
Bring ‘Em Back
The positions should be left vacant, said Aldermen Paolillo and Antunes (who was wished a happy 61st birthday at Monday’s meeting). With each assistant chief receiving an annual salary of $105,000, not hiring new top cops would free up $310,000 that could go toward re-hiring the rookie cops who were laid off, the aldermen said.
The aldermen offered that argument to back up their proposed resolution, which would call on the mayor to reinstate the laid-off cops.
“Simply put, we need them,” Antunes said before the meeting. Community policing is labor intensive. “To do that, you need bodies.”
After the meeting, Antunes and Paolillo said the city could also afford to re-hire the cops because more cops would reduce the overtime budget and because cops are scheduled to retire or be promoted next year, which will free up spots and money for rookie cops. The city should not move to hire or train any new cops when there are 16 fully-trained officers who could be re-hired, Paolillo said.
The resolution, if passed by the board, would not have the power to compel the city to reinstate the 16. “It’s a statement. But it’s a statement to do a good thing,” Paolillo said.
Paolillo said it’s a waste for the city to spend thousands of dollars training cops only to lay them off and have other municipalities hire them, thus saving neighboring towns the expense of training them. “If this is the administration’s take on regionalization,” it needs some more thought, Paolillo said.
“I’m just concerned for the fiscal impact,” said Smuts about Paolillo and Antunes’ proposed resolution.
“There are consequences to budget cuts,” he said. “I’m curious if they’ll be calling for a tax increase” to pay to re-hire the cops.
But those cops may not be available. The day the cops were laid off, Chief Limon and others started helping them seek new jobs. Twenty-five potential offers immediately came in from departments around the state in under 24 hours. Smuts said Tuesday that all 16 laid off cops are currently in the process of applying for openings in other departments.
Alderman Antunes said that makes it even more important to move quickly to rehire the cops.
“A lot of doors have been opened to them in West Haven and North Haven,” he said. “The timing is important for us. Once they go to other departments, some departments require signing a contract that you’ll stay there a number of years. If they sign another contract, we’ve lost them. The most cost-effective way for us is to pay them back as opposed to another $50,000 to get another person trained” over 18 months.
Residency Resolution
Alderman Perez
The board voted unanimously Monday night to pass a resolution urging state legislators to allow municipalities to make residency a requirement for city employees.
Hill Alderman Jorge Perez, chair of the Legislation Committee, offered some numbers to support the proposal. He cited numbers from the city personnel office. They showed that only 37 percent of city employees live in the city; for police, it’s 13 percent; firefighters, 17 percent. (Perez later noted that the more accurate figures are 31 percent for local firefighters and 21 percent for police.)
Alderman Goldson, a driving force behind the residency requirement notion, offered some more numbers: 13 percent of New Haveners are unemployed. The average income for city households is $29,000 per year. For city employees, it’s over $50,000. All 16 laid-off cops live out of town, he added later.
Referendum Rejected
Alderman Goldson
After the board voted unanimously to pass the resolution, aldermen next considered a motion to grant leave to withdraw to a proposal from Alderman Goldson that would have put the residency requirement question on the ballot as a referendum at the next city-wide election.
Perez announced that a majority of the Legislation Committee had opposed the idea of such a referendum. “We know what the taxpayers want us to do,” he said. That’s why the board passed the previous resolution, he said.
“This is a democracy,” countered Goldson. “The more voices we have the better off we are.”
“We could argue political theory,” Edgewood Alderman Marcus Paca said. But the aldermen were elected to represent the people, he said. Starting to have referendums on things is a “slippery slope,” he said. The board represents the city, he said.
Goldson said that’s complicated by the Board of Aldermen’s committee structure. He said he is not a chair, and the president put him on only one committee, so he doesn’t have a voice when things are working through committee.
“We are giving it a straight up vote now,” Perez said.
The referendum resolution was voted down in a voice vote, despite Goldson cupping his hands to his mouth to amplify his vote.
We could argue political theory," Edgewood Alderman Marcus Paca said. But the aldermen were elected to represent the people, he said. Starting to have referendums on things is a "slippery slope," he said. The board represents the city, he said.
If this is the case then how about Term Limits,We the people want this.