Department Head Pay Raises Pitched

The Elicker administration is looking to stem the flow of City Hall departures and make top positions more competitive by increasing pay for department heads, coordinators, and other non-unionized managers — through salary range bumps and automatic cost of living adjustments.

City Chief of Staff Sean Matteson unveiled that proposal Monday night during the latest regular meeting of the Board of Alders Finance Committee. The meeting took place in-person in the Aldermanic Chamber on the second floor of City Hall.

Sitting alongside city Budget Director Michael Gormany — who himself has filled a vacant city controller position for the past three-plus years — Matteson described a proposed ordinance amendment that would revise the city’s Executive Management & Confidential Employees Manual for the first time since 2011.

Among other provisions, that manual describes benefits and allowable salary ranges for city employees like department heads, coordinators, and other managers who are not members of public-sector unions.

The changes submitted by the Elicker administration and pitched by Matteson on Monday night would make the manual gender-neutral, increase salary ranges across the board confidential and executive management positions, and tack on an annual cost of living adjustment, or COLA, so that those same positions receive automatic pay increases every year. 

The COLA for department heads would mirror the annual automatic pay increases built into the contract for Local 3144, the city’s managerial and professional union.

“This manual has not been updated since 2011,” Matteson stressed on Monday. Over the past 12 years, ​“the U.S. has lost 25 percent of the dollar’s purchasing value.” Since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, private sector wage growth has surged past that of public employees.

“We used to compete against other municipalities” when looking to hire and retain top City Hall officials, Matteson said. ​“Now we’re competing against municipalities and the private market.”

Matteson noted that City Hall currently has over 100 vacancies. New Haven is not alone in struggling to attract and keep employees. Towns and cities across Connecticut ​“are seeing difficulties in recruiting and filling these positions.” 

At the recommendation of Finance Committee Chair and Westville Alder Adam Marchand, the committee alders did not take a vote on the proposal Monday night. Instead, they left the matter in committee with plans to take it up for further discussion and a potential vote at future meeting.

Salary Ranges Going Up?

One key change the city can make to become a more attractive place to work, Matteson said, is increase salary ranges for department heads, coordinators, and other executive and ​“confidential” (aka, non-union, non-department head) city employees. 

Matteson noted that the manual — and therefore the changes proposed on Monday — concern salary ranges for such employees, not the actual final salaries themselves. Those final numbers are set for each department head position in each year’s budget, and therefore must be proposed by the mayor and approved by the alders before going into effect. He also said that the current proposal would not affect non-unionized managers’ pensions or other benefits, only their positions’ allowable salary ranges.

According to a handout distributed to the alders on Monday, some of the pay range changes the Elicker administration is looking to put in place include the following (note that the Elicker administration has also proposed changing a number of top employee’s pay-range designations in the mayor’s proposed budget for the fiscal year that starts July 1. So, the below position-specific salaries correspond to what the mayor has proposed in his Fiscal Year 2023 – 24 (FY24) budget):

• Increasing the salary range for ​“key employees” from $100,000-$169,600 to $116,750-$198,008. Examples of city employees in that category include police chief (proposed FY24 salary: $173,000), fire chief ($173,000), and health director ($148,000).

• Increasing the salary range for ​“E9” employees from $73,560-$132,920 to $85,881-$155,184. Examples of city employees in that category include city librarian ($145,000), youth & rec director ($126,000), and building official ($125,000).

• Increasing the salary range for ​“E5” employees from $60,668-$105,063 to $70,830-$122,661. Examples of city employees in that category include director of communications($94,500), personnel director ($94,500), and elderly services director ($94,500).

• Creating a new salary range, dubbed ​“E10,” which would be from $105,000 to $165,000. That would apply to such positions as chief administrator officer ($135,000), community services administrator ($135,000), economic development administrator ($135,000), and chief of staff ($135,000).

During his presentation Monday night, Matteson gave a few examples of specific City Hall positions where ​“we’re losing some ground” when it comes to pay.

He said that New Haven’s City Plan director position — which is currently filled — ranks 19th among comparable positions’ salaries across Connecticut. New Haven’s assistant police chiefs currently rank 18th in pay among their Connecticut municipal colleagues in pay, he said; the city’s public works director ranks 14th, and the city assessor is just ​“inside the top 20.”

He added that 27 other Connecticut communities are ahead of New Haven in how much they pay their finance directors / controllers. ​“We don’t expect to be competing with Greenwich” when it comes to salary for such a position, Matteson admitted, ​“but nonetheless, it is something that they compensate very well in Fairfield County.”

What About COLA?

Besides the proposed salary range increases, Matteson said on Monday, the city is also looking to put in place in the manual cost of living adjustments.

“One of the reasons why we are where we are with salaries for the department heads,” he said, is because ​“we don’t have cost of living adjustments. Rather, it’s just these bursts that happen” whenever the city updates salary ranges in the manual or when when a department-head vacancy is filled.

The COLA proposal, Matteson said, represents the Elicker administration ​“trying to establish something that is meaningful and elastic over a period of time.” 

According to this current proposal, the department head salary COLA would correspond with annual salary increases built into the contract for Local 3144. Matteson said that Local 3144 wages ​“have grown by about 35 percent over the past decade.” With a potential new Local 3144 contract on the horizon, those salaries will grow even further, meaning that there is an increasing number of city employees ​“in our bargaining units that are making more than department heads. And some are closing in on coordinators.”

Managers face the same type of inflation and cost of living increases as others do, Matteson said. ​“It’s why we’re recommending the COLA.”

So, Matteson concluded, to summarize: The manual hasn’t been updated since 2011. ​“We have to compete not just with other municipalities, but now we’re also competing with strong wages in the private sector.” And ​“we’re falling behind in some of our department heads compared to other municipalities,” especially those that do not have residency requirements.

“We think that a change in salary ranges and the COLA would be a tremendous help in recruitment and retention.”

How many unionized city employees are currently making more than department heads or coordinators? Board of Alders President and West River Alder Tyisha Walker-Myers asked.

Matteson didn’t have a definitive answer. He said the number is growing, though, especially with the new Local 3144 contract on the horizon.

Would COLAs apply no matter what? East Rock Alder Anna Festa asked. Or would they be contingent upon a department head or employee’s performance?

Without committing to a yes or a no, Matteson said the ​“COLAs are given out” each year under this proposal, but an employee’s performance ​“would, I think” affect how much they receive.

Westville Alder and Finance Committee Chair Adam Marchand pointed out that the Elicker administration’s proposal includes COLAs not just for individual department heads’ salaries, but also for the manual-set salary ranges too.

“So the maximum for an executive management person is going to change from year to year, and that is a different approach from what we’ve had to date.” If approved as is, he continued, ​“the structure is moving as well as the individuals within the structure.”

Before closing out the meeting for the night, Marchand urged his colleagues to hold off on voting on the manual-update proposal to give them all more time to think through what the Elicker administration has proposed.

“I find the information thought-provoking and, quite frankly, I myself feel the need to study it further before sending the item to the full Board of Alders,” he said. The item instead will stay in committee ​“for us to post on some future agenda of the Finance Committee.” That should give the committee alders ​“a little more time” to think through and weigh in on the administration’s proposal.