Parks Help Wanted. Tokers Needn’t Apply

If you want to make $18 an hour cutting grass in the city’s parks this summer, then you better not smoke grass before applying for the job.

Because New Haven requires prospective seasonal parks workers to pass a drug test, including for marijuana, even though recreational cannabis is now legal statewide.

City Deputy Chief Administrative Officer Rebecca Bombero raised that City Hall hiring conundrum during the latest round of budget workshops hosted by the Board of Alders Finance Committee. 

She told the committee alders that the city’s Department of Parks & Public Works (soon to be just the parks department, if a proposed unmerger goes through) has had trouble as of late hiring seasonal workers to help take care of New Haven’s wealth of public open green space.

One hindrance to recruiting, she said, has been a requirement that prospective applicants for seasonal jobs like caretaker — whose responsibilities include operating grass-cutting equipment — must pass a pre-employment drug test. 

That drug test includes a prohibition on the use of marijuana, which despite its legalization for recreational use in the State of Connecticut in 2021, remains a controlled substance at the federal level.

“If you know anybody that can pass a drug screening who is looking for work, it is safety sensitive work, so recreational marijuana is not permitted, which does hurt us in some of our recruitment efforts. But we’re actively recruiting,” Bombero told the alders at the hearing this past Thursday evening. 

A lack of seasonal employees, she continued, is one reason why parks and public works staffs have been ​“very stressed. … We used to have four to five applicants for every [seasonal] slot. We weren’t able to fill all of our slots last summer. That’s really stressing folks out.”

Thursday’s meeting marked the latest step in local legislators’ review of Mayor Justin Elicker’s proposed $680 million general fund budget for Fiscal Year 2024 – 25 (FY25), which begins on July 1.

Bombero joined Chief Administrative Officer Regina Rush-Kittle, city Department of Parks & Public Works Deputy Director Stephen Hladun, and City Budget Director Michael Gormany to present to the alders the proposed budget for a newly reconfigured standalone Parks Department. 

After initially merging the previous parts of the Parks & Rec and Public Works departments back in 2020, the Elicker administration has now proposed re-separating parks from public works and building out a new parks-only department dedicated to maintaining and enhancing New Haven’s parks, fields, trees, and other public greenspaces.

This new parks department would have a total budget of $6.9 million under the mayor’s proposed budget for FY25, Gormany said.

Bombero, who previously served as the director of the pre-merged parks & rec department under the Harp administration, said that the current mayor’s proposal represents a ​“third iteration” of how to structure the area of city government that oversees and maintains New Haven’s public greenspaces. This proposal incorporates ​“the best of what was before” as well as ​“lessons learned” and includes a ​“real focus on … both placemaking and functionality.”

Much of Bombero’s presentation on Thursday night focused on building back up the parks department’s level of staffing. She said that in 2000, the city employed 76 people in parks-focused maintenance jobs. Several years later, after a round of ​“rescission cuts,” that number dropped to a low of 42. 

Currently, the city has around 51 full-time parks-focused maintenance staff. The mayor’s FY25 proposed budget would add another six such maintenance workers, along with a handful of new administrative jobs, including three parks district managers, a superintendent of fields, and a new parks department, among others.

In the recent past, Bombero said, the city has leaned on hiring seasonal workers to help allay some of the pressure felt by a smaller full-time parks maintenance workforce. The mayor’s FY25 proposed budget includes $772,500 for part time seasonal payroll in the parks department. That’s up from $750,000 this current fiscal year.

But, Bombero added when talking about parks seasonal workers, ​“that’s where you’re seeing us hurt a lot right now. We’ve had a lot of trouble recruiting seasonals.”

She said that the alders’ approval last year of a bump to the seasonals budget allowed the department to increase the minimum wage for such work to $18 an hour, which has helped with recruitment.

But, she said, pre-employment drug tests that include a prohibition on marijuana use continues to make recruitment a challenge.

Wait a minute, Dixwell Alder Jeanette Morrison asked later in the meeting. ​“What testing are we referring to, because now that cannabis is legal… What are you doing? I could tell you right now a lot of people I could send, but they smoke.”

“That’s the unfortunate thing,” Bomero replied. ​“It is safety sensitive work. Unlike [with] alcohol, there is no potency test [for marijuana]. Because of that, there is carveout in the legislation for safety sensitive work, like landscaping, where you’re using dangerous equipment, where you could injure yourself. As such, we do a pre-employment drug screening that needs to be passed.”

“What you said is not correct,” Morrison replied. She said employers can and do test not just for whether or not someone has smoked, but how recently.

“We’re always talking about employment. We’re always talking about employing people in the City of New Haven,” Morrison said. ​“We’ve got to take away these barriers if we want these bodies” filling seasonal job vacancies in the parks department. ​“That’s a barrier that the city has to figure out.”

Should the city look to hire more permanent parks caretakers and maintenance workers, and not rely so much on seasonals? Board of Alders President and West River Alder Tyisha Walker-Myers asked later in the meeting.

The department really needs ​“a combination” of seasonal and year-round parks caretakers, Bombero said, given how some of the most intensive use of parks and fields comes in the warmer months. 

But, she recognized, it’s become harder and harder for the city to recruit seasonal employees with the rise of the ​“gig workforce.” ​“A lot of people who used to look for seasonal opportunities are now going to work at Amazon or driving Uber Eats” or even working as flight attendants at Avelo.

And, she reiterated, in reference to the pre-employment drug test that includes marijuana, ​“we are finding that because it is safety sensitive work, our standards are a challenge for us in terms of recruitment.”

The city currently has listed on its job hiring webpage the role of ​“seasonal caretaker” for the current parks and public works department. That job pays between $18 and $22 an hour for up to 40 hours per week for seasonal employment of no greater than 120 days.

The ​“semi-skilled and unskilled work in the maintenance of the park system throughout the City of New Haven” includes such typical duties as the operation of tractors, reels, and other grass-cutting equipment; the operation of jackhammers and small rollers; the installation of playground equipment and maintenance of tennis courts; and cutting grass, picking up paper and rubbish and debris, raking leaves, cutting brush, chalking playing fields, among a host of other work.

“Pursuant to the Federal Drug Free Workplace Act of 1988, The City of New Haven has adopted a Drug Free Workplace Policy,” the job posting reads. ​“The City of New Haven requires a pre-employment drug test, which includes screening for marijuana.” Click here to read the city’s Drug-Free Workplace Policy, which, according to city government’s website, was last updated in 2009.