Clockwise: Dennis Serfilippi, Michael Gormany, Alex Pullen, and Justin Elicker.
A local financial consultant and recent Westville alder candidate is suing the city for keeping non-residents in New Haven’s top financial offices — and is pushing to push out the current controller and tax assessor in the name of improved municipal fiscal management and compliance with the city charter.
Mayor Justin Elicker has responded by pressing the importance of keeping the most qualified people in those jobs amid a shortage of applicants, and has denied that the city is violating the charter as his administration seeks to keep those finance roles filled.
Dennis Serfilippi filed that lawsuit in state court on Nov. 3.
The New Haven native and chief financial officer for tech startups argues in that lawsuit that Elicker is out of compliance with the city charter because he has kept both Alex Pullen, the city’s tax assessor, and Michael Gormany, the city’s controller and budget director, both of whom live outside of city bounds, in key financial leadership roles.
The lawsuit also criticizes the city for the fact that both Pullen and Gormany have been working only in acting capacities for years, and calls on the administration to hire residents to permanently fill those positions.
“It is imperative that the City adhere to the Charter, including complying with residency requirements, in appointing our top Finance officials. City officials who play a meaningful role in determining our tax structure and our budget, and who perform critical financial analysis and oversight should be residents of the city and be subject to, like the rest of us, the financial outcomes their policies and practices help shape,” Serfilippi wrote to the Independent in a letter titled “Why Sue City Memo.”
In his new lawsuit, Serfilippi focuses on two sections of the charter allegedly violated by the administration’s arrangement of the finance department: Keeping at least two city employees in acting capacities for more than the maximum period of six months without formal confirmation to the job, and hiring non-electors of New Haven to top department jobs (see text excerpts from the charter as listed in the lawsuit below).
The lawsuit — which can be read in full here — states that Gormany has served as the acting controller since around March 2020 and Pullen as acting tax assessor since December 2011. Neither Gormany nor Pullen responded to requests for comment from the Independent.
This is Serfilippi’s latest critique of what he calls a lack of oversight within the city’s financial department. Read more here about Serfilippi’s condemnation of the Financial Review and Audit Commission.
Serfilippi pointed to $6 million stolen in city funds; $5 million lost to unbilled residential rental permits; and the chronic underassessment of city properties as a few city losses that these alleged charter violations may have contributed to. Hiring non-residents, in particular, means hiring people who “aren’t incentivized” to care about the financial status of their city as much as those living in it would, Serfilippi claimed.
“Serfilippi’s lawsuit is negatively impacting city finances and wasting time and money that we should be spending on more important things,” said Elicker, who has yet to file a response to the court summons.
Elicker said the charter maintains a “hold-over provision,” which states — according to Section 13 of the document’s general provisions — that “all public officials, unless prevented by death, inability or suspension or removal, shall hold their respective offices until their successors shall be chosen and shall have duly qualified.” So far, he said, “very few people” have applied for the jobs and the city has been unable to find “the right fit.” Therefore, he added, he does not view the employment of Gormany or Pullen as a charter violation.
“We must have a controller and assessor — we can’t have vacancies in those jobs,” he said. But, he said, “these are highly specialized positions. There are very few people who are qualified to do them, and even fewer who are willing to do them at the salaries that the city can offer.”
He also refuted the significance of residency requirements for finance jobs: “I’ve been very public that for a very small number of positions, residency requirements are important. Police and fire, for example, have to respond very quickly… but I don’t question people’s commitment to this job just because they happen to live in Hamden. What’s important is we get the best person for the job.”
The hardships behind hiring, Elicker said, should serve as a catalyst for alders to reconsider a pathway towards changing the charter’s residency requirements, though a new charter adopted by voters in November did not directly alter that rule.
Serfilippi, meanwhile, calls in his suit for the court to order Elicker to remove both Pullen and Gormany from their roles as controller and tax assessor — and for the court to “award the plaintiff his costs for having to bring this action.”
So the rules state two seemingly different things. You must be a resident and you must hold the job till replacement is found. If the rule had been followed and only city residents or those who immediately relocate and prove residency, this would not be a problem. I cannot believe that Elicker finds this stance defensible. He is so disappointing. And I wouldn't be bragging about a staff who let 6 million dollars slip through their hands in front of their faces.
PS----where does Madeline Negron live????