Hamden OKs Mayor’s Office Reshuffle

Over objections of union members who recently agreed to givebacks, Hamden’s Legislative Council Thursday night voted to approve a reorganization of the mayor’s office

Critics, who had previously delayed a vote on the matter, charged it will add to the budget by creating two new positions. The mayor said the move helps Hamden get more money from the state and saves money by eliminating other positions and combining duties.

The item was first supposed to be introduced to the council at its Feb. 4 meeting. Hours before that, the mayor decided to pull it from the agenda to make changes after members raised concerns. The mayor again decided not to include it in the Feb. 19 meeting. Instead, a special council meeting was scheduled to address the issue.

The approved changes will add two full-time positions and give one employee a raise.

One of the new positions, the director of town/Board of Education legislative affairs, will act as a lobbyist in Hartford, advocating for Hamden and trying to secure as much funding for the town as possible. The position will have a salary of $72,000, funded one-third by the town and two-thirds by the BOE. 

The other new position will be the arts and marketing manager, with a salary of $55,000.

The bill will also get rid of the arts director position, which has a $90,000 salary. In its place will be a new town/BOE project director, with a salary of $100,000. Half of that position will come out of the town’s budget, the other half from the BOE.

Finally, the information and research officer will become the deputy chief of staff, and will have the same $62,000 salary. In a previous version of the bill that position would have gotten a $10,000 raise, but that raise was eliminated because of pressure from council members concerned increasing salary costs.

In order to pay for the changes in the current fiscal year, the mayor plans to move $18,700 from two contract services line items in the budget into the salary line, canceling the costs of the changes. He has also said that the changes will not add any additional costs to the budget in the next fiscal year.

Ten council members voted in favor of the changes. Only three council members voted against the changes: Lauren Garrett, Justin Farmer, and Athena Gary. The rest present voted yes. Eric Annes and Berita Rowe-Lewis were absent.

Both Marjorie Bonadies and Betty Wetmore, the two Republicans on the council, said that they had initially opposed the changes, but that they had come around to them. Brad Macdowall and Cory O’Brien, both of whom had previously expressed doubts to the Independent about the changes, ended up voting in their favor.

Cost Avoidance

The mayor’s office and many members of the council have stressed that the changes will save the town money in the long run.

“These positions are actually cost avoidance projects, and they’re positions that could bring the town money on the legislative side of things” Mayor Curt Leng told the Independent.

The town currently contracts BOE member Walter Morton to advocate for Hamden in Hartford, but he can be paid only an annual $3,000 under the current arrangement. With major school construction projects already bonded and more to come, many have said that having a full-time lobbyist in Hartford will be critical for securing the state funding the town needs.

“This has been long overdue,” council Rep. Jim Pascarella told the Independent. ​“For a town of our size to not have someone up in Hartford is just wrong.”

He said the town’s legislators must spend a lot of time in caucus. They also have their own full-time jobs. A lobbyist would be able to devote all of his or her time to advocating for Hamden, and could help coordinate the different members of the town’s delegation along with state agencies and other legislators.

At the meeting, BOE member Arturo Perez-Cabello told the council that the town has been shorted $18 million in ECS (education cost sharing) funding from the state. The ECS formula is the system the state uses to determine how much state education aid each town gets. The formula has not been fully funded, he explained, meaning that Hamden has gotten $18 million less than it should each year.

“The goal here is to maximize the state funding that we receive,” said Perez-Cabello. ​“This is a situation in which we all need to act and work together in going after this $18 million that they’re not providing us.”

The new town/BOE project director may also save the town money, some said. Currently, Julie Smith serves as the town’s director of arts and culture, but she also wears a number of other hats. She also sometimes serves as a liaison from the administration to the council, she oversees the school building projects, and she serves as a representative of the town to FEMA.

In her new position as town/BOE project director, she will be responsible for overseeing the BOE’s school construction projects. Though she has already served in such a capacity, the new position will allow her to focus more of her time on those projects.

Having one person who can oversee those massive construction projects, said Pascarella, is critical, and ​“Julie is the perfect person for the job.”

“We’re talking about tens of millions of dollars that will be administered through a series of different town departments and have to be documented very carefully,” said Leng. ​“It’s incredibly important to get it right.”

Weighing over the council were the words of State Rep. Mike D’Agostino, who spoke near the beginning on the status of bonds for school construction projects. The state has already provided the funds for the town to do renovations on the Alice Peck and West Woods schools, but the town still has not started either of those renovations. He explained that the state has said it is very supportive of both projects, and that it also supports the other school building projects that town has planned. However, he said, ​“if they don’t see progress by spring, all bets are off.” He said that the state has been waiting to see the Alice Peck and West Woods projects approved, and if shovels are not in the ground by spring, the state will take away the funding.

{media_4Smith told the council that one reason the mayor’s office wanted to make the changes now rather than starting in the next budget season was that, as D’Agostino said, the town needs to get started on the school renovation projects as soon as possible. Having someone in charge of overseeing those projects would help speed up the process.

Unions Not Pleased

The changes received vocal opposition from unions in the town, who have recently been called on to make concessions in order to cover gaps in the budget.

Liz Ditman, a representative of the United Public Service Employees Union, reminded the council that less than a month ago, they had accepted concessions from the supervisor’s union, whom she represents. (Teachers made concessions too.)

Creating positions and giving raises in the mayor’s office, she said, ​“says to them that their paychecks are not as important as these other paychecks.”

“We believe that creating new positions and instituting sizeable pay increases for those positions should not be considered while our dedicated members in Hamden are once again being asked to make real economic sacrifice through contractual concessions,” Larry Dorman of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Council 4 told the council.

“We are just aiming for equity,” said Kim Craft, president of Local 2863. ​“We’re looking to be treated fairly.”

Leng said that the mayor’s office and the town’s non-union staff will also give back three days.

By deciding to ask for union concessions, said Rep. Farmer, ​“we are making life-altering decisions.” As one of the three council members who voted against the changes, he said that it’s extremely important to treat labor fairly.

Rep. Garrett, another council member who voted against the changes, said that ​“tonight I’m going to be standing in solidarity with the unions.”

“Tonight I’m going to be standing in solidarity with the unions,” Garrett said. She questioned whether the changes were actually cost neutral. ​“The mayor has not shown how he will pay for the extra benefits,” she said.

Leng told the Independent that ​“you have to have swings of a dozen people to actually have a tangible impact on the medical line.”

Despite the testimonies of unions and questions about whether the changes would actually be cost neutral, for most of the council, the benefits outweighed the downsides.

“It’s not fair, it’s not right. We’re saddling our debt on the hardest working people in this town,” said Macdowall, referring to the town’s unioned employees. But every single town in the state that has a lobbyist in Hartford, he said, does better than Hamden when it comes to returns from the state. If it’s a matter of giving up $18,000 and furlough days in order to get $18 million from the state, he said, ​“I can’t vote no.”