Recession Hits The Ambassadors

If the Ambassadors are not doing the job they are currently paid to do get rid of them and get someone who can do the job. We are not a welfare service

Not cool I think.

The ambassadors found my ID downtown one day, and drove to my then home in the Hill to return it personally.

They are incredibly helpful, kind, friendly people. I've had dozens upon dozens of good interactions with them.

Meanwhile, I know a City Hall employe who used the "F" word to describe me & others who are incredibly rude & even asked other employees to not help certain alders neighborhoods because they wanted to hurt their political power. There are people in that building who think this is high school, and when a community member supports their good work but questions the bad they are trying to bury under the carpet, they say, "Why does he hate us"?

No one hates you. Some of us aren't puppets though--there are some wonderful things being done, and we praise that, and there are some incredibly awful things that we criticize.

Find the money to do this right. I know a few incredibly rude, arrogant, cussing city hall employees we could lay off to help us find the money to keep employing the happy, friendly, & service-oriented town green workers. Heck, let's get some of them into city hall. Assessors office could use the help.

(I think it's telling that I own no property in this city & yet I've had enough dealings with the assesor's office to have experienced an incredible lack of civility.)

I actually am upset over this! these people work hard & are a GREAT face on New Haven. If you've lived here a long time you probably stop realizing the impact they actually have, but we can not have this managed by some firm out of state.

This needs to be done in house.

Can we appeal this decision at a BOA meeting? Is there a public hearing on this?

This is a terrible move. I really don't like this. It sits at odds with what I think of us as a community.

We are an open & welcoming city. We reflect that in our ID card program & in our initial decision to create this program.

We completely reject that when we move this out of state. I'm very concerned with this decision. I don't want to see our friendly faces replaced with more of the rude & unhelpful people we have been hiring.

While it's true that the Town Green District will be contracting with a professional full service Clean and Safe Management Company, it is NOT due to the recession. The Town Green is doing this so that it can provide our constituents with the best quality services.

Ten years ago, the Town Green was established by the downtown property owners, who pay taxes above and beyond what they pay in City taxes to fund the fundamental services of a clean and safe downtown. A cleaner and safer downtown set the foundation for the increased investment and economic vitality that has occurred in downtown New Haven.

At the time, both the clean team and the Ambassador team were provided by outside vendors. In 2006, the Town Green chose to take only the Ambassador team in house because it believed it could provide better hospitality-oriented training than the local vendor at the time. Since then, the quality of the program has suffered and the safety focus has become secondary, in spite of the management staff's best efforts. As we embark on our second decade we want to bring the Town Green and its services to the next level and contracting the Ambassador services will provide us this opportunity. It will allow Town Green to focus on public space improvements such as better lighting, parking , sidewalk conditions and other beautification efforts--all of the things that make downtown New Haven a Great Place.

Currently, we have an employee turnover rate of 120% in the Ambassador program. I believe this turnover will be reduced because Service Group Inc. can provide better training, better salaries, better benefits and administrative support than the Town Green staff (a total of 4 of us) can. Additionally, jobs will NOT be cut; we will actually be able to increase man-hours on the streets. All of the current employees, most of whom are part-time employees residing in New Haven or greater New Haven, will be interviewed for the positions and given first right of refusal. Any new employees will also come from New Haven and the area. Town Green is not an employment agency, we provide services to downtown property owners and business owners who have needs beyond what the City of New Haven can provide. It's our responsibility to provide the best quality services we can.

This will be a difficult couple of years and the Town Green Board of Commissioners has worked hard to cut administrative and overhead costs where it can without sacrificing the core services of cleaning, maintenance, beautification and security. This change will bring about a stronger, more professional, and visible team on the streets.

Rena Leddy, Executive Director, Town Green Special Services District

Keep the Urban Safari hats at all costs!

Ms Leddy,

How can we save money by paying another company to pay ambassadors more? That sounds like an increase in spending to me.

I'm not trying to be difficult, but I don't understand what you're saying.

By moving this to another firm, that we pay, they will hire more ambassadors, pay them more, give them better benefits, & increase the total number of (higher paying) hours available to the ambassadors?

I don't know how that gets cheaper! Even if it's because they buy benefits in bulk, let's just use some hypothetical figures--10s to keep the math easy.

Let's just set the current employee number to 10. Let's say they all make 10 dollars per hour at 10 hours a week. 1,000 dollars total, right?

Now let's increase them to 15 hours per week @ 15 dollars per hour per week. That's 2250.

How does this work, that they pay them more then we pay them & give them more hours, & we save? I don't get it.

Again, really not trying to knock you--this is asked in total sincerity, and because I don't understand where our savings come from.

My understanding from customers of the clean team is that it is not working well. Also, not trying to point any fingers, but people who work with them have expressed disappointment in the services offered & quality of work. If we can afford to pay the Ambassadors more via an outside vendor, why can't we just increase what we pay them here? How much were we paying for in-house training?

I just have so many questions about this. Sorry.

Where will the saved money be put to use?
Also can we get the ambassadors some real power. Let them issue parking, noise and other quality of life problem tickets or actually have the authority to get the bums to move on. Part of the reason there is so much turn over now is because the ambassadors are asked to do so much with out the actual authority or tools to do it. On the bright side the planters look great.

It's cheaper and more effective because they don't have to be supervised internally which allows the staff more time to focus on other improvements, such as lighting projects, for example.
It is also cheaper because the liability insurance costs go down and is taken on by the contractor. In the case of SGI, is a national company with a large employee base so the cost is spread out -- economy of scales.
Some on the GAVA board have also wanted to take the operation in house - I can assure you that there is little to no time to supervise them properly internally unless you have a dedicated staff for that - it's generally not worth it.

This is wrong in sooo many ways. First, outsourcing is like sending jobs overseas. The profits and cash go right out of town. Also you lose the local personal touch. New Haven is famous for bringing in outside experts, managers, consultants, etc when we actually have plenty of talent and management experience right here in our own town.

I don't think this would have happened if they had promoted the leadership of TGSSD from within. Again bad, short-sighted management that gives the city a much less personal touch. Sure TGSSD is a tool of the downtown property owners but it needs more diversity in its Board of Commissioners and more members of the Board from the general retail and residential community to provide a realistic representation. It is also supported by Yale and the City as well; so the citizens should have more of a say in its operations.

Also, that long list of questions will certainly weed out many people who really have benefited from these jobs! Some prison reentry people were helped tremendously by these jobs and I'll bet they will now be excluded. Working longer hours and starting at 8AM is stupid. The stores don't even open till 10AM, the town is asleep then and office workers are not in need of guidance from ambassadors. Being an ambassador is a tough job and longer hours only make it more stressful and tiring resulting in less truly effective ambassadors.

Running things with out of town management, paying out-of-towners for consulting, not hiring from within and lack of diversity combined with a highly aggressive towing and ticketing policy all make downtown sooo much colder, less consumer friendly and ultimately drives merchants, residents and consumers away!

Gabriela,

it just doesn't follow. Is there really no one local that the department could hire, along with an expansion of the ambassadors authority, to make the job more important & meaningful? I really don't like the idea of contracting some distant firm to do something that we moved in house just a few years ago.

I definitely agree that paying people minimum wage is not a great way to attract and retain talent. With that in mind, rather then paying another company to pay them more per hour, let's raise what we pay them now, immediately, and continue to weather under the storm of a bad economy for a little longer.

Why change the way that we do things for a temporary issue? (the economic climate)

This is a passing storm. We're making an awful, panicked decision, in my mind, and Iit sits very poorly with me.

Why should we--the community--invest in this city if the City won't?

You need to do what you can to keep this local. I've seen a lot of weird things lately in the city, and this is the one that upsets me the most.

I'm going to need to see definite numbers showing EXACTLY what we save, before I am willing to begin conceding that it's possible that we're making a good decision. Even if we save 100k, please, that is so little money compared to doing this right here, in our city.

This is not in ANYWAY personal, Ms. Leddy--I am sure you are a fine person & will do an excellent job. I have no doubt that you are qualified. However, I want to point out that I don't believe this would happen if a local was in your job post: and I worry what else will be allowed if we outsource this work to another community.


Readers, please get in touch with City Hall about this. This is a potentially huge loss for our city, as we trade:
Community
Oversight
Local accountability
and possibly suffer quality of life decreases by having an out of state company manage the very face of New Haven to visitors, new residents, and even those of us who have lived here for a while.

And all for what? MAYBE 100k. Sure won't be 100k in savings, because you could hire a GREAT local to do this job for 58k, and give everyone a raise who works on the team now. So instead we pay an out of town firm to manage it--which is a little cheaper--but then that firm raises the pay of the employees? Real savings are probably going to be equivalent to what we'd pay someone LOCAL to do this job, and if you can't find someone to do it for 58k, you simply aren't looking hard enough!

Plus health benefits that's what, 85k?

How much does this firm cost? I Can't imagine they will PROPERLY manage this for that much under 85k.

What are we going to save? 20k a year?

I don't like this.

This doesn't add up. The Town Green is going to save $100,000 by outsourcing mgmt. of the Ambassadors?

Yet there will be more and better Ambassadors, working even longer hours?

My guess is that they'll use the Temp/Staffing company to cut both wages and benefits. Say good-bye to Living Wages & health insurance. Because those downtown landlords paying for the TGSSD can't afford them!

I am hearing that the clean team and the ambassadors will now all be wearing the same uniforms so no one will be able to tell them apart. That is a super stupid idea if it's true. Also The money for the ambassadors comes from taxes on property in the downtown area so the economy has no bearing at all on there funding which Rena correctly pointed out earlier so lets stop that talk. Any money saved would not go back to the tax payers it would just go to fund something else.