City Hall Grades Top Staff

Amy Meek is an ​“unselfish” new member of the mayor’s team and needs to ​“be more assertive,” according to her boss’s evaluation. Police Chief Frank Limon is doing a ​“satisfactory” job — without further explanation.

Those two examples emerged in the latest round of job performance evaluations of 44 top City Hall employees.

The annual evaluations, completed in December through March, were released to the Independent Tuesday following a Freedom of Information request. The mayor evaluated seven top coordinators; those staff in turn evaluated their supervisees.

The forms reflected how top staffers are doing their jobs, as well as how top officials choose to grade them in the light of public scrutiny.

The evaluations used to remain out of the public eye. Then the city lost a Freedom of Information Commission case filed in 2004, and now must release the forms to the public by request. As a result, Mayor John DeStefano revised the evaluations to include less information. Workers are now graded as ​“satisfactory” or ​“unsatisfactory,” and must simply initial that they have discussed their performance across 11 categories.

Based on who’s doing the evaluations, some of the documents offer detailed, specific insight into how public servants are serving the public and how they can do better, in their bosses’ eyes; while other leave out any specific information or reflection of what the bosses are really thinking.

The categories range from ​“job knowledge” and ​“self-management” to ​“customer service” and ​“ethics and government.” There’s also a space to write down goals for 2011 and extra feedback.

Aware that the forms are public, Chief Administrative Officer Rob Smuts (pictured), for instance, left those areas blank. He simply initialed that each category had been discussed.

For example, Police Chief Frank Limon earned a ​“satisfactory” grade, with no further explanation of his strengths and weaknesses. Smuts gave the same treatment to City Librarian Christopher Korenowsky, parks chief Bob Levine, City Engineer Richard Miller, Clayton Northgraves, director of public safety communication, public works chief John Prokop and sustainability czar Christine Eppstein Tang.

“I believe in transparency in government,” Smuts claimed Monday, but it’s ​“counterproductive” to make evaluations available to the public.

“I think it’s kind of ridiculous that Connecticut is one of the few states in the nation where they are not exempt from FOIA [the Freedom of Information Act],” he said. ​“It should be a coaching tool, something that you can talk about, have an open and frank discussion.”

“I think performance evaluations are very helpful,” he said. But when the evaluations are reported on a news site, where online commenters can make sarcastic comments, ​“that doesn’t exactly lend itself to a useful tool.”

By contrast, DeStefano, who originally fought making the forms public, has used them as a forum for frank and open discussion about his employees’ performance, as well as his goals for the city next year.

In last year’s round of evaluations, he urged his new community services chief, Chisara Asomugha (pictured), to be more ​“action-driven.”

This year, DeStefano gave her positive feedback on that goal.

“I do not have the same concerns articulated last year about processing analysis more quickly,” he wrote. ​“As your comfort with the organization has increased, so too has your ability to manage it.”

He commended Asomugha’s work on the Health Matters! initiative and urged her to take a greater role in BOOST, a new initiative to provide wrap-around social services for students at select public schools.

When it came her turn to evaluate her staff, Asomugha used the evaluations to issue more general praise about her workers, with no words of constructive criticism. She said her new health director, Mario Garcia, is adjusting well to the job.

DeStefano applauded his chief of staff, Sean Matteson, for going ​“above and beyond the call of duty” on customer service. And he gave this guidance on leadership and interpersonal skills: ​“perhaps we might think about how we motivate others given the budget environment we are in.”

Matteson (pictured) used the forms to issue life advice for his staff.

“It is clear that you have outgrown your limited duties and role in this office,” he wrote to Emily Byrne, a four-year mayoral staffer who joined the office after serving as the mayor’s driver during his gubernatorial campaign. Byrne left last fall to become the director of New Haven Promise, the college scholarship program.

“Be assertive,” Matteson urged Amy Meek, the city’s coordinator for prison reentry. He called her an unselfish, true believer who makes a good addition to the mayor’s team.

“Do not play the role of sycophant,” he cautioned Elyse Lyons, echoing advice he gave another woman in the office last year. The advice was a theme running through several evaluations.

“Learn how to challenge authority respectfully,” Matteson advised. ​“Do not simply tell those that you follow what they wish to hear.”

Lyons, who joined the mayor’s office last March, would leave in February to join New Haven Promise. In doing so, she was in a sense following Matteson’s advice to ​“demand” a new opportunity with more responsibility.

“You have a lot of potential. The question is what do you want in life — both professionally and personally? I see in you a young professional that could achieve more than they thought possible, but I, like others, need to see you want it,” Matteson wrote.

“You will not be easily replaced,” Matteson wrote to another departing employee, city spokeswoman Jessica Mayorga. In the meantime, before her departure, he urged her to ​“message the Hell out of what we are doing to control the fiscal problems that all cities are facing.”

Labor relations chief Craig Manemeit, who’s City Hall’s chief negotiator as the city pushes for major concessions from 11 unions at the bargaining table, got several paragraphs of impassioned guidance for the year ahead.

“Aim towards the big picture changes (health care and pensions) to our collective bargaining agreements. Focus on our need to extend the shelf-life of the two employee pensions, for the benefit of the workers, even if union leadership cannot or will not accept the path we are headed. There are leaders that recognize that pension funds all across the country are in trouble and will work to extend the life of the plan.

“This is an incredibly challenging time for residents, city employees and senior staff. There is no self pity to be had here. We are facing nothing different than every other city in America is facing.

“… You have an amazing opportunity in front of you with all of these contracts up and the two public safety contracts yet to come up this summer. We have game changing proposals with the unions that will save millions of taxpayer dollars, extend the life of the pensions and preserve jobs and services. This is your moment and your chance to show to everyone your talents. You must succeed as too much rides on your doing so.”

For his most senior supervisor, Pat Lawlor, Matteson simply gushed with gratitude.

“I would be lost without you,” he wrote to Lawlor, an administrative assistant to the mayor and a 47-year employee of City Hall.

Economic development chief Kelly Murphy (pictured) has established a ​“very good” work environment with her team, the mayor concluded in his evaluation of her performance. He asked her to address an apparent lack of communication by holding monthly meetings to discuss her department’s priorities.

“I would expect that we would articulate to each other if any schedules are not being met or if we are unclear on expectations,” DeStefano wrote.

Murphy used her own staff evaluations to issue general praise and to focus on the year ahead. For example, she praised City Plan Karyn Gilvarg for ​“excellent” work across the board, and laid out three priorities for 2011: Downtown Crossing, the boathouse project, and the next phases of the Farmington Canal Line.

City Comptroller Mark Pietrosimone remains a ​“consistently well-performing manager upon whom the City and I can rely upon,” the mayor wrote. ​“Frankly I think your biggest success has been managing the same responsibilities with increasingly fewer resources.”

As he hinted at last year with his chief of staff, DeStefano put in a word of caution about Pietrosimone working too many hours.

“My sense is the workload does test you at times,” he wrote. Looking ahead at the next year, he said Pietrosimone should continue to monitor customer service at the assessor’s office.

Pietrosimone in turn evaluated city Assessor Bill O’Brien (pictured). Pietrosimone said his customer service has been ​“satisfactory — with continual emphasis to further improvement.” Looking ahead, he directed O’Brien to complete the city’s revaluation ​“in a timely manner” and get going on a new way of conducting personal property assessments based on visiting businesses.

Budget chief Larry Rusconi, who fell ill last year, got high marks from the mayor for ​“great work under difficult circumstances.” DeStefano asked him to persist in drafting multi-year budget projections, even if there are inevitable flaws in doing so.

CAO Smuts has been ​“a consistently solid manager and thought leader,” DeStefano wrote. The mayor gave him ​“very good” marks across the board, with a side note: ​“Let’s discuss the PD [police department].”

No word about his approach to performance evaluations.

Last year the mayor wrote a detailed evaluation of schools chief Reggie Mayo. He praised Mayo’s job knowledge, quality of work, and customer service; he critiqued the way Mayo dealt with some outside critics.

This year’s batch of performance evaluations released to the Independent did not include Mayo’s evaluation.