Kottage, Carter: Routine, no big cost.
Staffing changes made out of the public eye at the fire department have city alders and the corporation counsel miffed at being left out of the loop.
The changes, requested by Fire Chief Allyn Wright and Chief Administrative Officer Mike Carter, came about as a result of at least six memoranda of understanding (MOUs), four stipulated agreements, and one letter of agreement signed so far this year by fire union President Jimmy Kottage and city labor relations chief Marcus Paca.
Some of the changes included:
• The assignment of Fire Capt. Gary Tinney, as of now for 90 days, to a “community safety education” post in Carter’s office, focusing on fire prevention. The assignment, signed Oct. 2 by the MOU, began on Oct. 5. Carter and Wright told the Independent they needed someone to catch up with requests to speak to students and other groups about fire prevention. The MOU also calls for Tinney to work on “special project” with the chief, such as an acclaimed Public Safety Academy he helped start at Hillhouse High School to prepare students for public-safety careers. Carter said he also wanted to replicate work he did as an official in Indianapolis, Indiana, saving money through collecting data on malfunctioning elevators and unlit stairwells in public-housing projects and potential fire-safety hazards around town.
• A change in the schedule of Assistant Fire Chief Matt Marcarelli. According to the MOU, signed Oct. 2, Marcarelli will work four nine-hour days per week. He previously worked five seven-hour days.
• The temporary assignment of Firefighter Michael LaBonia to the training academy “for the sole purpose of assisting the Fire Department with developing the training and testing standards … and classroom materials for the operation of Marine 1, the Department fire boat.” Carter and Kottage said LaBonia was the only one who had the experience to do that job.
• Changes in eligibility rules for the fire marshal and deputy fire marshal positions, so that more people (or in the case of the deputy, any people) could qualify for the exams.
(Click here to read all the agreements.)
Board of Alders leaders learned of the MOUs after the fact. They argued that they should have been consulted first and that a fiscal impact assessment should have been done before the MOUs were signed, since, for instance, the department needs to pay extra to fill the regular duties of a firefighter like Tinney who’s been temporarily reassigned. City officials said no fiscal impact statement was drawn up.
“Best practices should dictate that each MOU be reviewed by legal and budget staff before being entered into,” Board of Alders President Tyisha Walker, President Pro Tem Jeanette Morrison, and Majority Leader Al Paolillo said in a statement joined by other board leaders. They have now asked that they get to review MOUs signed by all bargaining units in city government, not just the fire union.
The board had previously rejected a Harp administration request to create a full-time community education/information position at the department. Carter and Wright denied that the temporary transfer of Tinney from his post running the Morris Cove station was an end-run around that rejection. They said the new position is fundamentally different.
City Corporation Counsel John Rose said he, too, never saw these MOUs before the fact.
“I would prefer to see them. I prefer to see any agreement that might impact the city’s fiscal” position before it’s signed, Rose said.
One legal question involves how to interpret Section 7 – 474(b) of the state Municipal Employee Relations Act and whether the section covers these side agreements reached in between contracts. (The current fire contract was extended last year to run through June 2018). The debated section states that “a request for funds necessary to implement” written agreements between a labor negotiator and a union president “shall be submitted by the bargaining representative of the municipality within fourteen days of the date on which such agreement is reached to the legislative body which may approve or reject such request.”
City Controller Daryl Jones said he hadn’t been consulted, either. He said he had meetings scheduled to find out.
Kottage, who faces a tough reelection contest in December, Carter and Wright all argued that the fiscal impact is small in these cases. Carter called temporary reassignments routine in departments throughout the city. Some have suggested that the internecine politics in the fire department may have helped make the MOUs an issue; even with a scorecard, it’s difficult to discern on any given day which firefighters are aligning with which other firefighters to stab each other in the back.
Carter called the extra costs of these staff moves “negligible” especially compared to the $150,000 to $200,000 he said the fire department has cut in monthly overtime costs compared to last year.
“There’s going to be some cost. The value is what we can do to make New Haven citizens safer and protect their property,” Carter said.
“I’m not here to please everybody. I’m here to runt he fire department like a business,” Wright said.