Harp Administration Grilled On New Positions

Mayoral staffers looking to convince lawmakers to create a new four-person grant writing department faced a question from East Rock Alder Anna Festa: Why not try it before you buy it?

Instead of creating a permanent new department, Festa (pictured) asked, wouldn’t it be better to hire a private grant-writing firm for a year, just to see if it’s really a good idea?

It wouldn’t be feasible to contract out a whole department’s work for a full year, respond Chief of Staff Tomas Reyes.

That exchange came during Thursday evening’s meeting of the Board of Alders Finance Committee, which convened in City Hall for one of a series of meetings on the mayor’s proposed $511 million budget. Alders pressed city officials on just why they need more staff in the mayor’s office and in the clerk’s office.

Mayor Toni Harp’s proposed budget, for the fiscal year starting July 1, would raise taxes by 3.8 percent. Alders are expected to try to reduce or eliminate that unpopular tax hike before they approve a final budget at the end of May. New staff positions can add to the most costly portions of the city budget by locking the city into pension, salary, and health benefits payments for years to come.

Thursday’s budget meeting was the first of four in which city departments have a chance to justify their piece of the budget pie. The Finance Committee heard testimony Thursday from the Office of Legislative Service, Mayor’s Office, Registrar of Voters, City Clerk, Corporation Counsel, disability services, Fair Rent Commission, and Department of Finance.

Holmes: Prove It

Reyes and policy analyst Michael Harris sat to testify on behalf of the mayor’s office. Reyes said the office’s budget proposal for the coming fiscal year is not very different from the current year’s — except for some new positions.

The mayor is asking for a new legislative director position and a new bilingual receptionist. She also wants to create a four-person grant-writing department, to seek out federal and state funding that the city doesn’t currently have the resources to pursue.

The new positions would increase the mayor’s office budget by nearly 50 percent, from around $900,000 to about $1.3 million.

The mayor has also proposed creating those positions in the current fiscal year, a proposal that’s also currently before the Finance Committee.

“We strongly feel that the Office of Development and Policy is a necessary part of this budget proposal,” Reyes said in reference to the four-person grants office.

Harris said the mayor is committed to seeing the new department pay for itself — to raise more money than it costs the city.

The Board of Ed uses an outside company to write grants, said Festa. ​“Why shouldn’t we do that for a year, before we have to have a department?” Or, why not train department heads to write grants better?

“It’s really hard to justify these positions, not knowing how much we’d be getting from grants,” Festa said.

With the city’s current staffing levels, department heads lack the resources to know even what grants they’re missing, Harris said. ​“We’re never going to know what grants we’re going to get until we apply for them.”

The mayor wants the new department in her office so that it can work across departments, Reyes said.

“I get it. I understand it,” Festa said. ​“But we can hire a contractor to do the same without having to pay for medical benefits and pensions. Maybe we should try that to get an idea of what grants can be out there before we establish a whole department of four people.”

“We respectfully disagree with that notion,” Reyes said. ​“It would be difficult to deal with a vendor doing that on a full-time basis.”

East Rock Alder Jessica Holmes asked for numbers: ​“It would be helpful to see a cost analysis of contract versus full-time staffers.” The idea of testing out the grant department is ​“compelling,” she said. ​“If it’s not going to work, I need to know why.”

Reyes agree to come up with that information.

“Have you found any other city or town that has a grant writing department that’s self-sustaining?” asked Nehallviille/Prospect Hill Alder Mike Stratton.

“We can get that information,” Harris said.

After the meeting, Hill Alder Jorge Perez, president of the Board of Alders, said he hasn’t yet decided if he will support the mayor’s grant-writing department proposal. ​“Historically, I have a very hard time to approve new positions when we have tax increases.”

”It’s Filing Things”

The question of adding new staff to the budget arose again when City Clerk Mike Smart (pictured) sat to testify. As with the mayor’s office budget, he said his budget is similar to last year’s, with an additional position.

Smart is looking to restore an assistant clerk position to his office’s staff, a position that existed until 2012.

Smart explained what happened: In 2012, his predecessor ​“illegally removed a position,” which led to a grievance filed by the Local 3144 managers union. ​“When I got elected this year, I got dropped in my lap, a settlement to restore that position.”

Smart called up Cherlyn Poindexter, president of Local 3144, to elaborate. She explained that a year and a half ago, the assistant clerk position — a 3144 member — was removed and an ​“election specialist” position — part of local 884 — was created. ​“We filed a grievance because someone took our work and subcontracted it out to another bargaining unit.”

In the settlement of that grievance, in January, the city’s head of labor relations agreed to restore the 3144 position — the assistant clerk — and keep the 884 position — the election specialist.

Since then, the election specialist position has been vacant. The job has now been posted, beginning a hiring process to fill the position again.

Edgewood Alder Evette Hamilton sought clarification. ​“These two people will be doing the same job but in two different areas?”

It’s two different jobs, Poindexter said. ​“One is clerical; the other is supervisory.”

“Why can we not eliminate the election specialist position and recreate the other one?” Perez (pictured) asked. He said he could understand having the assistant clerk, since it was historically a position in the clerk’s office. But the other position is vacant and was only recently created. ​“Do we really need both positions?”

“Yes,” Smart said. ​“It’s critical.”

“In the event the deputy clerk is on vacation or out sick, there’s no one in the office to supervise the office,” he said. ​“They do a lot of the day-to-day typist work” and would help with ​“outreach to the community” to ​“promote the office” and make it run more efficiently, Smart said of the clerical 884 position.

Perez said he could see that the city is legally obligated to recreate the assistant clerk position, given the outcome of the grievance. ​“I don’t agree we’re required to keep both.”

Since he took office in January, Smart said, ​“in my observation, we’re short on staff.”

Smart said he has five staff people in the office. Having the assistant clerk and the elections specialist would cut down on overtime. ​“This is a very important office,” he said. ​“We’re responsible to over 400 state statutes.” The office maintains a library with records going back to the 1600s. It takes care of land records, deeds, licensing. ​“There are a lot of components,” he said.

After the meeting, Stratton said he wasn’t convinced by Smart’s pitch for more staff. Stratton repeated a proposal he’s made to eliminate even Smart’s position, and have the deputy clerk run the office. ​“I just think it’s an arcane position.”

The work of the clerk’s office is ​“not tremendously complicated,” Stratton said. ​“It’s filing things.”