Mayor’s Office Pressed On Exec Raises

Mayor Toni Harp’s proposed budget for her office is the same as what alders approved last year. Alders still had a question: How has the adminisitration managed to raise pay for executive staff with minimal to no increase in her budget and without their approval?

Those questions were put to two members of Harp’s staff charged with presenting her office’s proposed budget this past Thursday night during the first round of departmental hearings at City Hall over the Harp administration’s overall proposed $554.5 million operating budget for the coming fiscal year.

The mayor is asking that alders level fund her office at just over $1 million for the current fiscal year.

“It’s a status quo budget,” said Rick Melita, Harp’s liaison to the Board of Alders, who presented to the committee in the stead of Chief of Staff Tomas Reyes. ​“It is very similar to what was approved last year.”

Dixwell Alder Jeanette Morrison said invariably alders hear about executive management employees getting raises above the salary approved by alders during the budget cycle.

“It always bewilders me,” she said of the flat budget. ​“After budget season is over and a new fiscal year starts, we start to hear about all these raises. I’m just trying to understand where within these numbers would a $20,000 raise, or $10,000 raise come from.”

Alders heard about such raises from ASFCME Local 3144 on at a separate budget hearing earlier in the week: Nearly 30 union members showed up to remind alders that they’ve been operating without a contract for the last two years and the previous contract only provided them modest raises — raises they claimed were eaten by the increased costs of pensions and medical benefits.

Local 3144 President Cherlyn Pointdexter said that her union members pay 12 percent toward their benefits and will receive no social security when they retire. But executive/confidential employees receive raises and the city pays not only the raises but contributions to their 401(a) plans and pay for social security.

The union alleged that executive level management has seen significant raises under the Harp administration, raises that do not bear the weight of covering the increased costs of benefits. Alders were provided a list of executive/confidential management employees who received hundreds of thousands of dollars in salary increases. (See that salary list and assorted raises provided by the union for 2014, 2015 and 2016 at the bottom of this story.)

The union, which represents employees who work as supervisors, pressed alders at the earlier hearing to treat its members more fairly and consider the value they add to the city. The city has proposed a contract reserve budget of $2 million, a number at which alders worried aloud Thursday night as possibly being too small given that outstanding labor contracts include Local 3144, Local 884, Local 71, police, public works, Corporation Counsel, nurses and executive and confidential employees.

“I’m trying to figure out if my eyes are playing tricks on me,” Morrison said Thursday. ​“I can’t see the numbers. Help me to see where that falls.”

Melita said that any such increases in salaries are likely incorporated into the individual budgets of the departments. City Budget Director Joe Clerkin concurred with Melita that the costs of any such raises are likely spread across departments.

That happened in a roundabout way when it came to a salary increase that alders ultimately rescinded during the last budget cycle. The mayor had requested a raise in pay from the city’s personnel department for city Youth Services Director Jason Bartlett. Harp had sought to bump up Bartlett’s salary from $85,000 to $105,000 to compensate him for his increased responsibilities. The request came during a fiscal year that was already in progress.

The city’s personnel department approved the $20,000 raise on the grounds that it fell within appropriate job categories and thus could be done on Harp’s say-so. Arguing that Harp should have come to them before such a raise was approved, alders returned Bartlett to his original salary during the last round of budgeting. There is no request in Harp’s new proposed overall budget for a pay raise for Bartlett.

But Morrison said the matter still confuses her. When it comes to moving money around in the budget, particularly large sums, the mayor must seek approval from alders, she said.

Annex Alder Alphonse Paolillo Jr. said he has a similar understanding about budget transfers. He asked Melita and Clerkin for three years of submissions for salary increases at the executive/confidential management level in an attempt to determine the accuracy of the union’s data and how often the administration had bypassed alders to authorize raises.

“I’m pretty sure there is a submission process to the mayor’s office,” he said. ​“We want to look at how these numbers get to where they are. We have done some research on this and we know that there are those that have not come back to us.”

Paolillo also urged Melita to relay to the mayor’s office and ultimately city department heads that they should be in attendance for public hearings on the budget

“I think it’s important,” he said. ​“There were eight or 10 city departments where we heard from the employees but department heads were not here to process that information. It’s similar to the State of the City where we see the big horseshoe in here. We hope the same attention is paid to the public, is paid to the process, so that those things that are on the record can be addressed.”