Thomas Breen photo
Dixwell Alder Jeannette Morrison: “Support this ordinance. Support the children of New Haven.”
Alders voted overwhelmingly to transfer $365,000 from various department budgets to the Health Department to fund the creation of five new full-time lead inspector positions.
The full Board of Alders took that vote Monday during its regular bimonthly meeting in the Aldermanic Chambers of City Hall.
The budget transfer moves a total of $365,000 from the Office of Economic Development, the Department of Parks and Recreation, the Office of Engineering, the Department of Police Services, the Office of Assessor, Pension Services, and the Department of Finance into the Health Department’s salary account and health insurance and pension accounts.
The ordinance amendment, per a floor amendment proposed by Westville Alder and Finance Committee Vice Chair Adam Marchand and approved by all of his colleagues, also explicitly creates five new full-time lead inspector positions in the Health Department’s budget, bringing the total number of city lead inspector positions to eight.
Monday night’s full board meeting.
This $365,000 will cover the salary and fringe benefits for those new inspectors, Marchand said, and the transfer recognizes both the important work performed by city lead inspectors “and the pressing need to have more boots on the ground.”
The transfer comes at a time that the city Health Department is under close public scrutiny as a series of lawsuits and judicial orders have revealed the department’s lax enforcement of the city’s existing lead paint inspection and abatement laws.
Westville Alder Adam Marchand.
At a recent public hearing regarding a proposed change to the city’s lead laws, the department’s acting director, Roslyn Hamilton, said that the city is “triaging” lead paint inspection cases because it lacks the staffing and resources to send out an inspector every time a child tests as having an elevated blood lead level of 5 micograms per deciliter.
Dixwell Alder Jeannette Morrison spoke up in support of the budget transfer and the creation of five new lead inspector positions, describing the move as a necessary first step in curving child lead poisoning in New Haven.
The department has said time and again that it has a backlog of inspections, she said. More inspectors will mean that that backlog will decrease, and more city kids will fall under the department’s protective auspices sooner.
“This step of hiring these people and making sure our children are protected is just the right thing to do,” she said.
“Support this ordinance,” she urged her colleagues, “support the children of New Haven.”
East Rock Alder Charles Decker.
Three of Morrison’s colleagues, Prospect Hill/Newhallville Alder Steve Winter, Downtown Alder Abby Roth, and East Rock/Cedar Hill Alder Anna Festa, voted against the bill.
Not because they disapproved of the city Health Department’s efforts to protect more children from lead poisoning, they said. But because they have not received any data or data-driven arguments from the Health Department convincing them that hiring five new full-time inspectors will be the most effective at solving the city’s lead crisis.
“We are relying on the state estimate for the number of inspectors needed for New Haven,” Winter said. “This body has received no data on the number of lead poisoning cases or the number of inspections or homes that have not been inspected.”
Furthermore, he said, a legal aid attorney who has been at the forefront of fighting the city in court over its enforcement of existing lead poisoning laws expressed skepticism that hiring more lead inspectors is the answer to the city’s problems. What the city needs to do, she said, is focus on updating its lead abatement policies and protocols.
“It would be prudent to gather input from the Lead Paint Advisory Committee and see what the impact of the digitization of lead records has on inspector efficiency,” Winter said, “before moving ahead to hire new positions which will need to be funded in next year’s budget.”
Prospect Hill/Newhallville Alder Steve Winter.
Roth agreed.
“Next year’s budget season will have to find a way to pay for five new inspectors and their benefits,” she said. “If the inspectors would clearly benefit the health of our children, the situation would be different. But since the legal aid attorney has questioned whether the five new positions is the way to address the problem,” the alders should wait instead for the Lead Paint Advisory Committee to assess current Health Department operations and evaluate the inspector hiring proposal.
“I just don’t know that we have enough information right now,” she said.
Downtown Alder Abby Roth.
East Rock Alder Charles Decker spoke up in favor of the proposed budget transfer following Winter and Roth’s reservations, and right before the vast majority of his colleagues voted to approve the measure.
“I just don’t believe that lead paint inspection is an area where we should be saying ‘We can’t afford it’ or ‘We don’t know,” Decker argued.
Previous lead coverage:
• Outrage Stalls Weakened Lead Law
• Lead Paint Legal Tab Tops $118K
• City Plan Passes On Lead Law
• City Loses Again On Lead
• Judge Denies City’s Motion To Dismiss Lead Suit
• City, Legal Aid Clash In Court On Lead
• New Lead Proposal “Eviscerates” Mandate
• Lead Cleanup Pricetag: $91M?
• Lead Panel’s Advice Rejected
• Lead Paint Chief Retires
• Lead Paint Fight Rejoined
• Harp Switches Gears On Lead
• Motion Accuses City Of Contempt
• City Loses Again On Lead
• Briefs Debate “Lead Poisoning”
• New Haven: Another Flint?
• Harp Administration Admits Relaxing Lead Standard To Save $$
• Class-Action Suit Slams City On Lead
• City, Legal Aid Clash On Lead Paint
• Legal Aid To City: Get Moving On Lead Paint Law
• 100+ Tenants Caught In Lead Limbo
• 2 Agencies, 2 Tacks On Lead Paint
• Chapel Apartments Get 3rd Lead Order
• Lead Sends Family Packing
• Health Officials Grilled On Lead Plans
• Judge Threatens To Find City In Contempt
• Same Mandy House Cited Twice For Lead Paint
• Lead $ Search Advances
• 3 Landlords Hit With New Lead Orders
• Another Judge Rips City On Lead
• Judge To City: Get Moving On Lead
• Health Department Seeks Another $4.1M For Lead Abatement
• City-OK’d Lead Fixes Fail Independent Inspection
• Judge: City Dragged Feet On Lead
• 2nd Kid Poisoned After City Ordered Repairs
• Judge: City Must Pay
• City Sued Over Handling Of Lead Poisonings
• City’s Lead Inspection Goes On Trial
• Eviction Withdrawn On Technicality
• 2nd Child Poisoned; Where’s The City?
• Carpenter With Poisoned Kid Tries A Fix
• High Lead Levels Stall Eviction
• 460 Kids Poisoned By Lead In 2 Years
• Bid-Rigging Claimed In Lead Cleanup
• Judge Orders Total Lead Paint Clean-Up
• Legal Aid Takes City To Task On Lead