Original Region CAO deal built on ‘blank’ contract
When Carmen D’Angelo negotiated his first chief administrative officer contract with nowout-going Regional Chair Alan Caslin in 2016, they took the unusual step of cutting the Niagara Region human resources department out of the discussion entirely, The Standard has learned.
Rather than allowing human resources to fulfil its job of overseeing the contract to ensure it complied with all regulations, Caslin’s office asked the department to create a “blank” contract, which would be filled in during talks between Caslin and D’Angelo.
Senior government sources have told The Standard that although some staff objected, given the potential risk inadequate oversight could pose to the municipality, they ultimately drafted a template contract that lacked specific details.
Human resources did not see the contract until after council voted to approve a confidential report during a special council meeting on Oct. 31, 2016. The report contained details about the deal, but not the contract itself.
Typically, the human resources department would work with the chair’s office and any recruiting firm hired to facilitate the hiring. It is unusual for human resources staff to be kept entirely outside a senior staff contract, sources have told The Standard.
That D’Angelo negotiated the terms of his original deal, and the 2017 extension now under investigation by the Ontario Ombudsman, solely with Caslin was confirmed Friday morning by the CAO himself.
In an exclusive interview with Bonnie Heslop from CKTB 610 AM radio, D’Angelo said he approached Caslin in 2017 to renegotiate his deal and did so because that is how he got his first contract.
“I negotiated the terms of my contract with Chair Caslin the first time, so I did it the second time,” he told Heslop. “It was me approaching the chair about strengthening the provisions of my contract. I initiated the discussion and so it’s appropriate for me, based on the first negotiations, do to that.”
Although regional council voted to approve terms of D’Angelo’s first deal, Caslin negotiated and approved the 2017 exten-
sion without council’s knowledge.
D’Angelo’s original $230,000-ayear contract is set to expire this month. It contains an optional two-year extension subject to council’s approval.
The new deal negotiated by D’Angelo with Caslin in October 2017, extends the contract to 2022 and includes a host of expanded provisions.
The contract gives D’Angelo a golden parachute of a year’s salary if regional council does not renew his contract. It also provides for three years’ pay if he is fired — with or without cause.
Council did not see D’Angelo’s second contract until August, after Caslin admitted he acted unilaterally.
The legality of the contract extension has been questioned by councillors and by former integrity commissioner John Mascarin, who said the deal should be “null and void” because Caslin did not have the authority to change the terms of D’Angelo’s employment.
The CAO is an employee of council, not just the chair, and like all decisions of council, the terms of the CAO’s employment are decided by a bylaw.
No bylaw extending D’Angelo’s contract has been ever passed.
D’Angelo’s interview with CKTB 610 AM is the first time he has publicly discussed the controversy surrounding his contract extension. Neither D’Angelo nor Caslin have agreed to interview requests from The Standard since April when the newspaper published its first expose on the CAO hiring.
Asked by Heslop if he understood the public’s frustration with his sweetheart deal, he said he did because “only certain information is available.”
D’Angelo also downplayed the public’s anger at the string of controversies at regional council over the last four years, blaming the news media for only “reporting one side of the story.”
He said support for the Region’s efforts is “quite universal.”
St. Catharines Mayor Walter Sendzik said Friday that D’Angelo initiating contract talks with Caslin to get a better deal in 2017 represents “a serious breach of his duties as the CAO.”
He said the interests of the municipal corporation as a whole are the priority of the CAO “not any particular individual, including himself.”
The Ombudsman is investigating both the contract extension and process by which D’Angelo was hired.
A months-long St. Catharines Standard investigation found D’Angelo downloaded six confidential documents before and during the hiring process. Four of those documents were created by Caslin’s personal staff, and included confidential information about other CAO candidates and interview questions. The other two documents were drafts of confidential chair’s reports about the CAO position created before the hiring process began.
During his interview with CKTB, D’Angelo said he is “fully participating” in the “good work of the Ombudsman.”
Asked by Heslop about whether he had assistance in getting the regional CAO job, D’Angelo declined to comment saying he was co-operating with the ombudsman and “I need to keep it in that realm.”
The Ombudsman’s probe is the third major arms-length investigation into issues involving D’Angelo.