Public relations firm hired for $250,000

Team part of $5 million communications effort

HARTFORD — Gov. Ned Lamont’s administration has agreed to pay a well-connected public relations firm $250,000 for three months’ work to inform the public about the coronavirus pandemic and the need for vaccinations in the new year.

The state has hired the firm headed by Duby McDowell, a Sunday morning television host and former reporter with political and public relations ties.

The hiring is part of a broader effort to spend $5 million on communications out of $1.3 billion in federal funds that the state has received from Congress. The state has already spent more than $4 million so far in wide-ranging efforts that include multiple advertisements on Facebook,

Instagram, Twitter, and websites in English, Spanish, Polish, Portuguese, and Mandarin over the past eight months to spread the word about the pandemic and the need for testing, officials said. The effort includes videos about public health and keeping safe during the pandemic.

“There’s nothing free out there, but also we’re not about to put a cost on making sure we do this the right way,’’ said Max Reiss, Lamont’s chief spokesman. “We’ve been having our state agencies provide updated information with very limited press teams, and this is going to be an augmentation of that effort. ... The biggest story in Connecticut, America and the world is COVID-19.’’

Reassigning the state’s public information officers would not work because “every agency, by and large, has been flat out,’’ Reiss said.

The communications deal calls for having Maura Fitzgerald, a senior vice president with McDowell’s firm, become the state public health department’s “primary contact for COVID-19related matters,’’ Reiss said. Fitzgerald worked previously for U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal as deputy state director and for Blumenthal’s campaign whenhewasrunning for Senate in 2010. She has held various other jobs with the state legislature and served for three years as the spokeswoman for the state public health department.

Fitzgerald started working last week, and she will be collaborating with Dean Pagani, a former radio reporter who served as then-Gov. John G. Rowland’s chief of staff and longtime chief press aide. Pagani is coming back to the firm to specifically work on this project, McDowell said Tuesday night.

“Maura is now spending all her time on the state’s Covid and vaccine efforts,’’ McDowell said. “We have hired additional staff to assist her and to handle her sizable workload at the firm.’’

Fitzgerald has been assigned a state email address as a contractor, and “she has already shown to be an incredibly valuable addition to our team, jumping right in as we initiated the rollout of COVID-19 vaccines both in health care institutions and long term care facilities,’’ Reiss said.

The public health department’s chief spokesman, Av Harris, will remain on the payroll and continue in his role in communications and overseeing government relations at the state Capitol.

A former radio reporter, Harris is a well-known professional who has worked for Secretaries of the State Susan Bysiewicz and Denise Merrill, former state treasurer Denise Nappier, and Bridgeport Mayor Joseph Ganim.

Fitzgerald held Harris’ current position under Gov. Dannel P. Malloy, and Harris started working in the post after Lamont took office last year.

Under Lamont’s executive powers, McDowell’s firmwashired without a request for proposals or a bidding process. Those have been suspended until Lamont’s powers expire on Feb. 9. The legislature will be involved in deciding whether Lamont’s powers are extended and for how long.

The state public health department has had its own problems during the pandemic. Susan Romans, the deputy commissioner, abruptly resigned in March and said she had been subject to racial discrimination.

In addition, Lamont fired Commissioner Renee D. Coleman-Mitchell after she had been largely frozen out of key decisions and appeared rarely at Lamont’s public health briefings. Lamont’s chief operating officer, Josh Geballe, also essentially became the public health commissioner, officials said. Dr. Deidre Gifford has served since then as acting commissioner, in addition to being the state’s social services commissioner.