New Haven Register (New Haven, CT)
Alders sue Elicker, Ricci and union over enhanced pension benefit
Suit claims board should have had role in $400K deal with firefighter
NEW HAVEN — Retired Battalion Chief Frank Ricci, in addition to his pension, will benefit from an annuity worth $386,659 that the city signed off on to settle a labor issue dating to back to 2006.
But the Board of Alders is now suing Mayor Justin Elicker, Ricci, and the union Ricci was president of, Local 825, IAFF, AFL-CIO, charging that because the annuity contract with Metropolitan Life Insurance was not put out to bid and is over $100,000, the contract needs
to be sent to the board for its review and approval.
“The board of aldermen’s prior approval is necessary for any city contract that does not go to bid that costs more than $100,000,” according to attorneys Jonathan Einhorn and Steven Mednick, who are representing the alders. They cited Sec. 2-376 of the city’s Code of Ordinances.
A hearing on a temporary injunction request is set for Monday.
The mayor, in a letter to Aldermanic President Tyisha Walker-Myers, said he never would have agreed to an enhanced pension benefit for union presidents, but the agreement, which goes back to 2006, was an obligation by the city that he had to abide by, despite his personal feelings about it.
Elicker said the annuity payment was appropriately made from the operating budget not unlike expenditures for other employee benefits and insurance costs. He said as mayor, he is obliged “to see that all contracts and other agreements are faithfully kept and performed.”
Elicker said the obligation to comply with the city’s legal obligations fall to him as the mayor.
Walker-Myers could not be reached for comment Sunday.
Ricci retired as of July 4 from the city after 22 years of service, but was able to buy back five years of sick time towards his pension,
plus three years that was stipulated in the agreement between himself, 19 other firefighters, and the city who won a Supreme Court award in a 2009 reverse discrimination settlement suit.
His total pension calculation covers 30 years.
The dispute not only concerns a labor issue, but a fight with the Board of New Haven Policemen’s and Firemen’s Pension, which repudiated the idea of an enhanced pension for a union president in December 2018, according to the suit.
The board followed this up on July 26, 2019, with a resolution prohibiting the pension administrator or staff from implementing the payment of any enhanced pension benefits, according to the suit.
The issue also concerns memorandums of agreement and who approves them.
In 2006, during the administration of Mayor John DeStefano Jr., the city and then Firefighter Pat Egan, signed an enhanced pension benefit for the union president, who at the time was Egan. In 2006, DeStefano, who served as mayor for 20 years through 2013, was the Democratic nominee for governor.
Egan did not receive the enhanced benefit.
The major benefit in the 2006 memorandum of agreement allowed a union president, with 7 years in that position through a combination of years as president and vice president, to calculate his or her pension using the highest budgeted salary of any Local 825 member.
Ricci is the only union president to have met those qualifications.
The highest budgeted salary position for a union member this refers to is the assistant chief for operations, which currently carries a salary of $124,812. The base salary for battalion chief is $106,000.
The pension enhancement was amended in May 2019 during Mayor Toni Harp’s administration, despite the pension board ruling, carrying the same benefits, but limiting them to Ricci and no other future union president.
That amended agreement also allowed the union vice president half time release from daytime shift duty for union business, but that has expired.
Ricci filed a municipal prohibited practice with the Connecticut Board of Labor Relations in March 2019 after a preview of his pension did not include the enhanced pension benefit.
On May 7, 2020, the city entered into an agreement with Ricci to cover the enhanced benefit, the difference between his salary and that of the assistant chief through the annuity, which amounts to $1,076 a month, an annual benefit of $12,914. His wife, Christine Ricci is entitled to a survivor’s benefit of 65 percent of his benefit or $699 a month.
In exchange, the union withdrew the complaint with prejudice and Ricci agreed to sign a general release of all claims against the city and the pension board. The mayor informed the leadership of the alders
of the agreement on June 12.
On June 25, the alders asked that the agreement be submitted to them and that it not be implemented before that.
Ricci alleged the lawsuit is “masquerading as sound fiscal policy at the cost of violating contract law and my civil rights.”
He said under a contract the “Board of Alders defers their authority to the labor director or her designee to enter into grievance/MPP settlements.”
Ricci charged that “there has been no other rebuke from the alders on other settlements costing over $100,000 citywide.”
He accused the alders of failing “to cost out the firefighters contract and now they want to pretend that (they’re) responsible. The only difference is this involves the lead plaintiff in the Ricci (Supreme Court) case.”
The mayor said “after review by city staff, including Corporation Counsel and the Pension Fund attorney, we are required to honor the agreements made and therefore have made the payment in the best fiscal interests of the city, to bring the issue to a full and final resolution without further expensive litigation.
“While I do not believe the original agreement was a wise one, as mayor of the city, I am obligated under the Charter to follow through on the city’s legal commitments — past and present,” he said.