Proposed budget questioned over raises

WEST HAVEN — A political rival of Mayor Nancy Rossi brought a magnifying glass Tuesday to concerns about a proposed wage increase for elected officials — including the mayor — Rossi’s recommended budget.

Barry Lee Cohen, a former Republican councilman who lost November’s closelyfought mayoral election by 32 votes and has a court case pending against Rossi and the city alleging absentee ballots were improperly handled on Election Day, was one of five members of the public to testify at the City Council’s only public hearing on Rossi’s proposed budget for fiscal year 2023.

Cohen said Rossi’s budget, which gives 2 percent raises to the elected positions of mayor and city clerk, and a 17.9 percent increase in the stipend for the registrars of voters — would violate the “intent and the spirit” of the state charter regarding compensation for elected municipal officials. The state charter says wage increases for elected officials “shall be subject to confirmation by referendum at the next regular election” of a municipality; Rossi’s current term ends in December 2023, after the next fiscal year has concluded.

“It disrespects the electorate to be giving raises in the middle of a term,” said Cohen. “It certainly does break the public trust.” He said he did not “disagree that the salaries for certain elected positions should be increased in the future,” but that such increases should not go into effect until the next term.

Cohen said the increases for the registrars could have been brought up during the past two budget cycles, during the pandemic when there was an “extra burden” on the positions, and been made effective this term, but were not.

Rossi previously has said “I wanted to put something in, especially this past year with all the (absentee ballot) work. We have elections coming up and a gubernatorial election later this year,” she said.

Rossi said compensation for elected officials in West Haven follows the union contract for Local 1103, a supervisory and management employee union. The current contract, which runs from July 1, 2017, to June 30, 2024, stipulates a 2 percent wage increase in the 2023 fiscal year, she said.

“The contract was set at the beginning of the term,” she said.

The contract for Local 1103 does not list the mayor or city clerk positions as members of the bargaining unit.

Rossi previously said the mayor’s office follows “certain measures out of the 1103 contract.”

Rossi also previously said, concerning the raises for herself and the city clerk, that she received two legal opinions on the matter before releasing her recommended budget, from the city’s in-house counsel and a labor attorney retained by the city.

In 2012, Rossi — as chairwoman of the City Council’s finance committee — successfully challenged a mayoral wage increase that she and others said was approved mistakenly. Rossi said Tuesday that thenMayor John Picard’s wage increase had not been set before his term beginning in 2011.

“The difference was they didn’t do it at the beginning of his term,” she said. “I did what I was told was correct to do.”

City Corporation Counsel Lee Tiernan said he could not recall a specific time in the city’s history when the City Council took a vote explicitly to set the mayor’s compensation.

“You could argue we have never properly set the mayor’s salary” based on the language in the state charter, he said last week.

Further complicating matters is that a new fiscal year begins in July of every year, but a mayoral term begins in December of oddnumbered years.

State officials declined to weigh in on the matter.

“I don’t think the state would have a role in decisions made at the local level,” said Max Reiss, spokesman for Gov. Ned Lamont’s office.

Requests for comment with the Connecticut Conference of Municipalities were not returned Monday and Tuesday.

Rossi