Niagara Region’s CAO hiring compromised
Memo indicates candidate received inside information
A months-long investigation by The Standard found the 2016 hiring of Carmen D’Angelo, the Niagara Region’s chief administrative officer, was tainted by backroom dealing and the violation of critical confidentiality rules.
While Regional chair Alan Caslin trumpeted regional council’s record of accountability and transparency during his state of the region address a week ago, the Standard learned names and biographies of candidates for the $230,000-a-year job were leaked in a memo sent to D’Angelo from Caslin’s office during the selection process.
Although the Phelps Group, a Toronto recruiting firm, was paid $42,000 to run the recruiting and interview process, the investigation also found that, three weeks before D’Angelo’s final interview and six weeks before council would vote to hire him, senior officials were told the decision was predetermined.
“What a situation like this means is that the best people just won’t apply to work at Niagara Region,” said Brock University political science professor David Siegel. “There is an expectation of confidentiality.”
The chief administrative officer, the region’s most senior bureaucrat, oversees more than 3,000 employees and more than $1 billion in municipal spending. As CAO, D’Angelo is responsible for executing the direction of Caslin and the council.
The influence of the CAO is why a proper hiring process is critical.
Jayson Phelps of the Phelps Group said to protect candidates from potential professional blowback, their identities are kept confidential by selection committee members. Those not involved shouldn’t have candidate information.
Aside from the Phelps Group and the appointed councillors, the heads of the region’s legal department and human resources, along with the regional clerk were named to the committee. Caslin’s policy director, who created the memo, was not appointed to the committee, although regional minutes show he attended meetings early in the process.
“If he got that kind of information, it probably means Caslin shared something,” said Phelps. “We were not aware of the memo.”
In an email, Caslin said he could not comment on the memo “as the subject matter pertains to a confidential HR matter.”
The Standard learned of the behind-thescenes manoeuvring during the CAO selection by examining confidential documents and interviewing 10 former and current regional officials who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of professional reprisals if they spoke openly.
The investigation found there were internal efforts at the region to clear a path for D’Angelo, who at the time was the chief administrative officer of the Niagara Peninsula Conservation Authority and a private consultant hired by regionally funded agencies.
Key members of the CAO selection committee were, in effect, D’Angelo’s current or recent employers and, in a departure from past hiring practices, the municipality’s human resources department was removed from the process, despite being named to the committee in its terms of reference.
There has been a wave of resignations and firings since D’Angelo became CAO, resulting in a significant loss of experience at the municipality.
“You have to remember how much money is moving through the region. It is a billion-dollar corporation. There is more money moving through there than some small banks,” said a government source. “When you lose institutional knowledge, that affects how that money is spent.”
The region has maintained the staff turnover is normal.
A troubled history
The door to the CAO’s office opened for D’Angelo in April 2016 when then CAO Harry Schlange resigned after months of conflict with some councillors and with Caslin in particular.
In his resignation letter Schlange, now the CAO of the City of Brampton, said the behaviour of council was threatening the credibility of the region and staff were “overwhelmed by the threat of strong repercussions and fearful to take even the most calculated risks.”
In June 2016, council struck a committee led by Caslin to find a new chief administrative officer. Two NPCA board members — Grimsby councillor Tony Quirk and Welland Mayor Frank Campion — police board chair and Niagara Falls councillor Bob Gale and Lincoln Mayor Sandra Easton were appointed to the committee.
Jayson Phelps also sat on the selection committee along with Phelps executive Joan Green.
He said the firm builds the job criteria with information from council. It then posts the job opening publicly and reaches out to candidates. Some won’t get past an initial telephone screening, others will be invited to a face-to-face interview.
Candidates can also submit applications and the committee can ask for specific people to be contacted.
While Phelps would not say how D’Angelo became a candidate, five sources familiar with the process say he was not recruited by Phelps.
Around Sept. 13, D’Angelo received an “opportunity brief” from the Phelps Group.
The package, sent to all applicants and obtained by The Standard, says a candidate should have “senior administrative experience within a large organization such as a municipality.” At the time, the largest file D’Angelo handled was the $10 million NPCA budget. The Niagara Region is 100 times larger with a budget of more than $1 billion and a kaleidoscope of departments to manage.
Enter D’Angelo
D’Angelo entered Niagara politics through the NPCA — which has a jurisdiction covering Niagara and Hamilton — as an appointed board member for Hamilton in 2007.
In 2014, he took a leave of absence from the board and his firm, DPM Consulting, received an untendered $41,000 contract to do an NPCA human resources restructuring project. Later that year he became the NPCA’s CAO.
Prior to and concurrent to his jobs with the NPCA, D’Angelo was a paramedic manager in Hamilton and a paramedic chief in Oxford county.
In 2015, D’Angelo’s firm was hired for $25,000 for a public survey for the Niagara Regional Police Services Board. The survey’s methodological problems were exposed publicly by The Standard and a member of the board.
Leaked identities
Typically, identities of candidates for a post such as CAO are kept secret.
Joan Green, senior consultant with the Phelps Group, said the firm stresses the importance of confidentiality and all members of the Niagara CAO group signed confidentiality agreements.
“From our point of view, they understood their moral obligations and potential legal ramifications if they breached that confidentiality,” Green said.
But in late September 2016 a memo titled “CAORC — 5 identified candidates msging” was sent to D’Angelo.
The document, obtained by The Standard, contains digital authoring information showing it was created by Robert D’Amboise, Caslin’s policy director.
Phelps and Green said that, had they been aware of the memo’s existence, they would have halted the recruitment process.
The Standard verified its authenticity by contacting the candidates it listed, who confirmed they were part of the selection process. It is not clear who sent the document to D’Angelo.
The memo says candidates would be limited to those with no experience working for the region and describes D’Angelo as having a “business-like/pro-growth approach at the NPCA” with “extensive knowledge and experience ... both from an elected/non-elected perspective.” D’Angelo has not held elected office. Other candidates on the list include two municipal CAOs outside Niagara and a government manager with degrees from Harvard and MIT. They spoke on the condition of anonymity because they had been promised confidentiality by the selection committee.
“When you are involved in this sort of process, for professional reasons, you are assured confidentiality. No one is supposed to know,” said one candidate.
Another applicant said leaking the names of candidates to anyone applying for the job calls into question the legitimacy of the process.
Brock University’s Siegel, who specializes in municipal politics, said if the memo was leaked by a councillor, it could trigger an integrity commissioner or ombudsman investigation. If it was released by staff, disciplinary action could follow.
“Even if you are a member of staff and you haven’t signed a code of conduct (like councillors) you still have an expectation from your employer,” he said.
D’Amboise did not reply to interview requests. Caslin declined an interview request and in an email described the hiring process in broad strokes.
Phelps said in his 20 years of municipal recruiting, there has only been one other case of candidate information being leaked. It happened in the fall when identities were leaked during a selection process with the York Region District School Board.
The leak eventually became the subject of an integrity commissioner investigation.
The Niagara Region breach of confidentiality may not have been limited to the memo.
Government sources said that on Sept. 20, 2016, senior staff were called to meeting by regional treasurer and commissioner of corporate services Jason Burgess.
Burgess told the staff leaders he was withdrawing his application for chief administrative officer because D’Angelo had the job. In exchange, Burgess said he was offered a post as deputy CAO. Staff were shocked by the conversation because final interviews had yet to happen, sources say.
Burgess, who recently announced he is leaving the region, said in an interview he was misunderstood at the meeting.
“There were a lot rumours going around, and Carmen’s name was often mentioned,” he said. “We were talking about rumours and, perhaps, I was more forceful with my opinion.”
Burgess said he did apply for CAO and withdrew for “personal reasons.”
He denied he was promised the deputy CAO position and said he had several conversations about the chief administrative officer position with councillors. While he often heard D’Angelo was a front-running candidate, he said was not told that D’Angelo had the job.
Three weeks later, on Oct. 12, 2016, D’Angelo was interviewed by the selection committee.
Siegel said the presence of D’Angelo’s recent employers on the committee was not a violation of the Municipal Act or conflict of interest rules since the committee membership was confirmed by a vote of regional council.
Welland Mayor Campion, a member of the selection committee, said he had no knowledge of the D’Amboise memo and believes the selection process was conducted properly.
“I don’t know why anyone would do that,” Campion said of the memo. “If that is what happened, I would be seriously concerned. But based on the interviews, I believe Carmen was the best person for the job.”
Gale and Quirk did not respond to interview requests.
Lincoln Mayor Easton declined an interview request but said in an email she was unaware of any irregularities in the CAO selection process.
The vote
A confidential meeting of regional council was called by Caslin on Oct. 31, 2016. He presented the unanimous recommendation of the selection committee that D’Angelo should be the chief administrative officer.
The confidential report, obtained by The Standard, pointed to a letter of recommendation from former prime minister John Turner and several anonymous recommendations. D’Angelo would be paid $230,000 a year for three years with an option to extend his contract for two years, an $800 a month car allowance, six weeks annual vacation and benefits.
Jayson Phelps said his company does not make recommendations to the selection committee. Rather, it scores the final candidates against the job criteria, but the committee is not obligated to use them. He would not disclose how D’Angelo was scored.
The Phelps Group wasn’t at the Oct. 31 council meeting to answer questions. Quirk would later say it would be inappropriate for Phelps to be there since the committee’s recommendation had been made.
Some councillors questioned the money spent and the credibility of the process since D’Angelo’s name had circulated in the rumour mill before and during the selection process. Regardless, D’Angelo was confirmed by a vote of 17 to 8.
Since D’Angelo’s appointment, there has been an exodus of senior staff. Two clerks, a deputy clerk, the head of human resources, the organizational performance director, the head of the legal department, and recently its director of economic development all resigned.
The heads of transportation and wastewater and a key freedom of information officer were fired.
“It’s a climate of fear of retribution,” said a government source. “People are afraid of speaking out when something happens because they could be punished if they do.”
The relationship between Caslin and the CAO, however, is smooth.
The extent to which Caslin feels comfortable with the current head of regional staff was made public in June, when a secret recording of the chair — made by controversial St. Catharines regional councillor Andy Petrowski — was released on YouTube.
In describing D’Angelo’s role to Petrowski, Caslin was direct: “He works for me.”
What a situation like this means is that the best people just won’t apply to work at Niagara Region.”
DAVID SIEGEL Brock University professor