New Haven Register (New Haven, CT)
City defends use of COVID relief funds
Aid was used to pay overtime to municipal workers during pandemic, local officials say
WEST HAVEN — City employees have been paid overtime with COVID-19 relief funds, in some cases thousands of dollars, multiple officials confirmed while saying it was for extra hours worked during the pandemic.
Some salaried supervisors and managers also received thousands in overtime with relief funds, according to state Rep. Michael DiMassa, who also works for the city and received such a payment. Mayor Nancy Rossi said the overtime expenditures were appropriate.
According to figures provided by the city for fiscal year 2020-21, the city spent $1.34 million COVIDrelated
overtime and compensatory payments.
City Corporation Counsel Lee Tiernan, who provided the figures, said approximately “250 individual employees received overtime in fiscal 2021. We will reimburse all COVID related overtime to the City pursuant to the CARES ACT.”
Tiernan said 10 employees received payment for accrued compensatory time. No employees received any bonuses or hazard pay, he said. He did not name the employees who received the compensatory pay.
Rossi and other West Haven officials defended how the city spent its allocation of federal COVID-19 funding from the CARES Act, claiming an austere City Hall staff rose to the challenge of addressing the pandemic. A local group has requested a state audit, raising concerns that the public was left in the dark on how funding was spent.
“Yes they got paid for it, but who wouldn’t?” said Rossi. “If you work 35
hours and now you’re working 70, do you work 35 for free? I don’t want that.”
According to the CARES Act, through which the city received about $1.15 million, and through which DiMassa said all overtime funding through the end of 2020 has been disbursed, Coronavirus Relief Fund money can be spent on “(p)ayroll for public safety, public health, health care, human services, and similar employees substantially devoted to mitigating or responding to COVID-19.” It can’t be spent on “(p)ayroll or benefits expenses for employees whose work duties are not substantially dedicated to mitigating or responding to COVID-19.”
DiMassa, administrative assistant to the West Haven
City Council and state representative for the 116th District, said he received approximately $14,000 above his pay since the start of the pandemic.
“There was no bonuses, there was no gift pay, none of that crap,” he said. “If you are a commissioner or management union, you get compensatory time.”
However, the city’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic meant workers were unable to take time off from their positions, and were regularly required to work overtime, officials said.
“The idea is you work 10 hours extra, you take it off the next week,” said Rossi. “With COVID, that was impossible because they were working all the time. Weekends, too.”
Tiernan said the funds were not used to supplement anyone’s salary.
“It was above and beyond stuff,” he said, later noting that no employee of the city “was paid a bonus or hazard pay since the current mayor has been in office.”
Although DiMassa’s job responsibilities are primarily with the City Council, he said he was tasked with many other pandemic responsibilities, such as completing paperwork to receive the aid funding, interpreting executive orders with corporation counsel and handling logistics for the homeless population that the city housed in hotels near the start of the pandemic.
DiMassa said the overtime payments also are not exclusive to a small number of supervisors and managers in City Hall; hourly employees also were paid overtime at a rate of timeand-a-half for extra hours worked during the pandemic.
“At the end of the day there were so many fires and so many crises in the heat of this stuff, and we’re telling our critical workforce to go out — you can’t work from home, you can’t work remote, you have to go out and inspect restaurants and deal with homeless encampments,” he said.
DiMassa said a focus on supervisory and managerial employees ignores that many other employees were paid significant overtime for working many extra hours while responding to the pandemic.
“There are very few city employees who did not have overtime,” he said.
DiMassa said the city has paid employees for all the hours they worked for the first six months of 2021, but the finance department will determine whether they want to reimburse people through relief funds or other pots of money when they close out their books. Some options would require council approval.
“The reality is this: The majority of city workers EMS, firefighters, police officers, received overtime or comp time,” DiMassa said. “The guidance from OPM was that funds could be used for direct response. Myself I was assigned additional duties all related to COVID.”
Despite the assurances from officials the money was allocated appropriately, a group of residents has filed a complaint with state Attorney General William Tong asking for an investigation as to how the city has spent COVID-19 relief funds from the state and federal governments.
The group calling itself Citizens Against Reckless Expenditures listed five City Hall employees who they allege received “funds in addition to their salaries.”
The attorneys who brought the claim to Tong’s office on behalf of the CARE group said they believe the city’s slow response creates a freedom of information concern.
Rossi, who said she frequently took advantage of the state’s Freedom of Information law before becoming mayor, said requests for the information have been overly broad.
“If you ask for pages and pages of documents, they’ll get it to you, but it’s going to take a lot of time,” she said.
As of this week, Rossi said the city still was working on responses to multiple requests concerning relief fund expenditures.
“We don’t have a large staff in (the office of ) corporation counsel,” she said.
Attorney Ed Marcus of The Marcus Law Firm in North Branford said he believes it should not take months for the city to provide an accounting of its relief fund spending.
“There is a clear need for transparency,” he said.
The New Haven Register also has requested that information under state freedom of information law.
Elizabeth Benton, a spokeswoman for the attorney general’s office said that, by law, whistleblower complaints are forwarded to state auditors, who then investigate complaints and report the results of their review to the Office of the Attorney General. She confirmed the West Haven complaint had been forwarded to state auditors.
DiMassa noted that, “nobody accused anybody of doing anything wrong until primary season came along.
“They submit all these FOIs. Some of the FOIs are so broad, they asked for everything that mentions COVID-19,” he said. “They write this thing to Tong and everyone else.”
City Health Director Maureen Lillis roughly doubled her salary through overtime in 2020, according to the city.
Rossi said that was essential so that the city could operate vaccination clinics.
“Do I think it was important to keep our residents safe and keep them vaccinated? I think it was well worth the COVID money, because that’s what it’s for: to fight COVID and help keep people safe,” Rossi said.
The attorneys who submitted the complaint to Tong and city officials claim political motives are a factor, with a contested Sept. 14 Democratic primary on the calendar.
“I think if there wasn’t a primary coming up, you wouldn’t hear these allegations,” Rossi said.