New Haven Register (New Haven, CT)
Democratic mayoral candidate John Lewis blasts West Haven Mayor Nancy Rossi over use of COVID funds for OT.
WEST HAVEN — Democratic mayoral candidate John Lewis is targeting Mayor Nancy Rossi, criticizing her for spending pandemic relief funds on overtime for salaried department heads.
“There should be a direct accounting of where the funds went,” he said.
Lewis is calling for the mayor’s “inner circle” to return any additional money they received on top of their salaries during the pandemic. He said that paying salaried employees, most of whom are Rossi cabinet members, overtime amounts to handing out “bonuses.”
Rossi has said some City Hall employees roughly doubled the hours they work during the pandemic. Although salaried employees often are awarded compensatory time for working extra hours, the city’s pandemic response did not allow for any time off, she said. Corporation Counsel Lee Tiernan said about 250 employees received a total of $1.34 million in overtime and compensatory payments in the 2021 fiscal year, with 10 receiving payment for accrued compensatory time.
Tiernan said the city is continuing work on processing a New Haven Register request for the names of employees who received overtime as well as how much they earned; he said the request was complicated by payments to employees who were paid while quarantining after exposure or a positive COVID test.
Tiernan said no employee received hazard or bonus pay.
Lewis also accused the city of stalling on Freedom of Information requests as a means of preventing information about overtime pay from becoming public.
“Three months is a little excessive,” he said.
Rossi said the corporation counsel’s office, which processes most public information requests on behalf of city departments, is very thinly staffed. She said that, as a proponent of Freedom of Information requests during her tenure as a councilwoman, she took advantage of the state’s Freedom of Information Commission to ensure the city complies with her requests.
If he were mayor, Lewis said Wednesday while standing with about twodozen supporters in front of City Hall, he would put the relief money in a special revenue account and form a committee with “local business leaders and residents” to share input on how the money should be spent.
Rossi said the funds have been spent properly and have been subject to oversight by the state’s Municipal Accountability Review Board, which has received monthly updates on the city’s spending, including its overtime accounts.
“The COVID expenditures are part of the monthly reports,” she said, although overtime costs are not segregated in the report. As of the most recent report, the estimated COVID expenditures for the 2021 fiscal year are $2.09 million, Rossi said.
She said one of her biggest concerns is that the Lewis campaign has cited the names of supervisory employees and the amount of overtime they have received since the start of the pandemic, even though the information has not been vetted and released to the public.
“I just question how they got it,” she said.
Former Mayor Ed O’Brien, who is running for mayor on the minor party Action and Accountability line in the November general election, said he is opposed to the spending of relief funds on overtime.
“(Whether you’re) elected or appointed to a government position you know the salary going in, and that salary is for (one) hour or 100 hours,” O’Brien said. “It is my understanding that this money was supposed to reimburse overtime accounts that was caused by COVID to make the taxpayers whole, not to enrich appointed officials.”
Tenth District city Councilman Barry Lee Cohen, who is running for mayor as a Republican, said in a statement that he disagrees with “three factions attacking each other to score some percentage points at the polls.”
“After more than three decades, the...finger pointing, name-calling, lack of accountability, and transparency rears its ugly head yet again. We can, must, and will do better should I be blessed as the next mayor,” he said.
Cohen said he believes the overtime and compensatory payments are allowed, “especially given the extraordinary circumstances brought on by the pandemic and the yeoman work done by so many dedicated city employees.”
“Although I am not a lawyer and therefore cannot comment on the legality, the question that remains is if the spending was appropriate and ethical,” he said.
Rossi and Lewis will appear on Democratic primary ballot Sept. 14 to determine which candidate faces O’Brien and Cohen in November’s election for a twoyear term as mayor.