MARB seeks to include city council

WEST HAVEN — As members of the state Municipal Accountability Review Board prepare for the Office of Policy and Management to interview for a financial manager position to enact the oversight board’s recommendations in West Haven City Hall, MARB members are hoping to now include the City Council.

City Council MARB liaison Colleen O’Connor, R-At Large, had hoped such a meeting could occur. She said West Haven’s council had been seeking a seat at the “grown-up table” for years as the state oversight board would discuss and make decisions about city affairs without including its legislative body.

She urged the MARB Thursday to set parameters for any meeting so there could be productive discourse. “We want useful things that will help both sides of the issue,” she said.

MARB member Bob White agreed that the board should be looking to include the council.

“The mayor has spoken to us through her representatives and has attended meetings, but the council really not so much, and they are very much part of the leadership of West Haven,” he said. “When we talk about the culture it involves them, as well.”

West Haven Mayor Nancy Rossi called it “a wonderful idea” in her only comment during the roughly two-hour discussion.

In recent weeks, OPM Secretary Jeffrey Beckham has pushed back on and deescalated comments made by other members of the MARB that the state should consider taking over the city of West Haven over its track record of dragging its feet on directives to address structural deficiencies in the city’s financial processes. Beckham said the state has engaged accounting firm Whittlesey to conduct an ongoing financial analysis, which will be provided to the financial manager that eventually will be hired to work within City Hall.

“This board does have powers it will begin to exercise. Everything we can use under the statute we will do so,” he said.

Should that fail, Beckham promised to be the one to lead the effort to launch a state takeover of West Haven. However, he said that would not happen “today, and probably not this summer or even this fall.”

Members of the MARB also addressed a recently-released audit of the 2021 fiscal year for the first time at a full meeting. That report, which highlighted areas of oversight that leave the city vulnerable to fraud, such as a lack of segregation of duties that could enable someone in City Hall to create and pay out a fictitious vendor, raised concerns on the state board.

“This is quite frankly embarrassing to all concerned,” White said.

West Haven finance office staff said that, since the release of that report, they have introduced a new vendor onboarding system.

MARB member Stephen Falcigno said the city had dragged its feet for too long.

“We’ve been doing the same thing for three years and you guys are telling me you’re just getting to it now,” he said.

Purchasing Director Rick Spreyer said the city has begun the “cumbersome” process of removing duplicate vendors from its vendor list and will begin to implement a system in which any vendor who has not been paid in a year or longer is disabled. Beckham asked whether the city had considered throwing out its list and starting over. Acting Finance Director David Taylor said the city had only just begun to pay some vendors after delays in their process; he said the city would not want to introduce new delays to paying vendors.

Some members expressed their belief that employees such as Spreyer and Taylor are doing their best, but the city requires a change in leadership. MARB member Mark Waxenberg said the finance department is doing its best “based on ad hoc policies and procedures.”

“It just becomes very frustrating, and I hope under new leadership or different leadership we can get specificity on what’s happening other than, ‘It’s in the works, it’s in the works, it’s in the works,’ ” Waxenberg said.

White said that, before the board considers a takeover, the residents deserve to have a say.

“There’s an election in November

and I think the decision of how the city is run is best decided by the voters of West Haven,” he said.

Rossi did not immediately return a request for comment about members’ remarks calling for a change in leadership. She has declined to say whether she will seek a fourth term in November.

MARB member Kimberly Kennison said OPM officials were expected to complete preparations to initiate a hiring process for a financial manager Thursday, a process unlikely to be concluded before the end of April.

Edward Engberg with Whittlesey told MARB members that the accounting firm has received an appropriate amount of engagement and collaboration from the city recently, although concerns around staffing shortages persist.

“The cooperation has certainly grown and things are moving along,” he said.

Kennison said the unfilled staff vacancies are a long-term problem for the city and will present a continued struggle if not addressed.