Council Demands Action after GoLocalProv Investigation

Council Demands Action after GoLocalProv Investigation

City Council members are demanding action—and answers—after a GoLocalProv investigation found that four recent retirees had received severance checks totaling $350,000—an apparent violation of a city ordinance that says the council has to approve the pay-outs.

The GoLocalProv report revealed that four retiring officials in the fire and police departments were paid severance ranging from $80,000 to nearly $120,000. The severance included unused vacation time, longevity, sick time, and the last two weeks of pay. A city ordinance says those payments have to be approved by the City Council. But an exhaustive search through council meeting minutes turned up no records of any such votes.

Now, a prominent councilman is demanding that the city halt any future payments and try to take back some of the money that has already been paid out.

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“The Council has never received any submission or request to approve the recent severance payments that were allotted to the recently retired police and firefighters,” Finance Chairman John Igliozzi wrote in a May 3 letter to City Solicitor Jeffrey Padwa. “Therefore, I am requesting that your office begin the process to recover the funds and instruct all city departments to cease and desist the issuance of any severance packages until further notice.”

His letter, in which he said he only recently became aware of the payments, included a copy of the original GoLocalProv report on severance. (See below.)

So far, the city has yet to fully respond. “The City Solicitor’s Office has received Councilman Igliozzi’s letter and is looking into the issue,” said David Ortiz, a spokesman for Mayor Angel Taveras.

Councilman: ‘It’s problematic’

Other councilmen are joining Igliozzi in sounding the alarm over the payments. Councilman David Salvatore, D-Ward 14, told GoLocalProv that council approval of the severance payments is an important check and balance in city government.

“As a city council member it is my fiduciary responsibility to make sure that any disbursements that require council approval need to be enforced,” Salvatore said. “It is an area of concern … If the council needs to approve it and it wasn’t, that’s problematic.”

Salvatore also was surprised by the amounts of the severance. “The benefits are eye-opening,” he said. But, he said in most cases the severance benefits are not as generous.

Councilman Sam Zurier, D-Ward 2, said he thought Igliozzi had raised a valid issue. “He has a question as to whether that was issued in compliance with our ordinance and I don’t know the answer,” Zurier said. “I think it’s a question worthwhile finding the answer to.”

In past interviews, councilmen Miguel Luna, D-Ward 9, and Luis Aponte, D-Ward 10, have also expressed concern that severance pay was being issued without following the propert procedures. Aponte says he has since requested a meeting of the Finance Committee to review the current procedures for how severance pay is calculated and issued.

Union president: Follow the law—or change it

Until it’s changed, the city needs to follow the law, said Paul Doughty, the head of the city firefighters union. “It’s clear to us that although it may be unfair to penalize the incumbents the only solution is to change the ordinance,” Doughty said.

He said he does favor changing the law to allow non-union managers in the fire and police departments to collect severance. But he said that should not happen without also addressing what he described as salaries that are too high. “It’s obscene to me that the fire chief makes over $160,000 when the commissioner of public safety makes $150,000,” Doughty said.

He said city managers want the best of both worlds—their high salaries combined with the benefits union members receive through their collective bargaining agreements, which supersede the ordinance.

Proper procedures not followed in the past

The flap over severance pay appears to be one more example of proper procedures not being followed. Last month, the City Council issued a report exposing how the past administration had not followed the charter in submitting the budget and filing the annual audit on time. The report also asserted that the prior administration had not complied with city ordinance when it transferred money from accounts and drew down the rainy day fund. (Click here to read more.)

“The report is clear that [there] were mistakes made in the past and it’s not a past we want to go down ever again,” Salvatore said.

The issue of severance pay was not covered in the report, but Salvatore said he believed it was another example of the issues that the report probed.

How did it happen?

Three of the severance payments were issued to retiring firefighters last December, in the final month that Mayor David Cicilline was in office. But it appears that the practice has not stopped—Deputy Chief Paul Kennedy, who received severance of almost $120,000, officially retired on Feb. 18.

Normally, severance is approved by a department director, who sends the information off to payroll, according to a City Hall source. If the director has approved it, payroll does little more than simply issue the checks. In most cases, retirees are covered by collective bargaining agreements that override the ordinance, presumably precluding the need for the council to get involved.

But it’s a different story for the non-union retirees. And it doesn’t help that over the course of the last four years, all high-level finance officials have either left or been asked to leave their positions. In just the past six months, the Finance Director left his position and the new administration fired the long-time City Controller. As a result, there is “no historical financial knowledge in the city,” the source said.

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Editor's Note: Igliozzi could not be reached for additional comment in time for publication.

READ THE LETTER

Click here to read the full GoLocalProv report.