A screen shot from Thursday’s Derby Aldermen/Alderwomen meeting.
DERBY — Several members of the Board of Aldermen/Alderwomen complained Thursday that former finance director Keith McLiverty is still on the city’s payroll even though he works in another state 367 miles away from Derby City Hall.
McLiverty is being paid $30 per hour to help the city close out capital bond projects, according to Mayor Rich Dziekan’s administration. McLiverty started working in Virginia on Nov. 30, but remained in a transitional capacity to help his replacement.
Alderman Ron Sill raised the issue, pointing out the Aldermen/Alderwomen voted in January to allow McLiverty to stay aboard no more than 10 days after his replacement was hired. Sill said McLiverty’s employment should have ended Feb. 1.
Sill said he doesn’t have a problem with McLiverty — his problem is with the process by which he remains on the payroll.
Sill said Mayor Rich Dziekan ignored the board’s vote and opted to keep McLiverty, at a pay rate determined by the mayor. Sill said the move violates Derby’s Charter.
“The board was totally ignored on that,” Sill said. “The city has a charter. That is there for a reason. The executive (branch) of the City of Derby cannot create positions, cannot set salaries, and that’s what bothers the board — the total disregard for this Board of Aldermen. At this moment this administration is spending unauthorized monies.”
Sill called for the arrangement to stop immediately.
Mayor Dziekan and his chief of staff Andrew Baklik said that McLiverty simply has too much institutional knowledge, and is too intertwined with a number of complicated ongoing city issues, including a lawsuit involving the city’s new multi-purpose field (neighbors are suing the city and its contractors over flooding, and a contractor and the city are suing each other).
Baklik pointed out that the death of Patricia Finn in December has made McLiverty’s consulting work even more important. Finn and McLiverty often worked together, and was deputy director of the City of Derby’s Office of Economic & Community Development, a title that did not encompass everything she was involved in within city government.
Baklik took responsibility for keeping McLiverty on and not keeping the Aldermen/Alderwomen in the loop.
“From an operational perspective, I’ll take that on me as the director of operations; that we didn’t communicate that in any kind of thoughtful way,” Baklik said.
Audio from the exchange is embedded below. Press play to listen. The article continues below.
The chief of staff said the situation highlights a fundamental weakness in Derby government — not enough people to do the work, so employees such as McLiverty and Finn took on outsized roles. He pointed out that independent audits of Derby government going back years call for fixes that can’t be done because there’s not enough staff.
Sill indicated those matters were beside the point, and continued to hammer the Dziekan administration for not following the charter, and for a lack of communication.
“What you’ve done, you can’t do,” Sill said.
Alderwoman Sarah Widomski said the administration could have explained the situation to the Board of Aldermen/Alderwomen.
“It comes off as hiding it, quite honestly. It does,” Widomski said. “It has nothing to do with Mr. McLiverty, it has all to do with the administration.”
Corporation Counsel Vincent Marino said that Mayor Dziekan was within his rights to continue to employ McLiverty. Marino cited the city’s COVID-19 declaration last year, which gave the mayor emergency powers.
Alderwoman Barbara DeGennaro pointed out those powers were granted in matters connected to the COVID-19 pandemic.
McLiverty was the city treasurer for some 20 years before losing re-election to Walt Mayhew in 2019. However, eight days after the election he was appointed “interim” city finance director by the Dziekan administration, a position he held until January.
