DERBY – A subcommittee is asking for a lawyer’s help on dealing with the creation of a position in city government that was not authorized by the Board of Aldermen/Alderwomen.
Mayor Joseph DiMartino said the city is paying $89,000 per year for a job the legislative branch didn’t authorize. The new DiMartino administration also has questions about where the money is coming from to fund the position, which is held by Katherine R. Christopher.
The issue came up at the Jan. 23 meeting of the city’s tax board and then again at the Jan. 26 meeting of a new Aldermanic subcommittee called “finance and public safety.”
The story continues after the video.
Background
A lack of staffing, and a habit of one person doing too many jobs, has been pointed out in the past as a weak spot in Derby government.
It was cited by Andrew Baklik, former Mayor Rich Dziekan’s chief of staff from 2017 until 2021, as one of the reasons for Derby’s long-running financial problems, including the inability to complete financial audits on time and the ‘double booking’ of an education grant from the state that happened during Mayor Anita Dugatto’s administration.
Baklik noted that he was taking on the role of human resources when his title was chief of staff.
During a ‘state of the city’ address in 2019, former Mayor Dziekan said the city had undertaken a “human resources assessment” that revealed “many deficiencies” in the city’s HR practices.
The Municipal Financial Advisory Committee, a state agency to whom Derby must report, had also pointed to the city’s lack of a professional human resources person as an institutional weakness.
Subcommittee Talk
During a Jan. 26 subcommittee meeting, Alderwoman Sarah Widomski said the Alders had been in discussions about creating a human resources director in 2022.
She said that in December 2022 the board talked about hiring a human resources person for $49 an hour at eight hours a week.
“The board had begun to put together and approve a job description but that got taken over, so we never approved the full-time position,” Widomski said.
The discussion can be watched in the YouTube video above.
The takeover mentioned by Widomski is a reference to a procedural power struggle that started in 2023. Mayor Rich Dziekan, believing the Democrats on the board were purposely trying to stymie progress by keeping items in subcommittee, eliminated subcommittees, department head reports, and the content of the agenda.
While there is controversy over how the human resources position was created, Widomski said she knows it’s an important role.
“That said, we were on our way, and certainly understand the importance of the role in our city,” Widomski said.
The subcommittee eventually voted to engage corporation counsel Richard Buturla for guidance as to how to proceed. The matter could be discussed again next month.
