DERBY — The Derby Board of Aldermen & Alderwomen voted unanimously Thursday to create a search committee to find a new finance director.
The members appointed to the committee are:
- Alderwoman Barbara DeGennaro
- Alderman Charles Sampson
- Ray Bowers, a member of the Derby Board of Apportionment & Taxation
- Carlo Malerbo Jr., a member of the Derby Board of Apportionment & Taxation
- John Cifarelli, the director of finance and administration for the Town of Orange
- James Finch, finance department director, Town of Branford
- Anthony Genovese, the administrative officer and director of finance for the Town of Woodbridge
They’ll be tasked with recommending a full-time finance director for Derby. The power to appoint a new finance director falls under the mayor, with approval by the Board of Aldermen & Alderwomen, according to Andrew Baklik, the mayor’s chief of staff.
Derby is looking for its fifth finance director since 2009 after interim Derby Finance Director Keith McLiverty accepted a job in Virginia. He is still the city’s interim finance director, and is working for Derby outside the hours of his new, full-time job. Derby is paying McLiverty about $30 an hour, according to the mayor’s office.
Mayor Rich Dziekan and the Board of Aldermen/Alderwomen have laid out a plan that calls for the city to work with a third-party vendor to find a new, temporary replacement for McLiverty. Interviews for that position were scheduled to start Friday, (Jan. 15). The new interim person is expected to be paid between $70 and $90 per hour, according to the mayor’s office.
The new search committee will search for a permanent replacement while the temporary person holds down the fort and starts the budget season in the city.
Mayor Dziekan and the Board of Aldermen & Alderwomen support increasing the annual salary of the finance director to somewhere between $95,000 and $120,000, which doesn’t include benefits. Currently it is about $70,000, a dollar amount that fails to attract candidates because it is below the market’s going rate, officials said.
The out-of-town officials were added to the committee under the assumption that having people with municipal finance expertise on the search committee would bring valuable experience to the table.
At the end of the search, the search committee could recommend a few names to the mayor. Precisely how they’ll proceed will be ironed out once they start to meet. Pam
Gagliardi, the mayor’s administrative assistant, will be coordinating the meeting dates with the new members.
The search committee’s work is not considered a public meeting under the state’s Freedom of Information Act. The law allows personnel search committees for executive-level employment candidates to be conducted in private.
According to the Derby Charter, the finance director is the city’s top fiscal officer, responsible for keeping the city’s books in order, and is a key player each year in creating a budget with the Derby Board of Apportionment and Taxation.
The city’s finances have been a mess in recent years, as officials realized grant money was accidentally double counted as revenue, creating a budget hole. Derby is also an economically distressed city, as defined by the state.
