City Whites Out White’s Job–Lee: A Hatchet Job

It always sucks to learn your job has been eliminated. Worse when you hear it from an outside source. Tom White for years has served as legislative services director providing staff support for the City Council. His job was eliminated as a result of the City Council vote Monday night. There were indications he had fallen out of favor with city officials,  including City Council President Tom McCarthy.

Last week OIB had commented White wanted to reform the way the council does business. White retorted quickly that was not his legislative role. Was something going on? Financial watchdog John Marshall Lee, the rub against the city’s budget-setting process, was examining the finer points of city salary expenditures on Tuesday when he noticed funding for White’s position had been eliminated for the budget year beginning July 1. Word is eliminating White’s job has been in the works for some time. White made some calls to council members. Yes, they said, we tried to save you but …

Tom White, clearly disappointed Tuesday afternoon, did not want to comment about the disclosure, but Lee has a lot to say in a lengthy rejoinder to McCarthy with a copy to all council members.

Dear Tom McCarthy,
And City Council associates. For the past 30 days or so, you have been in a series of budgetary decisions. Last night was the culmination of the 2013 process that Budget Oversight Bridgeport has viewed for the second year. Andy Fardy and I have termed numerous positions in recent budgets ‘ghost positions’ because this has been one of the ways the administration has secured “slush.” I have heard you use those same terms about ‘ghost’ positions and ‘slush.’ You are conscious of the part you play in the process of keeping City taxpayers sending more of their hard-earned funds to pay expenses that you have not approved, reviewed or even understand. That is such a sad situation when things are as tough as they are currently in Bridgeport. It betrays your role of stewardship representing the entire City.

So even when we have shown you some 60-80 vacant positions, you only managed to terminate fewer than 30 of them. Your story on paper or in the meeting last night offers no defense for that fiscal inactivity. The greater travesty is that you also terminated all of your legislative employee positions. This was not a financial decision. For you had two positions, one which had been empty for at least five years, during which at least $250,000 of salary and fringes budgeted have been spent elsewhere. Neither you nor the public can account for where. There is no 12th-month report year after year that would show the variances. You have not had the courage to ask for that report as the Charter states. That is a sad fact too.

But the travesty that I mention is that you have terminated your only legislative helper, Tom White. And no one of you told him that you were voting to eliminate his livelihood. I understand that as a group you never met and voted on this action, and the record shows that this is the only item that the B&A Committee did not recommend. That means it is Mayor Finch’s idea and he left all of you as executioners. So, at the same time that you have maintained at least $3 Million of ghost type positions and expenses, as you prove to be unaccountable for your own stipend surpluses annually, as you maintained your significant ‘Other Expense” account that also is ghost material, you terminated one live employee, non-union, civil service, former Common Council member. This was not a budget act. It was a hatchet job and is a very negative mark on this administration. How does it feel to do the dirty work of eliminating someone you have worked with and who has supported your activity but where the City could find no right way to eliminate him? Last night in my comments I stated that there was no one in the audience who came forward to speak for the budget you passed last night. Had this stealth attack on one employee been disclosed to the public before the meeting, I would bet that most of you might have had to do a gut check and have this process changed. It was a terribly wrong action. How does your gut, your head and your heart feel now? I am not talking to the folks who work for the City and are afraid for their own jobs. Their conflicted vote is a given.

I have gotten to know Tom White in my learning about governance in Bridgeport. He has been objective and helpful, just the way you are hoping to use trainers in the coming year in other departments to bring about ‘customer-friendly service.’ Tom always knew what other communities were doing and what Bridgeport could do. I personally believe that you did not use him well. Perhaps the Mayor could not find cause for termination so you eliminated his funding and thereby eliminate him, all the while keeping millions of ‘ghost’ positions. I have written how badly you suffer from lack of assistance but you seem not to care. Did you give this any thought at all?

I am not a lawyer but I understand they haves a saying, “what you cannot do by direction, you cannot accomplish by indirection.” I hope you are ready for whatever happens to community respect for you and your Council reputation. This cowardly action will be long remembered I fear. We tell children that there is no right way to do a wrong thing. This is a wrong thing, a very wrong thing for your Council body, for City reputation as a whole, and for voter understanding of how much UNACCOUNTABLE power, without check and balance is able to be displayed behind the scenes by this administration. No right way to do a wrong thing. This is not right. Time will tell. B.O.B.