Town Council Split Over Employee Exodus
- Philip Thibodeau
- 2 days ago
- 4 min read
On Monday, members of the Town Council and public attendees heard several communications and committee reports, as well as a presentation from Missy Cipriano, director of Bread for Life, who encouraged people to purchase tickets for the October 15 Soup Night fundraiser before they run out.
The Council also voted 8-0 to provide an enterprise zone-related tax abatement for Northeast Winemaking (Wine Life, LLC), which recently opened a large new facility on West Queen St.
Yet for nearly an hour, the atmosphere of the meeting was contentious as members of the Council debated how to respond to indications that, in the past year, an unusually large number of Town Hall employees have been resigning or retiring early.
The opposing positions were staked out most clearly by Democratic Councillor Christopher Palmieri and Republican Councillor Tony Morrison.
Palmieri said that he had obtained a list of recent staff departures that included 45 names, including 3 who had left in the past two weeks. He noted that a former Town Employee spoke at the previous Council meeting on September 8th. She described a sharp shift in procedures and workplace culture under Town Manager Alex Ricciardone, one that she said led to her retiring. Palmieri said that it was hard to tell what the real issues were due to a lack of exit interviews, with only 4 of the 45 employees receiving them. He felt that an audit was warranted and moved that a vote to hold an audit be added to the evening’s agenda.
Morrison cast doubt on the merits of the issue and questioned the motives of the complainants. He stated that these concerns had never been raised before in any official venue, and he said that it seemed rather convenient for Democrats to be raising them in the meeting and on social media just six weeks before the election. He speculated that many of the early retirements could be due to incentives created by CMERS, the Connecticut Municipal Employees Retirement System. Morrison observed that when the new Town Manager was hired last year, he had been asked to update management procedures at Town Hall. Finally, he noted that the Town has had no problem hiring people, and that those who have been hired are staying.
Four Republican Councillors – Paul Chaplinsky, Jim Morelli, Jennifer Clock, and Michael DelSanto – proved unreceptive to Palmieri’s proposal.
Chaplinsky asked Palmieri how it happened that the list of employees he had obtained made it to the Democratic Town Committee, if this was not a political act. Palmieri replied that he had shared it with his party's caucus.
Morelli noted that since no comparison had been made with the rate of turnover in previous years, it was unclear whether the current rate was in fact unusual.
Clock inquired what the cost of audit would be – an estimate given later put it at around $6,000. She said that she wished to apologize on behalf of the Council to current Town Hall staff whose reputation, in her view, was being undermined by the proceedings.
DelSanto repeated the apology to current employees. He stated that while he makes it a point of principle not to get involved in personnel matters, he had heard that many people in Town Hall had been terminated. He also observed that exit interviews can only be voluntary.
The two other Democrats on the Council, Councillors Jack Perry and Valerie DePaolo, spoke in favor of Palmieri’s request. Perry observed that neither he nor DePaolo were running again and thus had no political motivations. He stressed that this effort was not a personal attack on the Town Manager, but an effort to make sure there are no internal issues and to give the Manager guidance, if needed.
DePaolo sought to focus on the basics. The Council, she said, has a duty to provide oversight of the management of Town Hall. A resident had come forward voluntarily to express concerns about the management, and it was clear that there have been a large number of retirements and resignations. Therefore, she said, the Council has a responsibility to follow up and provide oversight.
Palmieri’s motion to add the agenda item failed to pass. Five Republicans voted no, while three Democrats and Republican William Dziedzic voted in favor of it.
The issue came up again during public comments when five residents stepped forward to address it. Katie Wade, a Democrat running for a seat on the Board of Finance, cited statistics showing that while the normal annual turnover rate for town employees is 8%, Southington’s is 22%. Jill Fragola, who had raised the issue at the September 8th meeting, repeated her plea for action, and denied in the strongest possible terms that she had come forward for political reasons.
When Debra Maffiolini, a former employee of the Tax Department, stepped to the podium, a rather dramatic moment took place. Dziedzic had earlier expressed a willingness to look into the issue provided that he be given a chance to study the documents in question. After an exchange with Chaplinsky, the Council Chair, he was granted permission to ask Maffilini a direct question: “What is the issue at Town Hall?”
In reply, she described a complex mixture of factors. They included a new paycheck system, reforms to office management that she felt had not been well thought out, and the firing of employees who later had to be brought back again when it emerged that their services were still needed.