In Old Saybrook, only the police chief gets a big pay increase

July 16, 2011 12:00 am • Last Updated: July 16, 2011 1:36 am

By By JENNA CHO Day Staff Writer

Old Saybrook - Members of the town's supervisors union took a zero increase in their salaries this year, as did the support staff.

So did teachers, and the superintendent of schools, whose contract was recently extended to 2014 with a base annual salary of $165,917.

Layoffs and employee givebacks have become the norm in the years following the 2008 recession. But for police Chief Michael A. Spera, one of the highest paid police chiefs in the region, the opposite is true.

As part of a contract he negotiated with the Police Commission when he became chief in October 2009, Spera has been receiving, and will continue to receive, a 7 percent annual salary increase through the 2014-15 fiscal year.

Spera was hired at $105,440 and this year earns $120,718 - $10,000 more than Edmund H. Mosca made in his last year as Old Saybrook's chief, a job he held for 38 years. Spera also makes more than New London police Chief Margaret Ackley who, at $107,500 a year, is responsible for 96 sworn officers versus Spera's 24.

By the time he reaches the last of six annual salary "steps" laid out in his contract, Spera will earn $147,885 a year. Wage increases after the sixth year will be tied to his performance evaluations.

The details of Spera's contract, which First Selectman Michael Pace said no one outside of the Police Commission even knew existed until recently, has not sat well with some.

"I'm ex-officio (of the Police Commission), and I was never notified," Pace said of the contract. "I'm first selectman, and I was never notified. I got a little problem with that. ... I don't think the Board of Finance, who has to plan for the (town) finances, knew about it."

Earlier this week, Pace sent Police Commission Chairman Christina Burnham a memo in which he called for a review of Spera's contract.

"With the strained economic time present and in the foreseeable future, I believe that this 'contract' needs complete review and, if enforceable, request for re-opening," Pace wrote in his July 12 memo.

Finance board Chairman Carl Fortuna Jr. declined to comment Friday, saying his board had not met to review Pace's request.

Spera said he felt he was being unfairly scrutinized. No other employee or union has been asked to reopen a contract before it expired, he said.

"I find it disappointing that the first selectman would claim that he was unaware that there was a benefits agreement in place for the chief of police," Spera said. "I also find it disappointing that I am the only employee that is being singled out."

Burnham argued that the selectmen and Board of Finance should have known about Spera's contract early on because his salary and wage increases are clearly noted in the budget that the police department recommends to the selectmen every year.

"For people to say now that they had no idea just means that they weren't paying attention to information that we've given them over the last two years," Burnham said.

Overtime, choice of car

Pace had previously asked for a legal opinion on the contract's validity. In a June 8 opinion, town attorney Michael Cronin said he thought that the Oct. 16, 2009, contract should have been voted on by the full, seven-member Police Commission rather than by just the three members of its executive committee.

But the contract is "a legally binding contract on the Town of Old Saybrook, which acted under the statutory authority granted to it by the Old Saybrook Police Commission," Cronin wrote.

Burnham said she stood by the contract and the way it was negotiated.

The Police Commission's bylaws give the executive committee - herself, commission Vice Chairman Tim Conklin and Secretary Jean Winkler - the right to negotiate Spera's contract without requiring a vote from the full commission, she said.

The town never had a written contract with Mosca, Burnham said.

Pace said Spera's contract was the most generous he'd ever seen. It includes a clause that allows the chief to pick an unmarked police car of his choosing. The town can also use federal or state grant money to pay Spera overtime.

This would apply to "any federal or state funded operation such as traffic safety initiatives or providing services where the Town will receive Federal and State reimbursement such as in time of disaster response and recovery," the contract states.

"I don't think a chief of police should get overtime," Pace said.

Burnham disagrees. She said Spera gets no local taxpayer dollars for any overtime he incurs. When he helped to relocate the police station after the March 2010 flood, the Police Commission paid for his overtime hours with funds from an insurance settlement, she said.

"Yes, it may be a little unusual (to pay a police chief overtime), but it's also unusual for a police chief to actually be policing like anyone else," Burnham said.

Spera is also the town's emergency management director, a job separate from his duties as police chief that he is currently paid $6,466 for, according to the town budget.

Growing tension

The police commission has been criticized in the past for lack of oversight. Mosca retired after he came under fire for mismanaging a private police fund that he had sole control over. In 2009, then-Attorney General Richard Blumenthal ordered Mosca to repay the so-called Mac Fund $22,500.

Meanwhile, Spera's contract is the latest in a series of recent disagreements Pace has had with the commission and department.

Earlier this year, Pace disbanded a building committee led by commission Vice Chairman Conklin after early plans for a new police station came in at double the price tag Pace said the town was willing to pay.

The town and police union have been in arbitration for months over contract disagreements, and the Board of Selectmen denied the Police Commission a request in its 2011-12 budget for three new police officers, leaving money in the budget for just one new hire.

"We've had three or four reorganizations of the police department in the last two years," Pace said. "We have more officers with rank than we ever had. It's almost a one-to-one ratio. ... I'm not willing to just accept the fact that this town has a lot more crime. We may have more arrests; that's a different story. Now, why is that? Is there a different policing philosophy in town here?"

Pace said Spera works hard; no one disputes that.

"My argument is not with the chief," Pace said. "He did what was in his best interest."

But when Spera brought to the negotiating table an array of benefits that would prove costly to the town, the Police Commission should have put the brakes on, Pace said.

"It's not the initial cost of 3, or 4, or 5 percent," he said. "It's that that gets compounded every year going forward. And by the time they reach a 15, 20-year exit retirement, you're talking huge amounts of money."

'An excellent job'

Spera said Friday that his contract contains nothing more unusual than benefits that school administrators, superintendents and police chiefs already get.

Old Saybrook police officers are paid on a five-step system, and salary increases between steps range from 4.8 percent to 11 percent, he said.

"The step salary tier system is nothing that's new to municipal government," Spera said.

The executive committee developed the step system in Spera's contract to gradually bring up the police chief's salary to what the committee thought was appropriate for a chief, Burnham said. Mosca had preferred more vacation days over a higher base salary, so adjusting the benefits-to-salary ratio when Spera came on board meant bumping Spera's salary up in exchange for fewer vacation days.

"You need to look at their whole compensation packages," Burnham said.

Spera said the only reason Old Saybrook's superintendent and other town unions took zero increases this year was because their contracts were up and ready to be negotiated.

"My benefit agreement wasn't up this year," he said. "It had been defined in 2009. In 2009, the town agreed to provide these benefits to me. ... I fully expect in 2015, (the town is) probably going to ask for a zero."

Burnham said she saw no reason to reopen Spera's contract.

"The chief's salary is an infinitesimal part of our budget, and we have seen no necessity to ask him to open up his benefits agreement," she said.

"He works 90 hours a week for us. The man is at work seven days a week. He's doing an excellent job. ... We see no reason to go to him and say, 'You're doing an excellent job, you're working way too many hours, (and) by the way, we're going to take money away from you.'"

j.cho@theday.com