MIDDLETOWN – In a split vote, the Middletown Common Council Tuesday night approved pay raises for the mayor and council president. The full-time mayor’s pay will increase from $75,000 to $95,000 annually and the part-time council president’s salary will increase from $15,000 to $20,000 per year.
Alderman Jerry Kleiner, one of the dissenting voters, expressed the same concern he had when salaries were raised for the mayor and entire council years ago, that the increases should have been proposed before elections and taken effect after the next election.
During public comment at the meeting, CSEA representative Vanessa Bissone
criticized the city for considering the raises while the 100-member CSEA
has not reached a new contract.
“It simply boils down to this – if city officials agree to increase their salaries while their rank-and-file wages stay stagnant, it is as if I as a mother, eat before my children. We once again demand that the city settle our contract now,” Bissone said.
Mayor Joseph DeStefano accused Bissone of “outright” lying
when she said it was he who proposed privatizing sanitation collection.
The mayor said it was Alderman Joseph Masi, not him, who offered that
proposal.
He also had strong words for regional union leadership.
“As city officials, we are not here to represent the union; we are here to represent the city taxpayers while at the same time, getting what we can afford and what the best deal is for the city and the worker, and while at the same time, protecting the services that we offer the city,” the mayor said.
DeStefano said the city has made offers to settle the contract deadlock, but regional union leadership never brought it to rank-and-file.
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