Donat
NEWBURGH – Acting Newburgh City Manager Joseph Donat is the 54th person to hold that job in the last 100 years.
A top staffer to Congressman Sean Patrick Maloney (D, NY-18), Donat took the job recently for three to six months while the city searches for a permanent manager.
The latest person to fill that job, Michael Ciaravino, just left after a 4½–year stint. He resigned to return to his hometown of Cleveland, Ohio.
That is where the first appointed manager, Fred Alber, was from when he started on the job on January 3, 1916. He earned $5,000 a year. Ciaravino started at $145,000.
The city’s civil service listing for the job says the salary of the new manager will be dependent up “experience and qualifications” of the successful candidate.
A nationwide search is underway to find that person.
According to city records, ten city managers were terminated, 22 resigned and one died. William Kennedy, who served for three years in the mid-1950s, resigned due to ill health, but died prior to his departure date.
The longest tenured city manager was Harry Porr, who served for nine years. He later became village administrator in Bronxville until he left post and was hired as director of cost containment in the administration of Orange County Executive Steven Neuhaus five years ago. He is now acting county executive while Neuhaus, an officer in the Naval Reserves, is on military leave.
