State investigators interview Lowell workers

The investigators, from the office of Inspector General Gregory Sullivan, interviewed 12 employees of the DPW and Parks and Recreation, including their respective bosses, T.J. McCarthy and Thomas Bellegarde.

The investigation is being carried out in conjunction with city officials and the Police Department.

City Manager Bernie Lynch declined to discuss what transpired from the interviews, which were conducted at City Hall and DPW offices on Middlesex Street.

However, he said it’s likely “there will be repercussions” for several employees. Asked to elaborate, Lynch said: “personnel actions.”

Lynch said he and other city officials have been paying more attention to the DPW and Parks and Recreation Department since last fall, when it was discovered that a DPW worker filled potholes in a private parking lot in the Highlands.

The city has not identified the worker. The lot, at the corner of Parker Street and Highland Avenue, is owned by Helen Byrne and managed by her son, Thomas Byrne, a WCAP commentator who enjoys close relations with many city political figures.

The work was discovered by then-City Council candidate Fred Doyle.

Earlier this year, it was discovered that a city worker, Bill Crowell, 63, used a city trash truck to dispose of

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construction debris from the back of a relative’s truck.

Crowell, who works for Bellegarde, was placed on paid administrative leave. The case against him is pending.

McCarthy declined to discuss his interview except to say: “There are many hardworking men and women in the DPW, and to have just a few tarnish its image is completely unacceptable. My focus is, and will remain, on this department delivering the best services for the city’s residents, me being one of them.”

Bellegarde declined to comment, as did a spokesman for the Office of Inspector General.

Lynch said the recent discoveries show that the city needs to “step up its procedures” and oversight of municipal employees.

“This city has a lot of great employees and we appreciate the work they do,” said Lynch. “But there are some employees whose behavior cannot be tolerated, and that’s what this is all about. What we’re trying to do is tighten up the ship,” he said.

Parks and Recreation falls under the DPW umbrella on the city’s organizational chart. The DPW is one of the city’s largest departments, with a $14 million annual budget and 109 employees. Parks and Recreation employs 30 and has a $2 million budget.

LOWELL — Five years ago, Springfield was unaware of how far in debt it was, how much money it had and how much it cost to operate the city.

Stephen Lisauskas, the former executive director of the state-ordered Finance Control Board that oversaw the city’s operations until June of last year, credits CitiStat as one of the key components to the city’s reversal from a $41 million deficit to a $35 million surplus.

The Pioneer Institute, a Massachusetts public-policy think tank, now lauds Springfield as one of the best-managed communities in the state.

Lowell City Manager Bernie Lynch is proposing to hire a data analyst to launch a CitiStat program in Lowell. The position, which requires an ordinance change and City Council approval, calls for a salary range of $45,000 to $60,000, based on experience.

A public hearing will be held Tuesday at City Hall.

Springfield spent $250,000 to hire a director and three experienced data analysts, who spent the bulk of the first year verifying data and building data-collection systems. The city realized $6.80 in savings for every $1 invested in the program, according to Lisauskas.

“Those new hires easily paid for themselves in two months,” he said.

From February 2008 to February 2009, Springfield reaped $1.7 million in savings and efficiencies, which came in part from:

* Reducing sick leave by 13.5 percent, cutting the average employee’s sick days from nine in fiscal 2008 to 7.8 in fiscal 2009.

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* Cutting overtime spending by 5.7 percent.

* Cutting workers’ compensation costs by 20 percent, saving $120,000.

* Improving the city’s ability to collect fees and fines, resulting in an additional $90,000 in revenue per year.

The CitiStat program, a municipal version of the CompStat program created in 1996 by then-New York City Police Commissioner Bill Bratton, was pioneered by Baltimore Mayor Martin O’Malley in 2000.

Variations of the program have since been implemented in such cities as Somerville, Amesbury, Atlanta, Buffalo, Chattanooga, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Providence, San Francisco, St. Louis, Syracuse, Paraaein and Indjija in Serbia, and in Washington state.

It can be used to track most city operations and expenses, including overtime hours, unscheduled leave, the number of signs installed, code enforcement, vehicles towed, parking citations issued, tax taking, Fire Department calls and home inspections.

Baltimore incurred $285,000 in startup costs and realized $13.2 million in savings in the program’s first year, a return on investment of 45 to 1. The city slashed $6 million from overtime expenses alone and reduced absenteeism in some departments by 50 percent.

At the time, Baltimore was a city of 621,000 people with a budget of $904 million.

Lynch is proposing to hire a data analyst to kick-start LowellStat. He said there are no other startup costs because the city has the necessary data software, including Microsoft Excel, MUNIS financial tracking and a GIS mapping system.

Once data are collected and analyzed, reports will be generated and discussed at CitiStat meetings of the administration and department heads. Short-term and long-term goals will be formed, monitored and revisited, Lynch said.

If approved, the position will be funded for the remainder of the current fiscal year, which ends June 30, through the city manager’s contingency fund, money set aside for new initiatives and emergencies.

During the last couple of years, Lynch said he has budgeted $250,000, but increased the line item to $400,000 in fiscal 2010 due to the tight budget.

In the fiscal 2011 budget, funding for the position would be included in Lynch’s office budget. Lynch said he could find money for the position by reducing the contingency account to $350,000.

“While I have identified numerous areas in which the administration has produced revenues and reduced expenditures, I remain convinced that implementation of a stat program will wring further savings from our operations and provide a useful tool for conveying information on city operations to the City Council and to the public,” Lynch said.

He said If the program isn’t a moneymaker after three years, it will be scrapped.

Lynch conceded that LowellStat likely will not produce the volume of savings seen in Baltimore, a much larger city, and Springfield, which started with a $41 million deficit. But he does predict that the city may save up to $315,000 in the first year.

Additionally, Lynch said having the data to determine performance measures will assist his team in better allocating resources.

Some have questioned why Lynch wants to create a new position rather than utilize someone who is already on staff, such as his new assistant, Henri Marchand.

City Councilor Rodney Elliott said he could not support hiring another person while the city is weathering a financial storm that appears to have no end in sight.

The move comes eight months after the city laid off 42 employees and on the cusp of what promises to be another difficult budget cycle.

State Sen. Steve Panagiotakos, chairman of the Senate’s Ways and Means Committee, said this week that despite Gov. Deval Patrick’s proclamations otherwise, local aid to cities and towns likely will take a 3 percent hit in fiscal 2011. That could translate into a $717,000 revenue loss for city operations.

Lynch, however, said there has been too much emphasis on the position rather than potential savings. He added that the city does not have any analysts on staff that could take on the job and that Marchand will be involved as the “follow-up and implementation guy.”

Somerville Mayor Joseph Curtatone started SomerStat in 2004. The city, which is about half the size of Lowell and has a budget of $160 million, about half that of Lowell, hired a director and three analysts. The salary budget for SomerStat this year is $249,000.

According to Janice Delory, Curtatone’s chief of staff, SomerStat showed immediate savings, identifying a pending $500,000 shortfall in the Police Department overtime budget. She said the initial meeting triggered several interventions with the Police Department that lowered overtime to within the budget by year end.

Data analysis also helped that city strengthen its ability to better enforce noncriminal ordinance violations, bringing in more than $200,000 in additional revenue.

“It is frustrating when you see efficiencies in private industry and realize that government never evolved to meet the needs of the citizens or to create value, they just manage from budget to budget,” Curtatone said. “Running a city without the analysis of data is like driving a car blindfolded.”