SPRINGFIELD — After decades of failing to do so, the city must enforce an employee residency requirement, a judge has ruled.
In a 15-page ruling, dated Dec. 21, Hampden Superior Court judge David M. Hodge said that both a seven-member residency compliance commission and a separate compliance unit within the personnel department must be activated to investigate alleged violations.
Springfield’s 1995 employee residency ordinance includes provisions requiring the creation of the commission to investigate and make findings on residency, to conduct hearings, and to provide semi-annual reports to the mayor and city council.
“None of this has materialized,” Hodge said. “No trial witness was aware of the Residency Compliance Commission ever existing, nor is there a shred of documentary evidence of its operation in any manner as set forth in this section.”
Further, Hodge in his findings said the city “did not, at any time before this action was filed, create and operate a Residency Compliance Unit.”
The residency ordinance was amended several times between 1995 and 2018, but in general requires enforcement of residency for new employees and promoted employees hired after 1995.
The city has reached contractual agreements with various employee groups that alter the residency requirement. That includes passage of contract for city firefighters in 2017 that requires all firefighters hired July 8, 2017, and after to live in Springfield for at least 10 years.
Hodge ordered Mayor Domenic J. Sarno to appoint members to the compliance commission to carry out its duties, and for department heads to “recommend appropriate action” to the mayor when an employee subject to the residency mandate does not live in Springfield.
In addition, Hodge said the city is ordered, as required in the ordinance, to receive and file annual residency certificates from all employees.
“The testimony and documentary evidence at trial left no doubt that during the relevant time period, the City simply ignored (the annual certificates requirement),” he said.
Hodge’s ruling is the result of a lawsuit filed in 2016 by 11 taxpayers including then-fire Capt. Marc Savage, who claimed that six of the city’s eight fire district chiefs did not live in Springfield. At the time, Savage, a Springfield resident, had taken examinations for both district chief and deputy chief but was not promoted. Savage was promoted to district chief in February of 2020.
Hodge heard the case without a jury in late 2020 and early 2021.
The ruling does not overturn any promotions made in the fire department. Hodge also ruled that the ordinance exempts employees hired before March 17, 1995, “from the requirement of being residents in order to be promoted regardless of the date of promotion.”
Hodge deemed a section of the ordinance invalid because it mandated automatic termination of employees in violation of the residency requirement. The section stated the city could “forthwith strike the name of the employee from the payroll; that person shall cease to be employed by the City.” Those employees would have appellate and civil service rights, Hodge said.
All other sections of the ordinance are valid and enforceable, he said.
The ordinance states that any employee hired on or after March 17, 1995, “shall, within 12 months of the start of employment, be a resident of the City of Springfield and shall not cease to be a resident during his employment by the City.”
Further, regarding promotions, the ordinance states that all employees promoted by the city on or after March 17, 1995, “shall be or within one year of such promotion become a resident of the city as defined within. Failure to do so shall be determined to be a voluntary termination of employment.”
Attorney Marshall Moriarty, representing the 11 plaintiffs, said he will reserve comment on the decision “as there are several matters that require greater review and analysis and determination of what action, if any, may be advisable.”
City solicitor Edward Pikula also did not comment on the ruling Thursday.
The ruling directs the mayor to appoint five members to the residency compliance commission and to fill future vacancies. The remaining two members are to consist of the City Council president or his designee and a member appointed by the city’s affirmative action officer.
The separate residency compliance unit has powers under the ordinance to conduct investigations when there is reason to believe an employee is in violation of the residency requirement. It states that the police department “shall serve as investigators for both the Compliance Unit and Commission.”
Hodge ruled that provisions must be followed including the use of police investigators and the filing of residency affidavits and additional documentation.
William Mahoney, the city’s director of human resources and labor relations, testified that there is a compliance unit consisting of himself, an assistant personnel director and a human resources generalist.
“I do not credit Mahoney’s testimony that in 2013 or at any relevant time there has been a Residency Compliance Unit” as required by the ordinance, Hodge said.
Hodge said Mahoney testified about monthly meetings and tracking of employees, but when asked how many employees’ residency and grace periods he was following between 2009, when he became director, and 2016, responded, “I couldn’t tell you.”
“He testified that he was unaware of any employees being terminated between 1995 and 2016 due to noncompliance with the residency ordinance,” the ruling said. From 2009 to 2020, the compliance unit conducted only three investigations, without the use of police, the ruling said.
The plaintiffs in the case were listed as: Herbert Powell, Michele Hyde, Richard I. Greenberg, Nicole Baker, Shannon Cox, Myya T. Seago, Zaida Govan, Cynthia Tucker, William E. Blatch, Frederick B. Lyons Jr. and Savage.
The defendants included the city of Springfield, the Springfield firefighters union and former fire commissioner Joseph Conant. Hodge said another named defendant, the Springfield Fire Chiefs Association, was not liable “for any failure by the City to comply with the ordinance.”
The plaintiffs “have a definite interest” in the enforcement of residency ordinance, Hodge said.
“This protracted controversy, in part rooted in inconsistent interpretations of the ordinance, must be resolved to alleviate further uncertainty by all the parties, as well as City employees, with respect to their rights and obligations in relation to the residency ordinance,” Hodge said.
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