Proposed road closure could lead to first development in new Norwich industrial center
Claire Bessette
Norwich ― The City Council on Monday started a process to
discontinue a portion of Lawler Lane in a move that could help attract the
first development project to the new Occum Industrial Center.
The council considered a resolution to discontinue 1,500
feet of Lawler Lane where land for the Occum Industrial Center lies on both sides of the road.
City Manager John Salomone said a potential developer has
expressed interest in the industrial park parcels on both sides of the road but
only if three parcels can be merged, with the closed portion of Lawler Lane
becoming part of the merged, developable parcel.
No details of the potential development have been made
public.
“There are users who have expressed interest in these three
lots, but only if they can be merged to create a buildable area across Lawler
Lane,” Salomone said. “So a little chunk of Lawler Lane is needed to complete
the three lots.”
The entire stretch of road proposed for closure is abutted
by the Occum Industrial Center, owned by the Norwich Community Development
Corp. Abutting properties on either end of the closed portion would have nearby
outlets ― Canterbury Turnpike to the south and Scotland Road to the north.
Development on the industrial park land would not use Lawler
Lane at all, Salomone said, but would exclusively use the new industrial park
access road that will run from Route 97 near Interstate 395, Exit 18. The
industrial park road, funded by $11.4 million in state grants, is planned to
end at the Lawler Lane industrial park property.
The two disconnected portions of Lawler Lane would be closed
off with cul de sacs, Salomone said. Only a short end of the Lawler Lane would
remain at the Scotland Road intersection. To the south, the road would stretch
from the Norwich Worship Center at 165 Lawler Lane to the intersection with Old
Canterbury Turnpike just past the John Moriarty School on the right.
The Lawler Lane industrial park property initially was
envisioned to be marketed later in the development of the 384-acre industrial
park. Much of the land is former farmland and a large portion abuts I-395 off
Canterbury Turnpike. But Salomone said the potential developer expressed
interest in the Lawler Lane property specifically.
The council referred the proposed resolution, which was
co-sponsored by five of the seven members of the City Council, to the
Commission on the City Plan for a recommendation. The commission must review
any report on city real estate matters.
The commission’s next meeting is at 7 p.m. Aug. 20. The
council plans to vote on the resolution at its Sept. 16 meeting. Salomone said
the council will take public comment prior to voting.
Along with Republican Mayor Peter Nystrom, Democratic
Council President Pro Tempore Joseph DeLucia, Democrat Mark Bettencourt and
Republicans William Nash and Stacy Gould co-sponsored the resolution.
Salomone said the proposed road closure has been discussed
with Norwich public safety officials and school leaders.
Police conducted traffic counts on Lawler Lane for three
months. An average of 386 vehicles per day traverse the road, qualifying it as
a “very low-use road” with fewer than 400 vehicles per day.
TORRINGTON — In his new job as the city's economic
development director, William Wallach will help decide the future of the
recently demolished Torrington
Company Standard Plant.
"There's a very strong identity here, of innovation, of
community," said Wallach, a Newtown resident who started on the job
in Torrington in
June. "This property is so important to the city's identity, its history
and what it wants to be."
A U.S. Marine Corps veteran, Wallach is familiar with
the landscape in Torrington. He came to his new position from the state
Department of Community and Economic Development's brownfields division.
He replaced Rista
Malanca, who left for a job with the Northwest Hills Council of
Governments in 2023.
Wallach is up to date on the city's efforts to remediate, develop and rebrand properties such as the old Nidec site, another former Torrington Company property on Franklin Street that is now Franklin Plaza.
"I've worked on many of Torrington's
projects," he said. "They've done a lot in the last 10 years."
Demolition of the Standard Plant on North Street, a project
that began in October
2023, was completed at the end of July. To help finance the
estimated $4 million demolition, the DECD provided a $2 million Brownfield
Remediation Grant for IRG Realty Advisors LLC, representing Torrington
Standard LLC, owner of 70 North St.
The property owner, Torrington Standard LLC and
IRD Realty Advisors, ran the demolition project with Manafort Brothers
Construction, razing 24 of the 26 buildings. Two buildings remain standing, and
one is occupied by a manufacturer, Wallach said.
Now, the 9.4-acre property offers nearly 500,000 square feet
of space and is a blank page awaiting its next iteration, Wallach said.
The Torrington
Company evolved in 1898 from the Excelsior Needle Co., which was
organized in 1866 and manufactured sewing machine needles, according
to Glenn Carbone, brother of Mayor Elinor Carbone and a principal with
IRG.
Wallach will use his experience as a brownfields adviser to
help the city and IRG come up with the next steps for the property.
"Working with the city, William will help decide on the
future of the property," Mayor Carbone said. "Now that we have a
blank slate, we can see more opportunities, how this can support
industry."
Wallach said he has "a vision of how to best use that
(newly cleared) property" on North Street.
"Torrington has a history and identity as an innovator
and an industrial community, and today, we have technical, high-end
manufacturing going on here, with world-leading industry," he said.
"This property at 70 North Street can take advantage of that opportunity.
With a half-million square feet of space, it can become a campus, it can be an
icon. It can be a pinnacle, with more companies that want to come here."
Wallach, who lives in Newtown with his wife, Casey, and
their two children, is a native of Indiana. He earned a bachelor of arts in
political science from Ohio State University and a master of science in
political science and public policy: state and local government and urban
studies from Southern Connecticut State University.
He served in the Marines between 2003 and 2011, completing
two deployments during Operation Iraqi Freedom for a total of eight years,
three months and 17 days, he said. He also served in artillery operations at
Camp Pendleton, Calif.; recruiting duty in New Jersey; and as a company
commander of Wounded Warrior Battalion at Camp Lejeune, N.C.
After leaving active duty, he worked for Cintas Corp.
as a service manager in charge of operations in the Bronx, N.Y. In 2018, he
became a parent and a stay-at-home dad.
In 2022, Wallach took a job with the state as a project
manager in the DECD's office of brownfield remediation and development and was
promoted to community development specialist in 2024. Working directly with
Torrington, he said, is the best place for him to be.
"In my head, I'm always asking myself, why not
Torrington? Why isn't Torrington in the front of the line for development?
There's a lot to invest in here," Wallach said. "The incentives the
state's putting together are perfect for Torrington, to help it continue to
improve and use that industrial identity."
To get to know his community and hear their views, Wallach
is planning a public forum on economic development for residents, business
owners and others to attend.
"The public forum is because I know the public is
hungry for information, and I want to give it to them," he said. "I
want to say, here's what we're doing, and here's our plans. What do you
think?"
He also wants to meet the community.
"It's putting a face on this office as part of the
great city of Torrington," Wallach said. "I love the job, the work,
and what the mayor's trying to do."
More details on the forum at 5:30 p.m. Aug. 29 at City Hall
will be announced on the city's website at torringtonct.org.
Wage theft complaint backlog grows, but Dept. of Labor lacks staff
Workers across Connecticut have been submitting thousands of
complaints to the state’s Labor Department for years. There’s the case of 10
workers in East Haddam who claimed they were not being paid after
removing asbestos from a local school. There’s the Ashford
bakery waitress who said she was not paid over $7,000 in wages. And in
an extreme case, there’s the Barkhamsted
tree-cutting company owner who allegedly refused to pay one of his
workers, then threatened the rest of his employees with a gun after they asked
for their paychecks, and then assaulted an EMT while being arrested for the gun
incident.
For decades, investigators from the state Labor Department
answered those complaints, and they recovered an average of more than $5
million of those stolen wages every year.
But things have changed. Due to budget constraints, fewer
investigators and the effects of COVID, stolen wage recoveries have dropped
sharply since 2017, to only $2.4 million last year.
A recent report from
the state Auditors of Public Accounts highlighted several concerns within the
department, noting that in May of last year, more than 800 wage and workplace
complaints, 41% of those received, had not be assigned to an investigator. This
year, the backlog is about 1,000 cases, and thousands of new complaints come in
every year, which investigators say is causing workers’ complaints to linger in
the queue for months.
Thomas Wydra, the division's director, said that
they have a broad mandate, including 160 statutes and regulations the unit
enforces, including sick leave, meal periods, drug testing, breastfeeding in
the workplace and other laws that are constantly evolving with every
legislative session. He adds that each year’s wage recovery levels may vary due
to anomalies including big ticket collection cases like an investigation
involving hundreds of thousands of dollars.
“Certainly we're doing the best that we can. Our staff are
acutely aware of the demand and of the case law,” said Wydra. “Every complaint
that's sent to us is important to us, and we have to follow proper
investigative protocols and guidelines … We will not rush through a case simply
to get through it and get through the backlog.”
Meanwhile, legislative proposals that would have increased
staff at the unit have failed for two years in a row amid budget constraints.
The struggles facing Wydra and his unit, however, are not
exclusive to the past few years.
The recent decline in investigators and legislative
solutions
Pleas for more investigators at the wage unit go back
decades. In 1949, the state’s Labor Department noted in its annual report to
the governor that additional staff was “necessary,” given
the backlog of cases.
In 2014, one of the wage unit’s field supervisors at the
time, Sandra Barrachina, pleaded
for more funding in the midterm adjustments to the budget, arguing
that staffing levels were not keeping pace with changes in labor law, creating
an “exorbitant” caseload and “tremendous” backlog. That same year, in the
budget revisions for the 2015 fiscal year, the legislature appropriated $300,000
for six additional positions at the wage unit.
But staff levels since then are down. State payroll data
show that the number of investigators has dropped in the past decade while
managerial staff has barely increased. In early 2015, there were 29 wage
investigators and agents, while in June 2024, there were 21. The number of
supervisors remains the same, and the position of assistant director was
brought back in 2023 after being defunded in 2015. There is currently one
active job opening in the wage unit for a wage and hour investigator.
And in the past two years, as the backlog of cases has
increased to record levels, two other investigators have
asked lawmakers to support legislation that increases the number of
investigators — but the proposals never made it to a floor vote after passing
out of committee.
The bill's failure to pass was a "missed
opportunity," according to several advocacy organizations around the state
that issued
a press release, including the Hartford Deportation Defense, Connecticut
For All, the Connecticut Worker Center, the Naugatuck Valley Project and
Council 4 of the American Federation of State, County & Municipal Employees
labor union.
"Our Governor is basically saying that it’s OK if
people are forced to wait months or years for justice after they’ve been
wronged by a bad boss," reads a statement by Fredy Huaman Cárdenas,
campaign coordinator at Hartford Deportation Defense. "The reality for
immigrant workers in our state is that exploitative employers can completely
get away with not paying you overtime, or not paying you at all of the work
you’ve already done, and still be able to operate that same business without hearing
anything from the Department of Labor even after a complaint has been made.
It’s a disgrace, and we must fix it.”
There are two types of investigators at the unit. Wage and
hour investigators, currently five of them, focus on minimum wage and overtime
violations, while wage enforcement positions, currently 16, have a broader
mandate including commissions, bonuses and final paychecks, among other things.
The proposal in
2023 would have increased the number of wage and hour investigators to at least
45 over the next few months. There was no fiscal note for that bill, but the
lowest current projected annual salary for a wage and hour investigator at the
start of their hire is about $63,500, so an increase of 40 investigators at
that rate would equate to some $2.5 million to be spent in the following fiscal
year, if not counting wage enforcement agents as part of the requirement.
This year, though, the bill was
changed to require at least 22 investigators by October and 45 by the end of
fiscal year 2026, thus tapering off the initial costs. The fiscal
note for that bill indicated that, over the next two fiscal years, it
would have cost $6.3 million in salary, overhead and fringe benefits, since
more supervisory positions would have also been needed.
The report notes, though, that the proposal would be less
costly if the bill's interpretation of "wage and hour inspectors"
includes both wage and hour investigators and wage enforcement agents, not just
the former, in which case fewer positions would have to be added.
"I think that as we fall farther and farther behind, it
will require that we act more quickly in order to solve the problem. So I would
imagine that next year's bill will be different than it was this last session
and the session before, because we're farther behind," said Sen. Julie
Kushner, D-Danbury, co-chair of the Labor and Public Employees Committee.
faced by people with criminal records when they try to
re-enter the workforce.
"I hope that people understand that if we want
government to work, if we want it to really make a difference in people's
lives, if we want to enforce the laws that we have on the books and create even
greater conditions for Connecticut's workers and families, then we have to be
willing to fund government. And those who argue for small government, they're
really not helping the people of Connecticut," Kushner said.
"It seemed to us that this solved an issue," said
Rep. Steve Weir, R-Hebron, ranking member of the Labor and Public Employees
Committee. "Why Democrat leadership didn't take it up? Why the governor
didn't weigh in on this? I don't know. That I can't speak for."
The appropriations committee, chaired by Democratic
legislators, didn't take up the bill for consideration in 2023, and no
adjustments to the budget were made this year.
"I don't know if they looked at the fact that, you
know, does the offset of the income from the fines that are levied, do those
offset the expenditures?" Weir added. "These are customer-facing
people, employees who bring in revenue to the state. They're acting to protect
some of the most vulnerable."
Weir was referring the civil penalties that the wage unit
can impose on businesses for labor violations, which can range anywhere from
$300 to $5,000 per individual offense. The funds go to a dedicated account that
the Labor Department can use for any expenses. Since 2012, the civil penalty
fund has received anywhere from $600,000 to $1.8 million a year, totaling over
$13.1 million as of last year.
It's what Ed Hawthorne, president of the CT AFL-CIO, brought
to legislators' attention earlier this year in public hearing testimony.
“They [investigators] actually bring in more money than we
pay them. There is no legitimate excuse as to why we should not have an army of
them out there,” Hawthorne said.
When the law authorizing this fund came into effect in 1993,
it was written such that civil penalty funds could
only be used for any personnel expenses at the Labor Department,
including wage investigators.
“It was monumental and changing of what we were able to do.
We were able to hire six people immediately, and that increased our staff up to
almost 40, which was very important,” said Gary Pechie, who was director of the
wage unit at the time the law was passed.
A year after the law went into effect, the law
was changed to allow the civil penalty funds to be used for all other
expenses, not just personnel matters. In recent years, civil penalties have
been used for Labor Department expenses such as IT
support, electricity, rent and internet and the wage unit’s case
management system, among other services.
Civil penalty funds also continue to be used to hire more
staff at the division. In the fiscal year ending in 2006, eight
of the 36 positions in the entire division were funded by civil
penalties, while in 2022, six
of the 26 positions were civil-penalty funded.
Civil penalties started off as a $150 fine for each violation of wage and state contract law. A few years later, in 1997, the fine was increased to $300. Since then, penalties have been added for violating laws regarding child labor, workers' compensation, employee regulation and their personnel files, and stop-work orders. The last time changes were made to civil penalty amounts was last year, in which penalties were increased for stop-work order violations.
“I think increasing the penalties is something that should
be addressed. When an employer breaks the law, they need to know that there's
consequences to that,” Hawthorne said earlier this year.
Weir expressed caution. "The goal is not to, as I look
at it, to be punitive to business. What we want is compliance. And so having
huge penalties, I don't necessarily equate that with more compliance."
Kushner said she's open to increasing the fines for guilty
employers.
"I think there's another reason, not just because it
helps fund the positions," she said. "I think it's also important to
have fines that will actually work to be a deterrent to the violations, so that
we stop violations before they occur."
Inner workings of the wage unit
Declining staff was not just increasing the pressure on the
investigators that remained at the unit — it was even proving difficult for
Labor Commissioner Danté Bartolomeo. In 2022, she testified against
a legislative proposal regarding paid
sick leave due to the need for more resources to enforce the
legislation if it were to pass.
“Connecticut Department of Labor needs to oppose this bill
due to a fiscal impact,” the Commissioner told the
Labor and Public Employees Committee regarding the paid sick proposal. “The
reality of going from businesses that are covered with 50 or more employees and
69 job classifications to all employers and their employees does require that
the agency would need additional staff in our wage and workplace standards
division, as well as our legal division.”
The bill had a fiscal note that indicated additional staff
requirements at the unit.
Different inspectors, different results?
Over the years, with fewer investigators on the ground, wage
recovery levels dropped, but internal reports show that the amounts collected
by each investigator can also vary.
In the last fiscal year, for example, one investigator
recovered over $400,000, almost a fifth of the total, compared to others who
recovered less than $50,000 in the entire year. As Wydra noted, though, some
cases may be anomalies, such as big ticket collection cases that not every
investigator works on. Other investigators may end up working on more cases
dealing with smaller amounts.
Anthony Soto, a former wage enforcement agent who supported
legislation to increase staff and left the division last year, said
there needs to be more accountability across the division.
"I think the numbers will support, you'll see that
there's a group of people that consistently are performing at a high level, and
there's a group that's always performing at a lower level," Soto said.
But experience plays a part too, he said, noting that many
investigators with years of experience, who often provided guidance to the rest
of the team, have retired.
"The tables now are shifting a little bit, where
there's fewer people with a lot of experience and a lot of people with three to
four years' experience where you understand the work, you know what you're
doing, but you still kind of need guidance, because not every case presents
itself the same," Soto said. "When you have less experienced people
there, it kind of delays the process and makes it harder to get through."
Along with staffing levels, the number of investigations and
complaints also dropped in recent years.
From fiscal year 2014 to 2022, the number of complaints
dropped from just under 4,000 cases to 2,500, a 36% decrease, but the number of
completed investigations dropped faster, 52%, from 4,500 to 2,100 in the same
time frame, according to data detailed in the governor's proposed budgets over
the years.
Some years may have more investigations than complaints
because investigators are going through the backlog of cases, reopening cases
or pursuing non-complaint-driven investigations. Fiscal year 2022 was the first
time that more complaints were received than investigations were completed.
Soto said that the cases they received vastly differ in
complexity and are not “predictable” since some cases might involve one worker
while another involves dozens. Two years with the same number of cases or
recoveries may not be an apples-to-apples comparison, he said.
But as cases and investigations went down, the backlog of
cases went up from 200 in late 2020 to almost 1,000 this year, extending the
amount of time a worker waits to have their case assigned to an investigator.
An audit
released last month for the fiscal years 2021 and 2022 recommended
that the Labor Department’s wage unit continue to improve its tracking
procedures, highlighting that pending and unassigned cases accounted for 41% of
the total in May 2023. There was one case that had not been assigned to an
investigator for 336 days.
“The department agrees that delays in processing claim
investigations decrease the likelihood of wage restitution for employees and
has already identified insufficient staffing as the primary factor in these
delays,” the Labor Department notes in the audit. The Labor Department added
that legislative proposals to increase staff have not moved forward in the past
two years.
Soto noted that the backlog could include cases that the
wage division has no jurisdiction over or duplicate cases, inflating the total.
The Labor Department indicated that, in the current pile, there are 27
duplicates out of 997 pending cases.
Even after the backlog is dealt with, Soto insists that
additional staff is important when trying to be more proactive about wage
enforcement.
“Having more boots on the ground never hurt,” said Soto.
What he meant by being proactive is that they’ll go beyond
the complaints they’re receiving and target specific industries known for labor
violations.
That's known as "strategic enforcement," according
to Jenn Round, a director at the workplace justice lab at Rutgers University,
where she helps labor enforcement agencies across the country improve their
efficiency while creating resources, curriculum and training. She also helped
to launch and led enforcement at the Seattle Office of Labor Standards.
Round notes that this strategy starts with tracking data on
the number of violations and complaints by industry.
"By looking at these two data points, we can really
pinpoint which industries there's a lot of violations happening, but not very
many complaints coming in the door. And a lot of times, these are the
industries where workers are the most vulnerable, and they're not filing a
complaint."
Bartolomeo echoed the need for more proactive enforcement in
an interview for
her reappointment as commissioner last year.
“We often are in a situation where we are responsive to
complaints. It would be wonderful to be in a situation where we could do
more proactive enforcement and less responsive to complaint enforcement,
because we do know that it's needed,” said Bartolomeo.
Technology and efficiency
Near the end of this year’s legislative session, amid pleas
for more staff from investigators, advocates and victims of wage theft, Gov.
Ned Lamont expressed skepticism about increasing staff.
“I'd like to think about other ways we can address this, not
simply adding more people," Lamont
said at an event hosted by The Connecticut Mirror on April 30 when
asked about budgeting for more wage investigators. “We can say the answer to
this is more investigators and more people. I've also put a lot of money into
it and technology, we've talked about AI … Technology makes them three times
more efficient.”
“Gov. Lamont recognizes that improved technology can play a
role in creating efficiencies throughout government, as does having additional
staff,” Lamont spokesman David Bednarz said in a follow-up statement. “Wage and
workplace investigations require humans to walk job sites, conduct interviews
and review documents, but technology can speed up transcription or help
identify filing duplicates, and that will help humans complete their tasks
faster. The administration is always reviewing ways to create efficiencies in
every office, and both of these are options being explored.”
Wydra confirmed that two of those improvements would help,
including transcription and identifying duplicates. He also thinks it'd be
helpful to have a platform that allows employers to pay civil penalties and
wage payments online, as they currently only accept payments through mailed
checks.
One of the most recent technological upgrades to the
division was its case management system, which debuted in 2019. It was a $622,000
project that took almost two
years to create. Since then, it’s helped digitize the wage complaint
process by allowing workers to submit complaints online and to centralize case
information.
An audit of the Labor Department for 2019 found that there
were some problems in the use of the system.
“The division lacks sufficient controls to ensure that it
properly documents all complaints in the eWage system,” reads the audit,
published in 2022. “An instance was identified in which a serious
allegation, involving child labor, was not entered into the eWage system. The
complaint was received by the director and assigned to a field agent. Neither
entered the case or any related information into the eWage system.”
The Labor Department acknowledged that there was a delay in
inputting the data into their system, but they say that “the [child labor]
allegations were investigated thoroughly and immediately on the same day that
the information was provided to the Wage and Workplace Standards
Division.”
In the audit
report released last month for the fiscal years 2021 and 2022,
auditors noted that the issue regarding how complaints are managed on eWage
were resolved along with other accounting requirements.
As for public access to case data, individual complaint and
employer information is not available on the Labor Department’s website, as
opposed to states like Massachusetts and Maine, which
have datasets available for download.
Leadership at the division
From the 1990s and well into the 2000s, the wage unit was
recovering at least $4 million in wages a year. At the time, it was being led
by Pechie, who rose through the ranks at the unit starting in 1977 as an
investigator and eventually director in 1989 until he retired in 2016. He
represented Connecticut as a member of the Interstate Labor Standards
Association, an organization of state labor department officials where he
served as president twice,
in 1995 and 2012.
“It was just, you know, hard work and getting out there and
making it your mission to act like it's your money that's not being paid to
somebody,” Pechie said about his agency's recoveries.
Pechie noted that caseloads weren’t as big back then as they
are now, saying he was assigned only about three cases a month as an
investigator. He attributes much of his success as director to size of his
staff, which was more than 40 people. It’s why he
wrote to legislators this year in support of increasing the number of
investigators at the unit.
“I think the current director and the staff can get things
straightened out ... it’s just going to take time,” Pechie said.
When he retired in 2016, they hired another investigator who
rose through the ranks: Resa Spaziani. In her first fiscal year, she recovered
the highest amount of wages on record, over $8.9 million.
But during her time at the helm, clashing among employees
became public. Human resources complaints driven by union disputes, allegations
of favoritism and personal conflicts among employees caused Spaziani to step
down after just over a year and a half in 2018, according
to the Yankee Institute.
In her second and final fiscal year, annual wage recoveries
dropped 44%, the largest year-to-year drop recorded since the 2000 fiscal year.
But the employee grievances didn’t end after Spaziani
stepped down. Earlier this year, a federal lawsuit was filed against the Labor
Department by Jide Ebo, a wage investigator since 1989. Ebo claims in the
complaint that he was denied promotions due to his race, national origin, and
age, alleging favoritism and intentional undermining by state officials, according
to Connecticut Inside Investigator. The lawsuit seeks his appointment as
assistant director, compensation, and a declaration of civil rights violations,
while the Labor Department denies the allegations.
After Spaziani's departure, the Labor Department hired
Wydra, a long-time member of the Hamden police department, to lead the wage
enforcement division. Before joining the state, Wydra was a patrol officer in
the 1990s, moved up the ranks as sergeant, lieutenant, deputy police chief and
eventually chief of police in 2006, according to his resume,
published by the city of Somerville, Mass., when he applied for the city’s
chief of police job in 2014.
Unlike his predecessors, he had no experience as a wage
investigator in the unit, but the Labor Department said that he had 26 years of
labor law experience on both the union and management side of collective
bargaining as well as in the enforcement of labor law.
"I brought my own insights and experiences for sure.
And, in my opinion, I blended fairly nicely into the division. Again, it's a
team effort," Wydra said of his experience at the wage unit. "We are
all about fact finding and doing our job fairly and objectively. But we have a
great team at the Wage and Workplace Standards Division."
In Wydra’s first fiscal year at the unit, ending in 2019,
wage recoveries went up 11% to $5.5 million, still the second-lowest amount
since 2000 to that point. The following year, in 2020, at the onset of the
pandemic, recoveries went back down to $2.7 million as businesses around the
state closed.
The following fiscal year, ending 2021, recoveries bounced
back to $4.3 million, what seemed a sign of recovery. But the next two years'
recoveries dropped. After a low of $1.9 million in the 2023 fiscal year, 2024
recovery levels inched back up to $2.4 million.
Reactions from advocates
Miguel Fuentes, a member of the Carpenters Local 326 labor
union who often relays labor violation information to the wage division, said
he's had a positive experience working with Wydra.
"We're gonna continue to try to help them, but they've
never not been willing to at least discuss a concern, and that's
invaluable," Fuentes said.
Fuentes did express concerns about whether there was a
succession and training plan in the unit as people joined and left. Wydra said
that they hired an outside vendor to train staff on human trafficking cases and
that staff is consistently trained on legal matters and case law, which is
affected by changing statutes and regulations.
One of Fuentes' goal still surrounds advocating for more
"manpower" at the wage unit, indicating that besides wage-theft,
money laundering and human trafficking also occur in the construction industry.
Ardemar Torres, another member of the Carpenters Local 326,
said that not catching businesses guilty of underpaying workers makes it
difficult for other law-abiding contractors to compete.
"This is the reason why we get up every morning.
There's good people out there that really want to do this. And competition is
tough. It's tough for those contractors. They they want to pay the right way.
They want to pay the correct wages, pay the taxes," said Torres, who
regularly visits job sites with Fuentes to educate workers about their rights.
It's the case for Ben Whelan, a long-time residential
contractor from Madison who said he has to compete with others who don't
properly pay their employees.
"On the shoreline where I work, I'm in the minority ...
we're one of the last few left that have actual employees that are paying the
necessary payroll taxes," Whelan said. This, he said, makes his prices for
clients higher compared to contractors who don't have to pay additional costs.
"Your average homeowner does not know what's going on
with this," Whelan added. "Homeowners should be holding their
contractors accountable when they come through the door and ask the questions:
Are your guys properly classified? Is there proper workers comp on the
job?"
He also added that since currently only registrations are
needed to become a residential contractor, a licensing requirement should be
considered so that the state has more oversight.
Kimberly Glassman, director of the Foundation for Fair
Contracting of Connecticut, which monitors public works projects to ensure
compliance with state laws, said that worker misclassification — for example,
classifying a worker as an independent contractor instead of as a salaried
employee who would earn benefits — along with lack of workers' compensation and
not paying fringe benefits are ways that employers try to increase their
profits.
"They are very stealth at this. They have companies and
lawyers and insurance companies that are showing them how to circumvent these
laws. Some of these loopholes are legal, some of them aren't, but they are very
astute at it," said Glassman, who said that they are monitoring 60 to 70
construction projects at a given time. While her organization can't conduct
audits, they do a lot of their investigations by combing through documents they
receive via Freedom of Information Act requests.
In addition to advocating for more wage investigators, she
also said that protecting and expanding standards for prevailing wages,
licensing, apprenticeships and the bidding process is a focus of the
organization at the legislative level.
"By and large, we're talking about low-wage workers or
middle-class workers who are just trying to get by and take care of themselves
and their families," said Glassman.
One immigrant rights organization, New Haven-based Unidad
Latina en Acción (ULA), called for Wydra's resignation earlier this week.
"We
feel like he has like failed his job and his duties," said John Jairo
Lugo, co-founder of ULA, who led a press conference on Thursday evening in
front of the Labor Department's American Job Center in Hamden in response to
the Labor Department audit report released last month.
Karime Pimentel, lead organizer of the Naugatuck Valley
Project, speaks at a rally against wage theft in front of a Connecticut Labor
Department building in Hamden. Credit: Shahrzad Rasekh / CT Mirror
"[The backlog is] outrageous. That's horrible for the
working class and also in particular with the with the immigrant
community," said Lugo, who said that ULA has been referring cases to the
Labor Department for more than 22 years. "But lately it has been like the
worst time for our organization."
"We are very disappointed that ULA would even make that
suggestion," Bartolomeo said in a statement to the CT Mirror regarding the
calls for Wydra's resignation. "CTDOL has worked with ULA for years,
especially on domestic worker protections, and they know how hard CTDOL has
advocated for additional Wage and Workplace Division staffing. CTDOL and state
officials continue to seek workable solutions to clearing the backlog; we
encourage ULA to join us."
Lugo said that in many cases, only part of the wages claimed
were recovered, which the Labor Department pushes back on.
"A wage investigator’s top priority is to collect the
full amount of verified back wages owed to each worker. Many workers, including
those identified by ULA, were paid in cash, making those wages virtually
impossible to track and verify," the Labor Department said in a statement.
The Labor Department said that it urges workers to keep
records, such as a log of hours and pay, even if they're paid partially in
cash, so that in the event of a wage complaint, they have some documentation
that investigators can use. If no payroll records are available, wage-theft
cannot be established, unless an employer admits guilt. "Due process for
employers requires that investigators must be able to substantiate any wage
bill they issue," the statement read.
And even if payroll records are available, recoveries can't
be guaranteed due to scenarios out of the department's control. In cases of
bankruptcy or lack of assets, investigators are not able to recover full wages
immediately or at all. Another recourse investigators may take is putting
employers on a payment plan. In the case that full wages aren’t recoverable,
the wage unit negotiates as much as possible and disburses it across the pool
of workers who are owed.
"Wage agents are in contact with workers throughout the
process to get permissions to pursue, negotiate, and collect owed wages on
their behalf. When investigations are finalized, CTDOL sends letters to
impacted workers identifying the payment amount, the type of payment (full,
partial), and reminds them that they may pursue their employer through the
courts if they disagree with the payment amount," added the Labor
Department.
ULA is also demanding that more money be allocated to the
Labor Department to increase the number of wage investigators and that more
attention be paid to helping noncitizen workers obtain labor-based deferred
action, which allows workers to receive
temporary deportation protections from the federal government if
they're part of a state labor investigation. As of early 2023, the application
process for this type of deferred action became more streamlined when the U.S.
Department of Homeland Security centralized the intake of applications and
required a letter of support from a federal, state, or local labor agency such
as the Connecticut Department of Labor. The Labor Department confirmed that
they had a deferred action process, but data regarding its use was not
immediately available.
Lugo also placed blame on Lamont, suggesting some of the
state's rainy day fund, which is around
$4.1 billion, should be used for the Labor Department.
"The leadership of the state is also failing the
working class community, and that's why we're here today. And we will be on the
streets. And we will keep denouncing this situation that's happening with the
Labor Department," Lugo said.
The sentiment was echoed by Hamden district council member
Abdul Osmanu, who is running to be state representative and was at the press
conference.
"Our state sits on $4 billion at this moment that it
refuses to allocate to the houseless, the hungry, and today, those in need of a
hand in pursuing justice," Osmanu said. "I'm here to stand in
solidarity, as an attack against one of us is an attack against all."
Also in attendance were other members of ULA, Comunidad sin
Fronteras and the Naugatuck Valley Project.
Within the hour, a handful of state residents took turns
retelling their personal experiences regarding labor complaints, while they
stood beside banners that read "Unidad Latina en Acción. PORQUE SOLO EL
PUEBLO SALVA AL PUEBLO," which is Spanish for "Latino Unity in
Action. Because only the village saves the village."
One former construction worker, Bella Vazquez, said that it took over a year to hear back about her complaint regarding unpaid wages.
"I won't lose hope. I know there will be justice. And
it's outrageous because the same boss didn't just do it to us. He's still
working and keeps doing it to other people," said Vazquez, who also testified to
legislators in March.
Another worker from Ecuador at the rally who's been in the
state for two years, Jimmy Torico, told the CT Mirror that he is yet to submit
his complaint to the Labor Department regarding $3,000 in unpaid wages over
three weeks.
"We have to keep fighting. Hopefully we'll see justice.
It's not fair that one works and they [business owner] keep the money,"
said Torico.
Stamford Finance Officials to Review $460 Million Cost for Replacing Westhill High School
Angela Carella
STAMFORD – It started at $300 million. It went to more than
$500 million then was scaled back to perhaps $425 million.
Now the cost to rebuild Westhill High School has landed at
about $460 million.
The main reason for the eye-popping escalation is “industry
trends” in school construction, according to information from city and school
officials and their contracted engineers and architects. Costs have continued
to escalate “in an unprecedented fashion since the pandemic,” they said.
Three years ago, when the Westhill plan was conceived, costs
ranged from $350 to $750 per square foot of construction, officials said. The
estimate for 2026, when work on Westhill is slated to begin, is $700 to $950
per square foot.
Westhill is projected to come in near the top of that scale,
$900 per square foot.
It’s a far cry from the original estimate of $560 per square
foot.
Mayor Caroline Simmons and schools Superintendent Tamu
Lucero discussed the latest figures this week with members of the Board of
Finance, who must sign off on the expenditures.
They were joined by members of the Project Planning
Committee, formed in October to oversee the city’s long-term plan to rebuild or
repair public school buildings. The committee chairs are Director of Operations
Matt Quinones and Director of School Construction Katherine LoBalbo. Members
include Lucero, Director of Administration Ben Barnes, City Engineer Lou Casolo
and one person each from the Board of Education, Board of Finance, Board of
Representatives, and the Planning Board.
To plan, design and implement the project, the city has
hired a phalanx of contractors – SLAM Collaborative, the architect;
Colliers, the project leader; and Dimeo-Bismark, the
construction manager.
Kemp Morhardt of SLAM, the architect, acknowledged the big
bump in the Westhill price tag.
“I realize that everyone, including ourselves, has sticker
shock,” Morhardt told the group. “But we have worked on the building.”
To get the total from $500 million to $460 million, they
reduced the size by 35,000 square feet, the largest cost reduction, Morhardt
said.
They eliminated a practice field and a large retaining wall
needed to support it, he said. To save space, they reduced the number of
parking spaces in the plan and moved mechanical equipment to the roof. Working
with Lucero’s office, they eliminated three science rooms.
“We did everything we could to reduce costs,” Lucero said.
Simmons told the group that, despite the 53 percent increase
in the cost of rebuilding Westhill, “we are confident we can still afford our
local share.”
After the state agreed to cover 80 percent of the costs it
deems eligible, the city’s share was estimated to be $60 million, and the
state’s share $240 million.
That was when the project was going to cost $300 million.
Now the city will have to go back to the state to ask for 80
percent of the revised cost, $460 million, which would take the state’s share
to about $368 million.
But not all costs are eligible for state reimbursement, and
the ineligible costs, which Stamford taxpayers must cover, will amount to
millions of dollars.
Officials now expect Stamford’s share to be $114 million, or
90 percent more than originally thought.
One thing that may drive the price is that Westhill is the
only city high school with a pool. It will cost $19 million to replace it, and
the state will reimburse just 40 percent of that. A pool now is included in the
design, but whether it makes it into the final design will be decided
later.
The design and cost estimates will be updated in early 2025
and again in the fall of that year, officials said.
Other cost drivers affect the Westhill project, architects
and engineers said. The school is built on slopes and hills, requiring a lot of
site work. The 1971 building has asbestos, PCBs and other hazardous materials
that require expensive removal during demolition. And the work must be planned
and staged to accommodate 2,2oo students and staff who will be in school during
construction.
Officials said they explored renovating the building but the
cost was not that much less, and the state agreed. A renovation would take two
years longer, harm the learning environment, and “the savings historically seen
for renovating buildings seem to have diminished with the advent of modern
mechanical systems and more stringent building and energy code requirements,
which make it challenging to retrofit mechanical systems,” according to a
document posted at www.spsbuilds.com.
Not only that, but if the project were to change from a
rebuild to a renovation, the city would have to re-apply to the state, which
would jeopardize the 80 percent reimbursement rate, officials said.
The city plans to pay for its share of the project using
tax-exempt bonds and money from Fund 57, a cash reserve set up by the Board of
Finance two years ago. Money for the school building fund is raised by taxing
Stamford property owners an extra 1 percent a year.
So far Fund 57 has about $50 million, and officials expect
it to nearly double by about 2030.
The Westhill project is expected to be finished in 2029.
Officials plan to also rebuild Roxbury Elementary School and construct a new
South School on two campuses in the Cove neighborhood south of Interstate-95.
Westhill project officials are scheduled to meet with the
Board of Finance during its monthly meeting that begins at 7 p.m. Thursday.
Finance Board Chair Richard Freedman said he wants to know
when architects from SLAM knew that the Westhill costs had ballooned from $300
million to $500 million, and when they told the city. His board didn’t learn
about it until several weeks ago.
“I’d like to know the answer to that question,” Freedman
said. “It’s coming up late in the game.”
Finance board member Dennis Mahoney said he has questions
about the educational specifications approved by the Board of Education. The
specifications identify the number and nature of the spaces the school board
wants for the new building.
“I think a jump that big can’t be just because of the rising
cost of construction,” Mahoney said. “Some of those added costs have to be in
the ed specs.”
Interstate 95 on-ramp at Exit 15 in Norwalk is closed through Thursday morning, police say
NORWALK — An on-ramp for Interstate 95 in Norwalk will
be closed
through Thursday morning, according to local police.
The state Department of Transportation closed the Exit 15
on-ramp to I-95 North on Sunday evening to allow construction crews to work in
the area. The closure goes through Thursday at 6 a.m., Norwalk police said in a
Facebook post Sunday.
West Avenue traffic north of the on-ramp will be detoured to
the Route 7 on-ramp, the Exit 1 off-ramp and then to Route 7 south to I-95
North. Meanwhile, traffic south of the closure will be detoured onto Cedar
Street to Connecticut Avenue and then to I-95 north’s on-ramp at Exit 14,
according to Norwalk police.
The closure is part of a
project to rehabilitate the on-ramp over the drainage structure. Waters
Construction Co., Inc., was awarded the project for more than $6.3 million in
March and it is scheduled to be completed by Nov. 4.