A proposal to retain an employment or human resources consultant to review and investigate the town’s hiring practices has failed, and now Mayor Danielle Wong is seeking to have the town council give its full support to the town manager.

“It is time for every councilor to fully support our talented town manager and refocus our attention to a positive vision for this town’s future — a vision that includes economic development, housing and creating an environment where all Bloomfield residents can thrive,” Wong said.

At a recent council meeting, the motion to retain an employment/human resources consultant to review and investigate town hiring practices — along with appropriating money from their contingency fund of up to $50,000 — failed.

Some council members were in favor of the action, saying they are concerned that a number of recently hired staff have left their positions in a short period of time and questioning whether they received proper resources. The members said they wanted to have an unbiased neutral consultant share their findings, analysis, and recommendations to the town council and town manager.

“Unfortunately, the effort to advance the resolution continues a well-documented pattern of pursuing political agendas over the needs of Bloomfield residents and I applaud the majority of councilors who voted against the resolution,” Wong said.

Some of the concerns council members had expressed included whether there were issues that prompted employee’s decisions to leave, whether jobs were posted and included a competitive selection process, identifying whether any new job positions were created and filled by the town manager in the last 18 months and, if so, were the positions posted publicly, and was there a defined job description and a competitive selection process.

Town Manager Stanley Hawthorne said that while he did not feel spending town funds on an outside consultant was the best idea, he was not afraid of a review, if council had passed the motion.

As Bloomfield’s town manager, Hawthorne is the administrative head, who implements policy set by the town council and oversees town departments. He is the only appointee of the council and has authority to appoint most other town employees.

Hawthorne told the council he had to clarify some assumptions being made about the proposal.

“I have no fear of what [the consultant] will find. Is it the wisest use of town funds? In my opinion, it is not. Given the issues that have been presented, I want you all to know, particularly the community, I have no fear of what it will show. I have managed honorably. I have been a manager for over 30 years in the public sector, in multiple organizations, multiple states,” he told the council at its recent meeting. “And one of my responsibilities in every organization over those 30 years has been responsibility for human resources. So, it would be very baffling to me that I come to Bloomfield after 30 years, and all of a sudden, there are human resource issues.”

“I have spoken to this town council from the very beginning, what my approach and philosophy is. Am I perfect? No, I’m not. Does everyone agree with my philosophies? No, they don’t. Did I come here to maintain the status quo? No, I did not. There is a bible [the 2021 strategic planning session summary] that I have used during the budget. It goes back to the prior town council. It was the platform that I built my candidacy on and that I was accepted into this position, very proudly accepted. And I have fulfilled my responsibilities honorably,” he said to the council.

Councilman Joseph P. Merritt said he believes the decision by some municipal employees to leave is part of the Great Resignation seen around the nation.

“I think we’re going through a period. But people are leaving a lot of jobs right now. It’s called The Great Resignation. And they think they don’t have anything to lose right now, because they know they can get another job,” he said, noting he thinks it has been worse in other towns.

He noted other towns are always looking for good candidates and Bloomfield should consider the competitiveness of its benefits and pay packages,

Councilman Shamar A. Mahon said he supported the proposal, as he said that a consultant could address many of the questions that Merritt had around competitive packages, benefits, and how to be a competitive employer overall.

Councilwoman Suzette DeBeatham-Brown, who also supported the proposal, said that it was not about any one person.

“If we can get some idea of where we’re going wrong, why we can’t recruit and retain, that would be beneficial to us. Making sure that we have the best qualified candidates in our town,” she said.

Councilman Kenneth L. McClary said that he believes the town manager is “doing an extraordinary job.”

“He’s the lead. But we have our labor attorney who we pay a lot of money to. He gave an opinion. Our town attorney gave an opinion. This is just ridiculous,” he said of the proposal that failed.

Deputy Mayor Gregory C. Davis, Sr. said that while he was not in favor of hiring a consultant, he acknowledges the town has had some employee retention and turnover issues.

“It’s not a personal attack. It’s for the betterment for the organization, what can we determine and how can we fix this? How can we address it? And those turnovers, I don’t know if that rate of turnover is high for what we’re doing, but we can find out,” David said. “It takes a toll both financially and emotionally when people are leaving, and my job and I think our job is to find out why. Are people leaving because of compensation benefits, are they leaving because of the workplace culture, are they leaving because of a lack of opportunity? Are they dissatisfied? Those are the things that we need to determine.”

He said that once they can determine what those answers are, then they can figure out what their role is in making the environment better for the town and all of their employees.