Daniel Zhao, Contributing Photographer

Should officials who help govern New Haven have to live in New Haven?

The question is on local leaders’ minds after alders voted this month to let certain city administrators seek exemptions to the typical residency requirements — a move Mayor Justin Elicker said he hopes is the first step toward greater flexibility for more officials.

The Board of Alders approved, by a 26-4 vote on March 4, an ordinance change allowing incumbent city coordinators to get waivers to move outside city limits if they prove to alders “a critical need or extraordinary hardship due to exceptional circumstances.” New Haven currently has three coordinators: top mayoral lieutenants who each oversee a large swath of the city government. 

Elicker told the News he appreciates the measure but would like to go further, by easing or removing residency requirements for all department heads, who are one rung below coordinators, except for the fire and police chiefs.

“There’s, I think, generally the concept that someone that’s a New Haven resident maybe has more skin in the game,” he said. “At the same time, for these highly specialized positions, it is incredibly difficult at times to identify people that are New Haven residents to fill them.”

For example, Elicker said, before the city hired Kristy Sampieri as comptroller, it took two years to fill the position. Elicker said recruitment for municipal jobs has only grown harder in recent years amid a competitive labor market, leaving roughly 200 of the city’s 1409 full-time positions vacant.

Ward 27 Alder Richard Furlow, the Board’s majority leader, said it would be more difficult to persuade the alders to weaken, let alone eliminate, residency mandates for department heads. While coordinators serve at the mayor’s pleasure, department heads work under four-year contracts.

“Part of our legislative agenda is good jobs for New Haven residents. And so these good jobs should start where we are, at City Hall,” Furlow said.

He added that he would be open to rethinking the residency mandate for certain posts but thinks the government should better advertise available jobs to New Haveners.

Board President Tyisha Walker-Myers, who represents Ward 23, is assembling a working group of alders and city officials to consider the merits of residency requirements for each department head position, according to Furlow.

Connecticut law since 1989 has forbidden residency mandates for unionized government workers such as police officers, firefighters and teachers. But other cities in the state have requirements for more senior office-holders, as New Haven does.

In 2021, Hartford loosened its residency mandate with an ordinance amendment that lets four department heads request waivers to live outside the city.

Hartford’s then-mayor, Luke Bronin — who is teaching a Yale Law School course about local and state governance this semester — told the News that officials who live out of town can be just as devoted to serving residents.

“It’s often very hard to get somebody to change school districts, sell a home and move in for a job that they might not have two years later,” Bronin said. “Especially where cities are small, a city should be able to have the flexibility it needs to attract the right team.”

Elicker proposed ending residency requirements for department heads during New Haven’s charter revision process last year, but the idea did not catch on as a charter amendment.

The measure enacted this month is far narrower. Exceptions are only available to coordinators, a senior rank that at most four people can hold — and only to coordinators who have already served for a year.

To receive an exception, a coordinator must be experiencing significant hardship, such as one related to their family, health or finances. Even with an approved waiver, they must live within 50 miles of New Haven’s borders and in Connecticut.

“I feel strongly that any leadership positions for this city should reside in this city,” Ward 10 Alder Anna Festa, one of the four alders to oppose the measure, told her colleagues before the vote. “We don’t have anyone that is qualified to fill these positions that resides in the City of New Haven?”

The most immediate effect of the ordinance amendment could be to allow Chief Administrative Officer Regina Rush-Kittle to move in with her family out of town.

Elicker has not formally asked the alders for an exception for Rush-Kittle, who continues to live in New Haven. Elicker’s spokesman said Friday that the mayor plans to do so but has no firm timeline.

“With my family based in Rocky Hill, like other working families, I’m glad to be able to do the job I love during the day and then commute home to be with family on the evenings and weekends,” Rush-Kittle wrote in a statement provided by the mayor’s office.

Elicker has also not set a timeline for proposing to the Board of Alders a measure to allow residency exceptions for department heads. Furlow said the question may have to wait until after the budget process concludes in May, or even until the fall.

The other two current coordinator-level positions, besides chief administrative officer, are economic development administrator and community services administrator.