What's It Like Having Your Ex Working For You?

In November, 2005, Martha Stark and the other NYCERS Trustees knowingly hired a totally unqualified person off of Shelley Silver's staff to be the executive director of NYCERS. That person was Diane D'Alessandro.

On Monday, November 30, 2015, D'Alessandro hired a woman named Ellen Carton as a "deputy director" of HR at NYCERS. What is significant about this fact is that she was the domestic partner of D'Alessandro for over 18 years.

NYCERS's claims the relationship was legally ended in 2004. I am not sure how you end a domestic partnership as opposed to a marriage.

What rational chief executive hires her ex spouse as a senior HR manager for her organization? You would never hire your current spouse, never mind your former spouse. It is a mind blowing concept. The potential conflicts would make for a fabulous novel but not a well run organization. But, unfortunately, we all know we are not dealing with a well run organization.

It now seems that the NYC Department of Investigation is looking into this story.

Ms. Carton was appointed at a salary of $127,000/yr. There was no public posting for the position. NYCERS states that Ms. Carton is reporting to Ms. Vilma Ebanks, the deputy director of HR at NYCERS. It is unclear what Ms. Carton's HR qualifications are, if any. According to Carton her consulting practice had closed.

In May of 2014, D'Alessandro hired Ms. Ebanks as a "deputy director" of HR at a salary of $115,000. Again there was no posting for that position. Ebanks had worked at DC-37 for many years before moving to NYCERS. Fourteen months later, Ebanks salary was increased to $131,000.

On a side note, It appears that Ms. Ebanks lives with Michael Musuraca. For many years Musuraca represented DC-37 on the NYCERS Board of Trustees. He was on the Board in 2005 when the Board appointed D'Alessandro. In 2009 he went work for a private equity firm, Blue Wolf Capital, but not before he voted to hire Blue Wolf as private equity firm for NYCERS. Here is a little more background on Blue Wolf.

Both of these hirings follows the same pattern that D'Alessandro used when she hired Diane Bratcher.

As of June 30, 2015, the NYCERS HR division was a direct report to the executive director, Diane D'Alessandro. This has been the case since 1998 when I first created the HR division. As of June 30, 2015 Ms. Felita DiLorenzo (aka Baksh/Ramsami) was running the HR division and reported to D'Alessandro.

NYCERS now claims that Ms. Ebanks is the HR director and reports to Ms. Chiarello, the NYCERS deputy executive director. That is the number two person in the agency.

Note: As of June 30, 2017 the HR division is again reporting to the acting executive director, Karen Mazza.

As part of this story, in July of 2013, NYCERS entered into a contract with a small two person firm out of Tempe, AZ. The name of the firm is CWI Coaching & Consulting. The principals of the firm are Bruce and Kathleen Clark. Ms. Clark is the main contact with NYCERS. It is unclear how CWI was chosen to do whatever they are supposed to be doing for NYCERS. The original contract was for $80,000 but it was modified upwards during the year to $130,000.

Ms. Clark claims to have been introduced to Ms. Carton in NY in 2013. Based on Ms. Clark's response to whether D'Alessandro introduced the two, it is reasonable to assume that D'Alessandro made the introduction.

Shortly after that Ms. Carton started working with Ms. Clark on the NYCERS project. That may have the reason for the budget modification.

NYCERS actually paid CWI $129,736 in FY-2014 and $99,965 in FY-2015.

Going forward NYCERS has an open contract with CWI for the FY-2016 through FY-2018 period. The quoted cost for FY-2016 is $140K,000, for FY-2017, $161,000, and for FY-2018, $185,000.

Based on a December 10, 2015 Board of Trustees presentation by the IT deputy director, Liz Reyes, CWI appears to be a big player in the $132M Legacy Replacement Project. Needless to say, Reyes is in the same boat as D'Alessandro.