Hundreds Sign Petition To Save Conservation Job From Budget Cuts

FAIRFIELD, CT — Hundreds have signed a petition asking Fairfield officials not to cut the town’s conservation administrator position, as is proposed in the 2021-22 budget.

As of Sunday night, the online petition had more than 400 signatures. The job was eliminated as part of First Selectwoman Brenda Kupchick’s budget plan, which she presented last week to the Board of Selectmen.

“I’m just worried that there’s just not enough resources now to do a proper job of protecting Fairfield’s conservation needs,” said Kasandra Marshall, an alternate member of the Land Acquisition Commission, who started the petition with Town Plan and Zoning Commission member Kathryn Braun.

The cut comes at a time when the conservation department is involved in projects regarding the Mill River, proposed affordable housing developments and contamination at the town fill pile, Marshall said. Both Marshall and Braun also noted that conservation officials advise numerous town bodies and that the former conservation administrator, Annette Jacobson, had decades of institutional knowledge. Jacobson was terminated in February and did not respond to messages seeking comment.

The $123,000 conservation administrator job was one of several to be cut in the proposed budget, which incorporates Fairfield’s new early retirement program and reduces town staffing by four positions at a savings of just over $600,000. The conservation department would also lose a $73,000 secretary job and would see a part-time wetland compliance officer role be elevated to full-time at an additional $38,0000 cost if the budget were approved as proposed.

In total, 17 employees opted to take part in the early retirement program, which has left some town jobs in the process of being rewritten and filled, according to Kupchick. Two workers were also laid off.

“I said for six months that I was going to reorganize town government and that’s what I’m doing,” Kupchick said in an interview Friday.

Kupchick decided to eliminate the conservation administrator job to consolidate the department upon learning former conservation director Brian Carey spent less than half his time on conservation-related matters after he was tapped in 2019 to oversee public works on an interim basis, she said.

Carey resigned in February after he was charged in 2020 in connection with the town’s fill pile scandal. While the conservation commission works to find the department's next director, the town has hired consulting firm SLR and attorney Tim Herbst to assist with day-to-day operations.

Braun felt terminating Jacobson was preemptive. Kupchick’s budget still must be approved by the Board of Selectmen, Board of Finance and Representative Town Meeting.

“There’s no assurance that it will actually be eliminated,” Braun said of the conservation administrator job. “It’s not a sure thing.”

The Board of Selectmen is expected to vote Monday on the $335.5 million budget, which includes a 1.98 percent mill rate increase. The board will also consider hiring Strategic Government Resources Inc. for about $25,000 to help with the search for a new conservation director.