Springfield considering change in residency requirement for city jobs

SPRINGFIELD — Wearing a pair of earrings in the shape of a Springfield map, Jean Canosa Albano, assistant director of libraries, said she supports a residency rule as a concept for city jobs, but also said the requirement makes it really difficult to find certified librarians, who have to have a master’s degree.

Springfield libraries are an attractive place to work because the system is large, the wages are competitive, and the population is diverse. But, people are turning down the jobs, she said.

With Springfield’s residency rule adding to the challenge of finding and keeping qualified employees in a tight job market, the City Council is taking a first step to look at changing the requirement.

The statute calls for most city employees to live in Springfield. There are exceptions for some school employees, and police and firefighters can move after having putting in 10 years on the job. Department heads, including the fire commissioner, and police and schools superintendents, must live in the city.

The requirement was created in 1995 and has been amended several times. In 2021, a Hampden Superior Court judge ruled the city must enforce residency after decades of failing to do so. The decision came from a lawsuit filed against the city in 2016.

“We are losing candidates,” said Caitlyn Julius, assistant director of human resources. “There is a need for workers, and there is competition all around us.”

Even in situations where employees have waivers allowing them to live in another community, they are tied to the position, not the person, so it means the worker has to either move or reject a promotion if one is offered, she said.

“We need to grow our own. We have so much talent,” Julius said. “I can’t tell you how many employees we lost to Chicopee, since they do not require residency.”

Chicopee eliminated its residency requirement for department heads in 2014, saying it was ambiguous and rarely followed. Holyoke considered requiring residency for employees in a 2016 ordinance, but it was never adopted.

City Council President Michael Fenton said he knows of no other Western Massachusetts community that has a residency requirement for its employees. He was one of the councilors who authored changes to the ordinance several years ago.

“There is no proposal. There is no suggested remedy,” he said, during a meeting he called Monday. “We will decide if we want to try to do something about it.”

The ordinance was originally put into place because the real estate market was struggling, homes were hard to sell, and the tax base needed a boost. It also made sense to have city employees living next door to taxpayers, he said.

But times have changed. Unemployment is at a record low, so it is hard to find employees, and the housing market is tight, making it difficult to find housing, Fenton said.

City department heads stepped up one after the other to talk about people, including managers, quitting after a year, because they can’t meet the 12-month deadline to move to Springfield. Others decline jobs because it isn’t worth it for them to move.

Most said they support residency but also pointed to positions that have remained vacant for months and even years, because it is hard to attract people.

“We are not getting the best candidates, and we have to acknowledge it,” said Cathy Buono, the chief administrative and financial officer.

While Buono said she supports the residency requirement, she also sees the challenges. For example, she personally has a mortgage with a 2.5% interest rate and wouldn’t consider moving, since rates are triple that now.

Candidates who live in nearby communities more frequently reject the positions than those who live across the country because, for locals, it doesn’t make sense for them to move, Canosa Albano said.

Other department heads said it is even harder to attract and keep lower-paid employees who need training, such as 911 dispatchers. Many will work for a year, receive the training and then are recruited to work in surrounding communities, where there is no requirement.

City councilors agreed to continue discussions with Fenton saying, “It was not created overnight, and it will not be solved overnight.”

The problem is multifaceted, because everyone brings a different perspective to it. Some have a negative perception of Springfield, and others want to live in a community where the schools are thought to be better or don’t want to disrupt their children’s education. Many simply want to be able to choose where they live, City Councilor Melvin Edwards said.

“I love the city of Springfield, and I do not have any desire to live anywhere else, but the city of Springfield is not like it was,” Edwards said.