Court: Former mayor owes city

LYNN – Former Mayor Edward “Chip” Clancy could be forced to repay the city more than $400,000 after an Essex Superior Court Judge ruled in favor of Mayor Judith Flanagan Kennedy’s claim that the mayor’s salary is set at a flat $82,500 a year.”City Council President Dan Cahill and I have met and are discussing the options,” Kennedy said Thursday. “There are a lot of implications made that need to be explored.”The summary judgment makes clear, however, that “Clancy is not entitled to receive additional compensation above ($82,500 per year) and that the city is entitled to reimbursement of the amount paid to Clancy above $82,500.”Clancy said he’s unsure whether he will appeal the ruling.”You’d like to always settle,” he said Thursday. “I’ve thought about (appealing) but I haven’t made a decision. The first round didn’t go my way.”The suit also means that city councilors, whose salaries are tied to the mayor’s, will take a 15 percent pay cut, Kennedy said.”We the City Council have instructed the treasurer, Richard Fortucci, to adjust our annual salaries to conform to the ruling,” Cahill said.When Clancy left office in 2010 he claimed he was owed $33,000 in city benefits, including longevity, sick-leave buyback, vacation and two days’ pay. Kennedy filed a lawsuit claiming the city owed Clancy nothing and, in fact, he’d been overpaid during his tenure as mayor.Kennedy has always maintained that the mayor’s salary is $82,500 a year, which, according to court documents, was set by the City Council on June 9, 1998.The suit claims that Clancy should have made $660,000 as mayor serving from 2002 to 2010. Instead he made between $113,000 to $145,000 per year, or $1,061,436.67, as shown by his federal W-2 tax forms.The judgment states that Clancy also received more than $12,000 in travel reimbursements and Fourth of July block party funds.Court papers show that Clancy claimed the money paid to him over and above the set salary was received in accordance with provisions set out in the Local 3147 union contract. The argument goes on to state that the local union covered department heads and past practice presented the mayor as such and therefore would be eligible for payments allowed under the terms and agreements.The decision, however, dismisses a declaration made by City Solicitor Michael Barry in a 1997 letter that qualifies the mayor as a department head. It points out that the charter gives the mayor the power to appoint and suspend department heads, which suggests that department heads “are considered to be an inferior position to that of the mayor.”The decision also notes a number of ordinances that discuss department heads without listing the mayor as such. Because the mayor is an elected official, the notion contradicts state law relating to the same matter.According to the ruling, the charter, which City Council passed in 1998, set the mayor’s salary and, in doing so, repealed any prior deals regarding compensation.”As the City Council has not passed any ordinances changing the mayoral compensation since 1998, this ordinance governs the current salary owed to the city’s mayor,” reads the decision.It goes on to state that the simple language of the ordinance also makes it clear that he or she is not entitled to receive any additional compensation above the $82,500.”The court accepted all of the city’s arguments and ruled that Mayor Clancy’s salary should have been $82,500 from 2002 to 2009,” said Kennedy.”The ruling speaks for itself,” Cahill said.