Twenty-nine of the 56 summer workers at the state Department of Transportation this year have the same last name as a full-time DOT worker or official ? increasing the appearance that, despite denials, family connections and favoritism play a role in seasonal hirings at state agencies.
That information surfaces two weeks after it was reported here that Department of Economic and Community Development officials' young relatives got three of the agency's 17 summer jobs, all unadvertised. The DECD's manager of highway "Welcome Centers" helped to interview her own daughter for a job involving the welcome centers, a job that pays $960 every two weeks.
None of this makes a good impression on the public, despite government spokesmen's assurances that hiring officials' sons, daughters, nieces and nephews isn't illegal or wrong.
DECD says it recruited summer job candidates at three college job fairs. But although seven of its summer jobs are in Hartford offices, not one kid was hired from the state's impoverished capital city, where youth unemployment soars.
The Department of Transportation says it "posted the summer positions on our internal website and also sent them to the Department of Labor for distribution to their job centers," but with half the jobs going to full-timers' young relatives, it appears that the word about job openings isn't getting to the general public or that there's an inside track to the summer payroll.
DOT spokesman Judd Everhart acknowledged "that a number of our summer workers are related to full-time DOT employees," but added "I believe it would be illegal if we told certain people they couldn't apply for a given position."
The new information about the DOT situation resulted from a Freedom of Information Act request by the Courant that followed several news tips from people who questioned the way things have been handled. Weeks earlier, others had raised questions to the Courant about the DECD hirings. Clearly, even though people know these things happen continually, they still question the fairness.
So how can state agencies go about awarding summer jobs without questions arising all the time about favoritism or nepotism?
One way of handling the issue is to hire candidates for summer jobs according to a random lottery, eliminating the questions of who knows whom, and who's related to whom. That's what New York City has been doing since the 1990s with its Summer Youth Employment Program, which accepted 135,000 applications to fill more than 35,000 jobs this summer.
"The lottery system has worked well because it makes the process transparent to the applicants, and is one fair way to give all young people a chance at obtaining a summer job through SYEP," said Mark Zustovich, chief public information officer for the city's Department of Youth and Community Development.
Potential participants complete either an online application or a paper application that is submitted to any one of a number of community-based organizations. Those chosen in the lottery are notified and required to provide supporting documentation, including proof of age and identity, Social Security number, working papers, and address.
Overall, the lottery's purpose is to help ensure that the summer employment program "is available to any New York City youth seeking a summer job," Zustovich said. It's open to all city residents aged 14 to 24. "The list of participating community-based organizations is included in the application, and DYCD uses community outreach, the press, our website, and social media to publicize SYEP so that it benefits as many young people as possible," Zustovich said.
New York's summer jobs lottery is the biggest in the country, Zustovich said, but is hardly the only one. Medford, Mass., has one too, for example. Zustovich said his agency is always happy to share information with other jurisdictions about how its jobs lottery works.
Waiting At DMV
On another subject: This reporter's visit to a Department of Motor Vehicles office last week suggests that maybe DMV customers should not depend too heavily on the new "wait time" feature near the top of the DMV's website. Not yet, anyway.
Since last month, if you click "Check Here for Wait Times in DMV Offices" you'll find a web page on which you can select a DMV branch and find out how long you'll wait for various services, such as licensing and registration.
Last Tuesday morning, the website never said the wait to renew a registration would be any longer than an hour at the Wethersfield office ? and I kept refreshing the web page on my smartphone ? but it turned out to be an hour and 48 minutes.
Now, I'm not complaining that I didn't deserve to be sitting all that time at the DMV office ? because I did. It was my own fault that I needed to do this thing in person instead of online; I apparently lost a renewal notice that I assume was mailed to me, and if I'd had the notice I could have done the renewal online with the PIN that would be printed on the notice.
My experience may not be typical, either. I mention it here only as a caution to others who have to go down to a DMV office.
DMV spokesman William Seymour checked with DMV computer experts and responded: "Although my wait time list shows a time different than you reported finding on your iPhone during checks, the system is so new that we are still in the monitoring phase of examining reports of discrepancies with its operations,"
"We started the system on June 10 and have had about 44,000 pageviews. We have had some reports of inaccuracies, but not frequent ones. We wanted to collect that information for about month to know what information we might want to track with the customer's experience?. [W]e are about to put up a refresh notice to customers so they know that they must refresh or reload the page to get most accurate times."
Jon Lender is a reporter on The Courant's investigative desk, with a focus on government and politics. Contact him at jlender@courant.com, 860-241-6524, or c/o The Hartford Courant, 285 Broad St., Hartford, CT 06115 and find him on Twitter@jonlender.
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