Saratoga Springs Housing Authority director denied automatic extension; board to review salary

PHOTOGRAPHER: Lee Coleman

The Saratoga Springs Housing Authority board voted today not to allow executive director Edward Spychalski’s contract to automatically extend to a fifth year.

The authority’s board of commissioners also agreed to review Spychalski’s salary, which went from $74,777 in 2006 to $151,956 this year.

“We made a decision not to extend it that extra year,” said Dennis Brunelle, authority board chairman.

City Mayor Scott Johnson sent a letter to the authority this week recommending that the board not allow Spychalski’s rolling contract to automatically extend another year, as specified in his contract.

Johnson also recommended that the commissioners look at Spychalski’s annual compensation, which has been criticized by city officials and residents in recent months as being excessive.

“We want to cooperate with the mayor; we are doing our best to work with the city,” Brunelle said after today’s board of commissioners meeting at the Stonequist Apartments on South Federal Street in Saratoga Springs.

“We wanted to re-negotiate the contract anyway,” Brunelle said. He said the commission will have a comparability study done, comparing Spychalski’s pay with that of other Housing Authority directors and similar positions in the public and private sectors.

Brunelle said Spychalski’s actual salary is $144,000 but it increased in 2011-12 to $151,956 because of a $5,000 bonus the commission awarded him for work he did on an affordable housing project on Allen Drive.

“This has nothing to do with his performance. We are very, very satisfied with his performance,” Brunelle said about the comparability study.

The Saratoga Springs Housing Authority maintains and administers federal-subsidized housing in the city, including the 176-unit Stonequist Apartments and another 200-plus units in the Jefferson-Vanderbilt terraces area.