Former employee pickets at Scarsdale Public Library

In a meeting on Oct. 23, 2017 run by then-village human resources director Angela Martin and attended by Civil Service Employees Association (CSEA) union representatives, part-time library workers, many of whom belonged to the union, were told that their positions would be eliminated when the library reduced its hours and moved to smaller, temporary quarters during the renovation.

Stettnisch alleges that at that meeting part-timers were also told if they were rehired after the renovation, it would be at an entry-level wage ($30 per hour for part-time substitutes and $31.88 per hour for regular part-timers). At the time, Stettnisch was earning $43.88 per hour after almost 30 years as a library employee.

Library executive director Beth Bermel told the Inquirer she “made no promises in that meeting. I made no statements about what would happen if they came back. I had to see what happened in two years, which became three [due to COVID-19].”

Stettnisch further alleges that at a private meeting in December 2017 Bermel told her the library would hire her at her old, higher hourly rate when it reopened.

Jessica Ladlee, communications specialist for the CSEA union’s southern region office, emailed the Inquirer, stating, “We know this was very difficult on everyone impacted, but management was acting within its rights in abolishing the positions. While full-time workers would be eligible under civil service to be on a recall list, the law unfortunately doesn’t make the same guarantee for part-time workers and library management was unwilling to enter into an agreement regarding bringing part-timers back at a later date. I can’t speak to what conversations may have happened between management and the workers, but there would have needed to be a written agreement. I’m not aware of any commitment being made to bring part-timers back at their former wage.”

Bermel, who has been the library director since 2009, would not confirm or deny meeting privately with Stettnisch, but she told the Inquirer that the part-timers had been told “for years” that there could be changes in staffing based on the renovation; one of the options had been doing the construction in stages while keeping the library open.

A second meeting for library employees was held April 18, 2018, with representatives from the New York State Department of Labor Rapid Response division and the New York State Retirement system to help those who would be impacted.

“We alerted colleagues in the Westchester Library System that there would be former employees seeking employment, and encouraged them to consider them when filling their vacancies,” Bermel said. “We also alerted the former employees when we received job postings and provided letters of reference.”

On June 11, 2018, Bermel sent part-time employees a letter confirming the “reduction in workforce” with their “last day of employment” being June 29 that year. Bermel said the letter didn’t mention any future hiring or payment options because changes in civil service and its procedures are unpredictable.

The library closed for renovation in July 2018, and Stettnisch was called in to work part time at the Library Loft at 244 Heathcote Road, which was about one-tenth the size of the library’s prior location. She told the Inquirer she worked there as needed from January 2019 until the pandemic forced the Loft to close in March of 2020, and she agreed to do so at the minimum allowable wage ($30 an hour) as a good faith effort on her part, since she believed she would be hired and paid at her pre-renovation wage ($43. 88) after the library reopened in full.

The library reopened in November 2020 and has since hired 32 part-timers at $15/hour to $32/hour depending on their position, four of whom had worked part time at the library previously. But Stettnisch said she heard “nothing.”

“Here we are — they’re reopened, they’ve hired so many new people, and nothing … no interaction with me, no talking, nothing,” she said.

She continued, “That was understandable that the part-timers had to be let go. What wasn’t [acceptable] was the no guarantee of your job, and the real killer was, ‘And if we hire you back, you’re going back to entry level salary.’”

Bermel said when the jobs were eliminated — and not knowing a pandemic would throw an additional wrench into the process — “we were unable to predict the hiring process” and could not “make forward-looking commitments of either salary or continuing employment.”

“Once the library reopened and we expanded hours, we followed the Westchester County Human Resources process required for creating positions according to civil service rules,” Bermel said.

A few weeks ago, Stettnisch emailed village officials and the library board, saying in part, “I would like the position being advertised at 17 hours per week … I would like my old salary back, as promised by Beth, ($43.88) as well as a raise for the year I worked at the Loft.”

The job is posted online at $30-$32/hour.

She told the Inquirer she was counting on that higher wage to help cover college costs for her sons and to maximize her retirement benefits, which are calculated in part by her final average earnings. She also said that by picketing the library, she hoped not only to get her job back at her previous pay but also to “make it harder for other people to do this to their employees.”

Stettnisch, who is now working part time at another library in the county at $31.88 per hour, said her former co-workers haven’t spoken up for themselves or for her.

“I am disappointed, but I feel like they’re afraid,” she said.

She said she thinks her high hourly wage, based on incremental increases over 29 years of service and contract negotiations when she was a member of the union, is the reason she was not hired back.

Bermel said she could not speak about any individual case, but she confirmed that four part-timers of the 28 whose jobs were eliminated in 2018 have been hired back at the entry-level hourly rate, which she said is a “fixed amount and may be increased pursuant to an annual increase approved for all employees of the same title.” 

“Since the library is subject to civil service rules as administered by the Westchester County Human Resources Department, we followed their strict, complex process that included multiple steps and careful review,” Bermel said.

“Maybe this was legal,” Stettnisch said. “But was this the right thing to do? Is this what Scarsdale does to its employees?”

Bermel said the decision to terminate the part-timers, made years ago, was “not easy,” but was made “with the best intentions for the Scarsdale community to make this library what it is now.”

In 2016, the Scarsdale Village Board of Trustees approved a $9.9 million bond offering to help offset the public portion of the proposed $17.9 million renovation, with the balance of the funds raised by the Library Capital Campaign Committee in partnership with Friends of Scarsdale Library. Funding was further made possible through a state grant facilitated by New York Assemblymember Amy Paulin.

While the initial cost for the renovation was estimated at $17.9 million, according to a library project report updated in February 2020 “bids came in high and no options resulted in savings.” The report states that “a combination of grants, endowments, trusts, fund balance and additional donor gifts” filled in the funding shortfall for the final $21.7 million cost and “no new burdens impacted the village taxpayers.”

“I had a particular budget that I have to stay within and I’m not going to spend money that I don’t need to spend,” Bermel said. “I have been very cautiously bringing the staff on that I need so as not to waste taxpayer dollars.

“We have long enjoyed a collegial atmosphere and consider this a peaceful and welcoming place, so it is disappointing that Ms. Stettnisch has chosen to picket the library,” Bermel said. “We of course support her legal right to express herself.”

In her November email to the village and library boards, Stettnisch wrote, “I can picket most anywhere and anytime that I want. I intend on doing that until I rightfully get my old job and salary back or until the end of time, whichever comes first. I have no choice.” She said she needed her salary for her sons’ college education, and her retirement benefits, concluding, “It is rightfully mine, earned through decades of dedicated service.”

— with reporting by Valerie Abrahams, Nick Perrone and Todd Sliss