By Mary E. O’Leary, Register Topics Editor

NEW HAVEN — Tax Collector C.J. Cuticello, who brought in a controversial, but effective new technology to boost the revenue from car taxes, is retiring Friday.

Cuticello, tax collector for nine years and bank manager for the Livable City Initiative for five years before that, worked out an arrangement with the city where his years of service were enhanced to full retirement status.

Cuticello said he has been considering retirement for about a month. He said he is picking up his second master’s degree at Albertus Magnus College next week and plans to teach while he pursues a doctorate at Capella University.

“It’s time for me to move on,” Cuticello, 61, said. He said he “really, really enjoyed” his career with the city. “It’s been enjoyable and really challenging — sometimes nerve wracking,” he said.

The most nerve-wracking was the time a disgruntled driver drove over his foot as she sped off, fleeing a tow truck. “I saw my life pass in front of my eyes,” Cuticello recalled Monday.

Cuticello said the decision to leave now was his own. “No one did any pushing,” he said.

But a letter he sent late last month to the state Marshal Commission detailed a serious disagreement he was having with city Controller Michael Pietrosimone, whom Cuticello said was threatening him with disciplinary action.

In the letter to commission Director of Operations James E. Neil, Cuticello outlined the city’s new policy, which requires state marshals collecting delinquent taxes, as the result of serving property tax warrants, to have the checks made out to the city, rather than the marshals.

He told Neil that the marshals would be given their fee after the city had processed the payments, but if the payment didn’t clear, the fee would not be paid. Cuticello said the policy, as of April 27, “has not been approved or reviewed by corporation counsel.”

“Please get back to me as soon as possible as the city controller has made it clear to me that he wants me to follow these procedures immediately or face disciplinary action,” Cuticello wrote. Continued...

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Neil, in his April 30 reply, said, “The policies present very serious legal issues. This office believes such proposed actions are not authorized under state statutes, or the regulations of the State Marshal Commission.”

Neil, who could not be reached Monday, said the state needs to be able to audit the money the marshals have collected. “Putting the money directly into the accounts of the city of New Haven would thwart the public oversight duties of the State Marshal Commission and the Office of Public Accounts,” Neil wrote.

He said if the policy were pursued, he would have to direct marshals not to execute tax warrants for the city, and he would initiate legal action to stop it, if necessary.

Cuticello did not return phone calls seeking comment on the letter, and Pietrosimone said he wasn’t aware of the letters. “I don’t have animosity towards C.J. and I’m sure he doesn’t, either,” Pietrosimone Monday said of their relationship.

He said Cuticello’s letter was “ironic” since he was part of the team that developed the new policy, which was outlined in a memo to the tax collector Dec. 16, when he was told to recall all outstanding tax warrants.

“It didn’t just spring from the office of the controller,” Pietrosimone said.

The controller said he did not believe a different collection method for tax warrants was ruled out by state statute, and he compared it to the request for proposals recently put out by the city for marshals seeking work with the city.

The marshals’ fees are capped by state statute, but the city hopes competition will encourage them to drop their rates.

In his December memo, Pietrosimone said the current tax warrant collection process is “inefficient.”

State marshals were booted from the city’s towing program after allegations last year that marshals Peter Criscuolo and Michael DeAngelis, Cuticello and the Rev. Boise Kimber were involved in calling off tows for politically connected scofflaws. Continued...

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Several sources confirmed there had been animosity between Pietrosimone and Cuticello for at least a year. That tension came to a head in September 2008, when Pietrosimone believed Cuticello leaked a report of Pietrosimone aiding a friend who owed taxes and faced being towed.

The woman, a Board of Education employee, owed $302.01 in back taxes and parking tickets and her car was about to be towed from outside her home when she hysterically confronted the tow truck driver. She called Pietrosimone at his home, and he gave her a ride to City Hall to pay her taxes. Her car was not towed.

Under Cuticello, the city has been using the Plate Hunter program, which uses an infrared camera to identify and tow cars belonging to tax scofflaws. It has helped to increase tax collection and growing awareness of the program has led to fewer cars being towed last month, compared to April 2008.

The system has had its flaws, such as when a Hamden resident was mistakenly towed five times.

Cuticello said he is proud of the program, for which he has been interviewed by national publications and lauded at the state tax collecter’s association. “We took a product of law enforcement and innovated,” Cuticello said of the introduction of Plate Hunter in February 2008.

Aldermanic President Carl Goldfield, D-29, was surprised to hear Cuticello was leaving. “I always thought he did a good job. How many people would go out and work on a weekend to get his foot run over?” he said Monday.

The aldermen are expected to adopt the 2009-10 budget May 26, with tax bills issued shortly after that. “This is really pretty close to getting the bills out,” Goldfield said of Cuticello’s retirement.

Larry Amendola, president of Local 3144, Council 4 and AFSCME International, of which Cuticello is a member, said the tax collector took advantage of several policies to achieve the correct number of years to retire at full benefits. In addition to his 14 years of service, he converted unused sick time to three more years and got five additional years as part of a buyout program to cut the city’s work force.

Mary E. O’Leary can be reached at 789-5731 or moleary@nhregister.com. Register reporter Elizabeth Benton contributed to this story.

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