Jul. 8 -- Today's meeting of the Board of Selectmen, preceeded as usual by another Town Meeting, was tidy and reasonably concise, and most of the visiting public who attended the meeting left before the surprise fireworks which came in the last few minutes.
During the recent budget referendum, two major initiatives failed to earn the town's approval: about $220,000 in capital expenditures for the Parks and Rec budget, and about $650,000 in capital funds to be spent on the municipal golf course. The Selectmen, in the previous meeting, had decided to call a referendum to re-submit to the voters portions of those two initiatives which were, in their opinion, crucial and misunderstood.
The Selectmen agreed that about $82,000 in funding for safety improvements at Parks & Rec facilities were essential. The items include:
The Selectmen agreed with Parks & Rec that these items are now known safety hazards. If someone should be injured on them, while the town has done nothing to resolve the situation, the town's liability for that injury would be virtually unlimited because it would be tainted with negligence.
The Selectmen also agreed with the Golf Commission about purchasing eight additional acres for the driving range at the town golf course. That purchase may have been tainted by being linked in the same initiative as the always unpopular golf course maintenance shed, which has been voted down more times than can be counted.
After lengthy public comment and great debate on all sides, it was approved that--
The thinking was that July 18th is a Saturday and many people are away on weekends during this vacation season; the East Ridge facility is heavily used on weekends which makes parking problematic; and since Thursday is a business day perhaps more commuters will be in town and available to vote using the early opening of the polls. In years past, all referendums were on Thursdays and voter responses were higher than they have been recently.
Toward the end of the Board of Selectmen meeting which followed the Town Meeting, Selectmen Jones and Manners asked Mr. Morelli about the report in the Ridgefield Press concerning unsupervised merit payments to some of the town's top managers. Mr. Bill Allen also spoke on this issue and expressed concern that this may be a civil rights issue, if bonuses were paid in an irregular manner.
The background of the issue is simple: about four years ago, Republican Sue Manning, then First Selectman, set aside a small fund of money, properly identified in the budget, for "merit awards." These awards are available to high-performing non-union employees of the town and are differentiated from increases paid to individuals due to their seniority or under union contract. The bulk of these awards are proposed by a supervisor and approved solely by the First Selectman. The town bases these awards, in part, upon the annual goal-setting and performance appraisals conducted by supervisors through the organization. The private sector has comparable incentive plans and manages them in a roughly similar manner, although usually with management checks and balances to insure consistency, fairness, and accountability.
The problem, according to Manners and Jones, is that a small number of these awards are personally administered by Mr. Morelli without any oversight or supervision by any other individual or group. These awards also tend to be given to the top people in town hall, and therefore the salaries are most likely to be the highest and the bonuses the largest. There was no suggestion, Jones added with some specificity, that any of the awards were improper or inappropriate, merely that the process needs some review.
Mr. Jones suggested that some consultation or supervision is essential in these types of discretionary expenditures. Mrs. Manners noted that Mr. Morelli would actually be well-served to have others review his proposed awards to protect him from charges of favoritism or bias. Selectman Savino agreed that in the private sector these types of bonuses usually have several layers of review, are specifically designed to reward the best performing individuals and to retain the services of exceptional performers and sustain their enthusiasm for their jobs. Dr. Yanity disagreed and said that only the First Selectman works with these people on a day-to-day basis and therefore only that person would be in a position to judge individual performances. The debate went back and forth for quite a while, and it was concluded that Mr. Morelli would consider this suggestion and get back to the Board at the next meeting.
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