April 20, 2017 at 9:58 a.m.
Reuss: Boulder Junction to recover payout to town clerk
Electors to revisit clerk-treasurer position in September
Reuss: Boulder Junction to recover payout to town clerk
By Richard Moore-
A smaller payment to a second employee will also be recovered.
Last September, the town board convened in an apparently illegal closed session and subsequently approved an $8,700 payment to town clerk Kendra Moraczewski, equal to 58 days of pay at her pay rate. The town code allows a public employee, as well as the clerk, to cash in unused sick days in excess of 60 days once 60 days has been accumulated.
The 58-day calculation, which included vacation days that the code does not incorporate, did not meet the 60-day threshold for a payout. What's more, the town paid her for 58 days, when the code only allows the days in excess of 60 to be paid.
In other words, per town code, Moraczewski was entitled to no payout. The town had also made a smaller payment to another town employee.
On Tuesday night, Reuss said the town board had made a mistake in making the payments, and the money would be recovered. Reuss made his statement after town elector Barb Boston questioned whether proper and statutory budget procedures had been followed.
Boston said no money had been budgeted for the payout, nor could she find any town board action to amend the budget to do so, which she said state statute requires.
"Under clerk/treasurer accumulated sick payout, it was budgeted at zero, and the $8,700 payout was made, and I've searched through the open-meetings minutes and there has been no budget amendment made or no vote for that to transfer the funds from any contingency fund," she said. "Did I miss something in the minutes? Was that done?"
Reuss didn't answer the question at first but proceeded to make a statement on the payout.
"The previous town board obviously made a mistake in paying out two individuals accumulated sick leave and unpaid vacation," Reuss said. "Since that has occurred, we have been working on recovering those amounts as quickly as we can. The town board expects to discuss this and have a resolution of the matter on the agenda of the April 25 meeting of the town board. I do have an investigation going on right now, and I also have a phone call into our sheriff, Joe Fath, just to finalize on any details of this action, and I'll be making a report on the 25th of April."
Boston persisted, saying that still didn't answer her question about whether the budget had been properly amended to make the payout in the first place.
Reuss appeared confused, and another citizen reiterated that a budget amendment would have been required to make the payout.
"It has to be amended unless it is replaced," Reuss replied.
"So you're saying it's going to be replaced," the citizen asked.
"Yes," Reuss answered.
Clerk/treasurer position
The biggest news of the night might have been the recovery of the clerk's payout, but the most extended part of the meeting also concerned the clerk, specifically, whether the now combined position of clerk-treasurer should be split into two separate positions, with a part-time clerk and a part-time treasurer.
In the end, the electors decided to revisit the issue at an electors' meeting to be held in September, but it took them a long time to get there, and a considerable amount of time and energy was spent by electors and officials just trying to understand what motions had been made from the floor.
The town board had been directed at the last annual meeting to analyze the pros and cons of a combined versus split position, as well as of appointed or elected formats, and to survey how other towns in the area and in the state handled the positions.
Supervisor Denny McGann presented the findings in a slide presentation. McGann presented a ream of data for citizens to digest and did not make a direct recommendation.
But he was followed by citizen Laura Bertch, who had prepared her own analysis and slide presentation, and she did make a recommendation: The positions needed to be split, she said.
Her analysis of surrounding towns with split positions, using the data collected by McGann and his team, showed that they performed their duties and spent less money doing so than Boulder Junction does with the combined position.
In some cases, the costs were significantly less.
"Our communities around us are able to do it for less," Bertch said in her presentation. "Why can't we? To me, it seems the evolution of this position needs to change and the town board needs to be good stewards of our money for the taxpayers and to spend it wisely, and I am drawing attention to the difference that could be saved, in part anyway."
Indeed, if the positions were split, Bertch's analysis showed a potential annual savings of $48,425 from the current total annual cost of $89,163 for the combined clerk-treasurer position. Those costs include not only salary and benefits but annual audit and accounting fees and other costs.
"In summary, I believe the taxpayers need to speak out and correct this job situation," she said. "To me it would be by splitting the clerk-treasurer position into two part-time salaried positions tonight and set a meeting for the electors to discuss the second phase of this, which would be elected versus appointed."
Bertch said that action would bring Boulder Junction more in line with other area towns that she said were functioning more efficiently and effectively.
Some objected that Bertch's analysis wasn't fair because it compared the cost of a combined position not to other towns with combined positions but only with those of towns with split positions. However, Bertch said that was the point - that towns with split positions spend less money doing the same thing.
Still others suggested that non-statutory duties assigned to the clerk might make Boulder Junction unique from those other towns.
The biggest objection, though, was that the data presented during the meeting was all too new and too much to digest to take a vote, and Reuss agreed with that assessment.
"The motion is understandable," Reuss said after a motion was made to split the position and call another meeting to consider whether they should be elected or appointed. "You want to come to a conclusion. But there is a lot of work that has to be done yet to put this process together. There are major questions - elected or appointed, split or combined - and I think we have to take the information - and maybe it's going to be a committee added to the clerk-treasurer committee that already started to continue this research and come up with an answer for the public - and maybe a public hearing to air that information, but I don't know if we are ready tonight to vote on whether we should split the position."
Those comments led to multiple motions that would give the public time to read the data, ask questions, and research on their own - all withdrawn, amended, or defeated - and finally one to consider the question of splitting the position at an already planned September electors' meeting that is going to consider a town road improvement plan.
McGann said the town board had completed its work by gathering and presenting the data, but he encouraged citizens to research and study the question between now and September. An ad hoc committee, he said, could present or persuade electors to vote one way or the other.
"This is the electors' meeting," he said. "What I would suggest between now and September, that the people of the community take a good hard look at it. ... There is work to be done, but the work should be done by the electors. What the electors asked us to do, I feel we have presented to you and it is ultimately the electors' decision."
The motion passed.
Other items
In other business, the electors unanimously voted to purchase 10.3 acres right behind the community center from the DNR, and, in an advisory vote, electors thought it was a good idea for Reuss to continue to pursue a contract with the Vilas County Sheriff's Office for a part-time police officer.
The contract would be for one year, at which time the town could reassess the position, and the officer would spend three days a week of dedicated time in the town, except of course in cases where mutual aid in an emergency was required.
Finally, elector Greg Van Grinsven gave an update on the town's development of a long-term road improvement plan, which is a project to maintain, reconstruct where necessary, and guide new road construction acceptable to the electorate.
He presented seven different options that are in the hopper, and laid out a timeline heading for a September electors' meeting where decisions will be made by town electors. The Lakeland Times will report on the details of the plan in the coming months before that meeting.
Richard Moore is the author of The New Bossism of the American Left and can be reached at www.rmmoore1.com.
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