Village Board approve new DPW position, barely
By Tracy Ouellette
Editor
The East Troy Village Board approved the hiring of a collections service operator at Monday night’s meeting in a 4-3 vote with board President Randy Timms and trustees Dusty Stanford, Forty Renucci and Fred Douglass voting yes and trustees Ann Zess, Linda Kaplan and Scott Seager voting no.
The decision came after another heated discussion on the need for the new position during the budget talks.
Zess, who again reiterated her position that the board should take a year to evaluate the need for the new hire, said she felt this was being rushed and she had been “shocked” when it came before the board last month.
Stanford suggested that because Zess had a family member on the DPW staff, she might want to consider recusing herself from the discussion and vote.
“I don’t think it’s ethical,” Standford said.
Zess disagreed, saying it had nothing to do with what they were discussing.
Stanford wondered aloud what Village Attorney Linda Gray would have to say on the matter, but because she wasn’t there Monday, they couldn’t ask.
“Linda would have said it’s not illegal (for Zess to vote), but questionable,” Timms replied.
Renucci questioned the logic in hiring for such a specific position in such a small village where DPW employees need to fill various roles. He did, however, acknowledge that the DPW staffing levels were at the same point they were 10 to 15 years ago and that infrastructure needs called for more manpower.
Timms said the $86,000 suggested salary, including benefits, for the position was too high and he said he thought it should be lowered to $67,000, with benefits, and the board should keep $20,000 in a contingency fund for salaries, which might be needed after the salary study comes back in October. The board approved Timms’ motion to reduce the salary and keep the rest in reserve.
After the board approved the new DPW position, it moved to the next budget item – the projected shortfall at the water utility for 2016.
Clerk-Treasurer Eileen Suhm had suggested the board take a loan from the General Fund to cover the projected $737,000 total shortfall for 2016. Suhm said $680,500 of that was for capitol improvements such as painting the water tower ($375,000) and $56,000 of it was in operational cost.
She told the board that because those improvements and operational costs were used in the rate case study done this year, the board didn’t have the option of removing them from the budget or it might render the recently complete rate case study invalid.
“Does anybody see the logic in this with what we just approved,” Zess asked. “Now we have a deficit.”
Timms said it wasn’t a cause and effect type of thing and that the water utility had to be considered as a separate issue.
Zess argued that some of the salary for the new position would be taken from the water utility, so it did.
Timms said if the boad hadn’t “dragged its feet” on the rate study for the water utility and it had been done two years ago like it should have been, they wouldn’t be in this position.
The board approved the loan to cover the shortfall.
