Selectmen’s Work Session
December 19, 2013
Present: John Allen, Chairman; Bob Thompson (joined at 3:58 p.m.) and Bill Lockard, Selectmen
Visitors: Office Administrator Julie Atwell, Videographer Hank Benesh, Police Chief Karl Meyers
Chairman John Allen called the Work Session to order at 3:48 p.m.; Chief Karl Meyers joined the Board.
Part-time Officer Opening Chief Meyers noted Officer Synnott has resigned her position but is staying on as ACO. Chief Meyers would like to offer the part-time position to Michael Chapman. Mike has resided in town for several years and purchased a house last month. He has an outstanding background all the way around. If approved, Mike will go through training at no cost to Jackson. Chairman Allen would like to know if there are any other associated costs for a new hire. Chief Meyers noted training is held at the Littleton campus twice a week and in Concord on Saturdays; Jackson gives them a tank of gas as a small offset. The Board authorizes Chief Meyers to offer the position to Mike; no motion is needed.
Police Budget Review Chief Meyers noted there are many lines that have remained the same; he reviewed each line; only those with discussion are noted.
Cruiser This March the Department will be rotating out the 2009 cruiser as part of its normal maintenance schedule. The Cruiser Expendable Trust Fund has twenty-seven-thousand dollars in it; Chief Meyers is requesting fifteen-thousand dollars to get the amount up to forty-three-thousand dollars. He doesn’t anticipate using all of that. Tahoe dimensions are the same so he should be able to transfer a lot of the equipment over to the new cruiser. Chairman Allen noted this line was ten-thousand-dollars. Chief Meyers noted the request for this line has gone from ten to twenty-thousand dollars; in the year that a cruiser is needed the Department typically puts in what is needed. Rotated cruisers are sold by sealed bid and those funds are returned to the
town coffers. The last one sold for fifty-five-hundred dollars; they see a lot of time but are still worth a lot.
Part-time Officer Chief Meyers would like to increase this line from four-thousand to five-thousand dollars because the part-officer has to put in hours for training before he can be on-duty alone. When asked if this would be reduced next year, Chief Meyers noted he’d like to keep it at five-thousand. Selectman Thompson would like to see this posted. Chief Meyers noted the biggest thing is that the employee has to be a good fit for Jackson; Mike’s just about perfect; he feels it’s better to hire Mike than to post the position and seek applicants. Jackson needs to have an increase in hours when there are more folks up here during the winter and to cover special events like the Wild Quack Duck Race.
Animal Control Officer Chief Meyers noted the stipend was five-hundred dollars and it ran out in August. Since that time ACO Synnott has not been used except for a little bit. He would like to increase this line by six-hundred dollars to eleven-hundred. Selectman Lockard had thought it would take five-thousand dollars due to the complexity of dealing with the dog-licensing issue but Chief Meyers thinks he can knock that down to two-thousand. (Selectman Thompson joined). It would save taxpayer dollars if folks would just license their dogs voluntarily. The plan would be to fund this at eleven-hundred and then attach two-thousand dollars to a licensing compliance ordinance if it passes at town vote. Selectman Thompson would like to know how Chief
Meyers came up with six-hundred dollars versus five-hundred or seven-hundred. Chief Meyers noted the budget ran out in August so he doubled the stipend and then added a hair over.
Overtime Chief Meyers is asking for an increase of eight-thousand dollars to this line. Selectman Lockard noted the overtime budget ran out in August so Officers have been working for free since then; by law, they can’t do that; they raided the part-time budget to cover this. The Police have been directed not to do that. The funds have to be paid and more added for next year. There are many reasons for this; there are court appearances that are delayed multiple times, time off, trainings and motor vehicle accidents all add to this. Most of these occur at night which is “on-call” time. There has been a twenty percent increase in court proceeding and there have been more alarms.
Wages Chief Meyers is asking to increase this by twenty-eight thousand dollars. Pay increases of four-percent have already been spoken about and Chief Meyers is okay with four-percent but he came to the realization the other two officers are grossly below what they should be paid; these guys are so underpaid it will take a seventeen percent increase to bring them up to where they should be. It is important to retain these guys rather than to constantly start over with new folks. Because Jackson has kept its Officers Sean is a certified firearms trainer and Doug is a state certified court prosecutor; those are big things that Jackson didn’t have; these Officers know the people and the town. Other towns want to talk to them; they are valuable; when one tacks on
these specialties, these guys are going to look at other chief openings. Chief Meyers noted Jackson needs to keep these guys here and it’s important to bring them up to where they should be. Officer Cowland has been with Jackson for nine years and Officer Jette has been with Jackson for five years. Chief Meyers noted that on December 8th at 2 a.m. the call came in for a domestic disturbance with one party reported to be intoxicated with a gun. Both Officers responded; the State Troopers were called but were in the southern part of the county. The subject was arrested and the gun was seized. Jackson is asking these guys to go from asleep to sixty miles per hour; they know how to handle this type of situation.
Selectman Lockard sat down and discussed the increase with Chief Meyers; he is the new guy and the other guys have been at this longer than he has but he’d wants to look at this without the emotion of trying to keep these people. Chief Meyers is asking for a thirteen percent and nine and three-quarters percent increases on top of the four percent already planned. It’s the economics of this request. He recognizes this is a difficult process and is sensitive that the Selectmen have to address the issue that Chief Meyers wants to keep these people; it’s a seesaw of what is reasonable. The percent is what everyone is going to look at and while they are deserving of it; that’s a huge percent. Clearly the budget should have gone up more in 2011 and 2012 and
that’s why he thought a four-percent increase over a couple of years would address that.
The Board would like to see where Jackson’s Officers stack up on a state level. Chief Meyers noted they are grossly underpaid but doesn’t have the rate of pay for an officer with that much experience in a small town in New Hampshire. The Board knows there will be people that won’t support this. Chief Meyers is to call other towns to get that information for the Board.
Selectman Thompson thinks it might help everyone’s chances with this to look at it in incremental changes. Having been the police liaison last year Selectman Thompson noted there is no question the Officers are worth it. If Jackson doesn’t take care of its staff then they might as well increase the training budget. Is Jackson happy with the service it’s getting? Selectman Thompson is; he believes by and large, people are. The Selectmen have to look at this strategically with the Chief’s clock ticking toward retirement; if Jackson loses these officers at the same time then Jackson loses its ability to enforce the law in this town and that will cost a lot more than twenty-eight thousand dollars. If the Board has hard numbers about the rate of pay
for Officers then it can put together a plan to get up there.
Selectman Lockard noted the reality is the reality; he is an anti-tax guy but he won’t do this on the back of Jackson’s Police Department. Selectman Thompson noted he has never, as an elected public official in this town, not supported staff increases; Jackson’s greatest asset is the people working for the town. There should be an incremental way to make it work for everybody. Chairman Allen likes this plan too; he’d ask the Police Department to bear some portion of this to take the edge off. The Board will try to get the Officers where they should be but not in one year. Selectman Thompson would like to be able to present a strategic plan to increase their pay over the next two to three years and it will be helpful to see figures from comparable
towns. Office Administrator Atwell has the rate of pay information from the LGC; she’ll print it off and send it to the Selectmen.
The Board adjourned the Work Session at 4:29 p.m.
Respectfully submitted by:
Martha D. Tobin
Recording Secretary
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