Monterey Select Board
Minutes of the meeting of 12/5/11
Meeting Opened at: 6:00pm
Select Board Members Present: Wayne Burkhart, Chairperson and Jonathan Sylbert
Also in attendance for parts of the meeting: Maggie Leonard for the Monterey News, Peter Murkett, Daniel Moriarty (Finance Committee), Michael Storch (Finance Committee), Maynard Forbes, Gareth Backhaus and Michael Johnson
The board reviewed Director of Operations, Maynard Forbes’ weekly report for the week ending 12/3/11 which included:
1. Beaver dams
2. River Rd project
3. 2005 – 550; brakes and inspection
4. Replaced Bidwell Rd sign
5. Road closed signs put up for the winter
6. Repair soffit at Bally Gally
7. Clean ditches on River Rd and Main Rd, change basin tops to open throat
8. MASSDOT hearing on RT 23 paving
The board reviewed Police Chief, Gareth Backhaus’ weekly report for 11/21-12/4/11 which included:
Calls:
1. Assisted with a medical emergency on Main Rd.
2. Suspicious person reported on Cronk Rd; police could not locate the individual.
3. MVA on Main Rd; Operator left the scene and is being charged with several things.
4. Assisted fire department with a false alarm
5. Installed new circuit board in radar speed sign – now working.
6. Provided traffic control at a fire alarm on Tyringham Rd
7. Assisted with a lockout on New Marlboro Rd
8. Assisted National Grid with a service location on Hupi Woods Cir.
9. MVA on Tyringham Rd
10. Building check on Blue Hill Rd
11. Assisted a citizen on Pixley Rd
12. Attempted to serve a summons on Chestnut Hill Rd
False Alarms:
1. Hupi Rd
Miscellaneous Select Board Items Reviewed:
1. Peter Murkett stated he read the article in the Monterey News about the letter the Board was going to write to Senator Downing regarding the wind siting bill and wanted to offer his point of view on the matter. He stated that one thing that Green Berkshires continues to state that isn’t entirely correct is that local control gets lost under the terms of the bill. He was told by Senator Downing’s office that the soonest this legislature could move forward would be March. There is a meeting at Chrissey Farm on the 14th where it’s been rumored that Senator Downing will be making some sort of announcement on this legislation. Peter requested that the Board hold off on their letter to the Senator until he can draft a letter to the Board with another take on wind
siting; the Board agreed.
2. The minutes from 11.21.11 were approved as written.
3. Warrants were signed.
4. The Board reviewed the expense reports left by the Accountant.
5. The Board reviewed the 3 flag submissions that received the most public votes but held off on making a decision until next week when Scott would be here to submit his vote.
6. Inter-Departmental Secretary’s weekly report reviewed.
The Finance Committee and employees met to continue discussions on the benefits and compensation offered to full-time employees. A letter with additional supporting surveys was presented to the Board by Melissa Noe respectfully requesting that the Board leave the current benefits package (sick, personal, vacation, holidays and insurance splits/plans, things that all towns currently offer) as is and continue to work with the employees on adding additional benefits, salary increases, steps, contracts, etc. (things other towns offer that Monterey does not) based on the documentation she provided that showed that none of the towns can be compared equally as the populations, tax rates, average tax bills, number of employees in a department, hours worked, job duties, job responsibilities, etc. were not the same in any 2
towns. She stated that in order to compare apples to apples we would all have to be responsible for the same things, work the same hours, and maintain the same miles of roads and households and this just isn’t the case.
The Board reviewed the additional information collected on boot and clothing allowances for surrounding highway departments and on-call pay for the midnight to 8am shift for surrounding police departments. The only information still needed is the surrounding towns that offer an on-call stipend to highway departments. Chief Backhaus explained that it’s really difficult to compare the Monterey Police Department with those in the survey as 4 of them use the State Police as the responding agency and 4 of them have full time departments where all shifts are patrolled. The Chief stated that the only other town similar to ours that is full patrolled by their own force and doesn’t rely on the State Police is West Stockbridge and they do offer a stipend to the officers on call for that overnight
shift. Monterey is requesting $100/week per person which would total an additional $5,200/year. The Chief noted that when comparing the full time officer salaries the Board should be aware that the full time position/salary for Egremont is “introductory” because a lot of the staff there works for about a year and then moves on to another town. Jon noted that Sheffield, Egremont and Stockbridge all have police departments that cover all shifts in a patrol car and all of their employees are paid more than Monterey so if the Board agreed to add the on call stipend at $5,200/yr that is still considerably lower than the surrounding towns that are covering shifts 24hrs/7 days a week. Everyone agreed to add this benefit contingent upon an entire benefits package being agreed upon.
With regards to boot and clothing allowances offered: the prices ranged from $150/year for boots and uniforms were provided and cleaned to $550/yr total for each employee for boots and clothing. Monterey is the only town in our survey that doesn’t offer uniforms or a clothing/boot allowance. The highway department is requesting $400/per year per person clothing allowance to buy boots and clothing as needed. The highway department currently buys jackets every couple of years for all the employees under the town garage line item; which Jon wasn’t aware of and stated that in fact the $400 is actually more.
Everyone discussed the proposal to add an on-call pay for the highway members from Nov – Mar of $150 per person which would total $3,000/yr. Michael had an issue with this as the crew receives overtime to work the storms. Maynard explained that this is to compensate the highway members for remaining nearby in the winter months so that they are readily available for any storms. The highway crew can not make any plans in the winter because they are on call 24/7; this stipend is to ensure that the crew is available. Everyone agreed to add this benefit contingent upon seeing the survey results next week and an entire benefits package being agreed upon.
Maynard stated that he felt he knew where Scott and Jon stood on the health insurance split but wanted to know where Wayne stood because he hasn’t commented much on it. Wayne stated that he’d stay with the current 90/10 split and this has been his feeling from the start.
Adding contracts for employees for either a year or three year terms was discussed. Jon stated he didn’t know how to do this since salaries are approved at town meeting. Maynard noted that Gt. Barrington, New Marlborough and Sandisfield have contracts with salary increases in them as does the school. Jon felt that we just needed to come up with a procedure for determining how to give COLA’s and merit raises. Dan asked if the Board would be receptive to the Finance Committee resubmitting the step chart they created several years ago with updated numbers; the Board was receptive to reviewing this again. Last week Wayne had noted that in a town of 7 full time employees it becomes difficult to have performance reviews and Jon agreed and felt that it would be difficult to follow
through on. Michael questioned why the employees are seeking to have contracts and Maynard stated that it is because of how things were handled last year; no COLA’s and/or salary increases, no communication with the employees and the employees don’t want this to happen again. The employees feel that a step program and contracts will create a sense of security and guarantee communications between the Boards and employees.
Maynard noted that it’s difficult to compare his department with surrounding departments because most other Superintendents don’t plow snow as he does, most other towns have a separate person that handles maintenance and in Monterey this falls under his department so none of the departments handle the same things or have the same amount of staff.
Jon asked how long all of the employees have been with Monterey in trying to determine the steps and longevity bonuses. Maynard stated his employees have been here for 22, 20, 15 and 11 years. Gareth’s employees have been here for 18 and 2 years.
The Board and employees agreed to meet again next week to continue their discussions.
A motion was made and unanimously approved to adjourn the meeting at: 7:50pm
Submitted by:
Melissa Noe, Inter-Departmental Secretary via audio recording
Approved by:
Monterey Select Board
Select Board Members
Minutes Book
| 
