Featherbedding And Ignorance At Southbridge Town Hall

Ken O’Brien

Featherbedding.

To those unfamiliar with the term it gained currency in the days when trade unions defended maintaining positions that were viewed as no longer necessary by the management of passenger and freight railways operators.

The Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary defines the term as follows:

The requiring of an employer usually under a union rule or safety statute to hire more employees than are needed or to limit production.

Note that the definition says, “usually under a union rule or safety statute”. However, that need not always be the case. Essentially the term featherbedding is commonly used these days to indicate hiring more people than needed to perform any given task. By logical extension, it can also mean employing someone for more hours or for greater pay than is necessary.

In this context it is revealing to take into consideration recent comments by current (and soon departing) Southbridge Town Manager Christiopher Clark and Town Council Chairman David Langevin.

A December 12, 2013 Worcester Telegram article titled Retired Leicester administrator could get interim post in Southbridge by Brian Lee reported on the plan to retain retired Leicester town administrator Robert T. Reed as interim Southbridge Town Manager.

Mr. Reed's asking rate "is a good deal," Mr. Clark said.
"He only asked for $1,000 a week, to work two to three days," Mr. Clark said, adding that Mr. Reed, if appointed, would be given use of the town-issued Dodge Nitro Mr. Clark drives.
"When you're retired, you're limited as to how much you can make," Mr. Reed said. "Under my circumstances, that works out okay."
Mr. Clark and Mr. Reed have already discussed complicated matters the latter would inherit, such as the stalled negotiations with Charlton to continue buying water from Southbridge, and the always controversial landfill that Casella Waste Systems runs on Barefoot Road. …
Per the town charter, Accountant Karen S. Harois [sic] is the acting Southbridge manager, but "that's a lot for one person to do two jobs, especially this job, with a higher intensity level than most," Mr. Clark said. …

Councilors are slated to meet with Mr. Reed and review his résumé a half-hour before Monday's meeting. Mr. Langevin said Ms. Marcucci will lead the meeting in his absence.

If hired, Mr. Reed would be asked to serve six months or less, Mr. Langevin said. 

At the last meeting of the Town Council Chairman Langevin made a similar announcement without divulging the name of the candidate.

Before getting into the featherbedding issue, let’s first deal with the abject ignorance (or at least misrepresentation) of the terms of the town charter.

Section 7 of the Town Charter reads as follows:

SECTION 7 - ACTING TOWN MANAGER

4-7-1:  During the absence or disability of the town manager, an acting town manager shall be appointed by the council to perform the duties of the town manager.  Any vacancy in the office of the town manager shall be filled as soon as possible by the town council.  The term of service of any person as acting town manager may not exceed twelve months.  Compensation for such person shall be set by the town council.  Except as otherwise prohibited by this charter, nothing in this section shall prevent an acting town manager from being appointed as town manager.

During a period of absence or disability of the town manager, pending the appointment of an acting town manager, the finance director shall perform the duties of the manager, provided however that an acting manager who is not a member of the council shall be appointed by the council as soon as possible.

Lest there be any misunderstanding, the framers of the charter added the following note:

Note 6:  The finance director’s performance of the duties of the manager in Section 4-7-1 is intended to last only as long as it takes the Council to appoint an acting town manager.

This clearly contradicts the statement in the Telegram article by Mr. Clark that, “Per the town charter, Accountant Karen S. Harois [sic] is the acting Southbridge manager.”

Similarly, it is contrary to the statement by Chairman Langevin, “...according to the charter Mrs. Harnois is the one that would be taking over, but we all know that during budget season it’s very difficult, her plate is full, so with that being said we want to bring in an interim person just possibly for two, three days a week to take some of the demands off her until we get our next town manager in place.”

Beyond this abject ignorance of the terms of the Town Charter is an even more revealing element of these comments.

The above cited article from the Worcester Telegram has the comment, “Mr. Reed's asking rate ‘is a good deal,’ Mr. Clark said.
‘He only asked for $1,000 a week, to work two to three days,’ Mr. Clark said”

In his Chairman’s remarks Mr. Langevin stated, “we want to bring in an interim person just possibly for two, three days a week”.

In the Telegram article he elaborates that, “If hired, Mr. Reed would be asked to serve six months or less, Mr. Langevin said.”

That leaves open the question of what would happen if it takes longer to find a permanent Town Manager. As the Charter says in the section cited above, “The term of service of any person as acting town manager may not exceed twelve months.” I would note that the prior town manager search committee provided five or six names to the council and by the time it came down to a vote only Mr. Clark had not withdrawn his name.

But I digress. If we need an acting town manager for only two or three days a week, why are we saddled with paying for a full-timer? If we can get someone with experience to do this job on an adequate basis for $52,000 per year (pro-rated, and not counting benefits), why are we paying more?

One need only look at the expansion in Mr. Clark’s staff during his tenure to understand why this can be. It is featherbedding pure and simple. And it is our tax dollars that are underwriting this largesse.

We recently learned that, unless we expand the landfill, we will lose approximately $2.4 million per year in revenues. How will we continue to finance the bloated town bureaucracy with all their benefits if and when this happens?

Perhaps Mr. Reed is a wise choice. The 2011 Town Report of Leicester noted:

For several years in this Town Report we have started off describing the difficult financial situation the Town faces and next year will be no different….

Leicester, along with all other cities and towns across the Commonwealth, continues to face the challenge of maintaining high quality services to the residents of the community in the face of insufficient and in many cases declining revenues, particularly state aid. Due to the decline in the economy we saw other important revenue sources, such as local receipts (made up of auto excise tax revenue, fees, licenses and other departmental income) and new growth decline severely as well. These types of cuts in revenue are not sustainable if the Town is to maintain staffing and service levels….

Our projections show very difficult days ahead if we do not realize additional revenue sources; particularly from the state. Some cuts in services have already been made, such as snow and ice removal and sidewalk cleaning, but in the face of the drastic revenue decreases we expect more such cuts will be made if we are to keep offering essential services to the citizens of Leicester.

Perhaps good use can be made of Mr. Reed’s experience in Leicester in dealing with the need to trim overhead while there is still time to minimize the pain of adjustment.

The impact of an acting Town Manager should not be minimized. For those who have forgotten, it was the last acting Town Manager, John Healey, who issued a side letter that altered the effective date of the Casella contract preventing it from being rescinded.

Of course we can proceed as we always have, much as the proverbial ostrich with our head in the sand. In that case we can swallow up the revenues from our dump until we have no choice but to kiss the airport goodbye and make the dump an even bigger community landmark. 

That would be a full-hearted endorsement of ignorance and featherbedding by our town council – at least until there is no more place to let others dump their garbage.