On Nov. 4 the New Gloucester Board of Selectmen voted to go into executive session to discuss an organizational change at the Town Office to help ease entry for a new, not-yet-chosen town manager.
Once the secret discussion ended, the board voted 3-2 — in public — to trim the bookkeeper’s position from 40 hours to 24 hours per week, with an associated reduction in benefits, and to create an interim finance director position.
The finance position will be paid from savings from the bookkeeper’s position and from the town’s administrative account.
The change is designed to assist whomever is hired as the town’s new manager once its current manager, Sumner M. Field III, retires later this year.
The reason, according to the board, is the need to tackle additional financial duties in billing for the new ambulance transport service (which started Monday), billing for the new $2.4 million public water system (established earlier this year) and assisting with paperwork when changing banks once the new town manager is hired.
Believing more paperwork demands more oversight, the board discussed and then acted on a plan to reduce one job and create another.
Too bad the discussion part of this decision-making process was done during an improper executive session.
Maine law is clear that any discussion to create jobs, eliminate jobs, set pay for jobs, set hours for jobs, set benefits for jobs and set duties for jobs must be done in open session. That’s because creating jobs, eliminating jobs, setting pay for jobs, setting hours for jobs, setting benefits for jobs and setting duties for jobs is all about the budget, and any discussion about the public’s money must be done in a public forum.
Before New Gloucester’s board convened the executive session, it sought legal advice about the propriety of discussing staff reduction in secret. The board was told it could discuss “employment, assessment and duties of employees” in executive session under Maine’s Freedom of Access Act.
While Maine’s FOAA does allow certain personnel matters to be discussed in private, that allowance is conditional and may be done only if public discussion could result in damage to the reputation of a specific employee or result in an invasion of an employee’s privacy.
So, generally speaking, this allowance for executive session is reserved to discuss poor job performance, complaints or discipline against a particular employee — issues that might embarrass a person. And, when there is potential for embarrassment or invasion of privacy, the employee must be permitted to be present. Employees may waive the executive session if they want, but they’re supposed to be in the room when their job performances are being discussed.
Seems fair, right?
Bookkeeper Sandy Sacco, who has worked for the town for a quarter-century, wasn’t invited to attend the Nov. 4 meeting, so we can be certain the board couldn’t possibly have been discussing or assessing her job performance.
The board was, by members’ own admission, merely discussing the structure of the town’s various employment positions, which is open-session stuff.
In fact, drafters of Maine’s FOAA went out of their way to ensure that budget discussions regarding employment — which include discussions about hours and pay to create and fund a new position, and hours and pay to trim an existing position — be held openly. They included specific language in statute disallowing secret talks about anything that has to do with a budget or budget proposal.
If there is any confusion, it can easily be cleared up by simply reading the legislative record on this point.
The relevant passage, from 1987, in reference to deliberations permitted behind closed doors reads:
“Section 2 of this bill [adding a prohibition on discussion of budget or budget proposal in executive session] resolves a question over the practice of going into executive session to discuss items such as budget proposals when the line item under discussion may be the salary for a particular job or set of jobs. It seems clear that [1 MRSA 405(6)(A)] was intended to protect individuals from embarrassment that might result if the quality of their performance or charges of misconduct were discussed in public. Frequently, however, public bodies have used this limited authorization as a reason to go into executive session when the topic for discussion is not a particular employee, but whether a particular job should continue to exist. The latter kind of discussion is a budget discussion and should be treated as such and held in public.”
That’s Maine lawmakers’ express directive, and not open to interpretation.
Last Friday and again Monday, the Sun Journal filed a formal objection to the New Gloucester Board of Selectmen’s secret Nov. 4 discussion, detailing the clear distinction between the need to shield employees from embarrassment if they’re doing a bad job and the public’s right to know how the town is spending tax funds on employee salaries and benefits.
Then, during Monday evening’s meeting, some 25 citizens spent nearly two hours voicing their objections to the secrecy of the Nov. 4 session, pleading with selectmen to reverse the job restructuring that resulted from the improper session.
The selectmen held firm, voting 3-2 to uphold the action.
We understand public scrutiny can be painful, and it would probably always be easier for public officials to talk about difficult decisions in secret, but the fact is that when town officials talk about how to spend the public’s money, on what and how much, the public has an absolute and unfettered right to access.
That right was denied in New Gloucester.
jmeyer@sunjournal.com
The opinions expressed in this column reflect the views of the ownership and the editorial board.
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