Belmont selectmen acknowledge Paquette no longer employed by town by opening hunt for new finance director

Published Date

BELMONT — Selectmen authorized the town administrator to begin the search for a new finance director and in the process confirmed that former Finance Director Brenda Paquette is no longer employed by them.
Although no official reason for Paquette's departure has been given, according to documents made available through a Right-To-Know request to the Office of the Attorney General, Paquette had been reprimanded in October of 2012 for providing former Selectman David Morse with confidential information. She and Morse have a close personal relationship.
When Paquette gave the information to Morse and what the information concerned is not known to The Daily Sun.
Morse and Selectman candidate George Condodemetraky sought the assistance of the Attorney General and asked for his office to conduct a criminal investigation into the decade old actions of Town Administrator Jeanne Beaudin and Administrative Assistant Cary Legasse.
The two alleged that Beaudin and Legacy falsified information that allowed Beaudin ex-husband to stay on the town's insurance policy, under her name, in 1999 without getting his own policy under the provisions of the federal COBRA act.
The A.G. found there was, as a matter of law, no wrong-doing by either woman and closed their investigation, making it public under the provisions of the open documents clause of the Right-To-Know Law.
Don McLelland Sr., who was the town administrator at the time of Beaudin's divorce, said this week that during the time Beaudin and her ex husband divorced, the Local Government Center — the town's insurer — allowed divorced spouses to remain insured through their ex-spouses.
Morse and Condodemtraky's allegations stemmed from a settlement awarded to Selectman Chair Jon Pike because he was not allowed to remain on his ex-wife insurance, as was Beaudin.
In the interim, the town had adopted a policy that requires divorced spouses to get their own policy under to provisions of COBRA.
In addition, Paquette's ex-husband James is suing the town of Belmont in Belknap County Superior Court for the money he paid to get his own policy through COBRA after learning about Pike's settlement. The suit is ongoing and is tentatively scheduled for trial in early 2014.