Gilford selectmen want outside opinion on clerk's staff needs

GILFORD — In the wake of a vote of the deliberative session of Town Meeting last month to increase the 2012 budget for the Town Clerk Tax Collectors Office, selectmen have asked for a staffing review of that office.

Listed as a topic of discussion on the agenda at Wednesday’s Board of Selectman’s meeting, the board decided to table the commissioning of an outside study until they could review a 2004 Municipal Resources, Inc. report that reviewed the personnel needs for every department within Gilford.

“I had forgotten about that study,” said Selectman Kevin Hayes when Town Clerk Tax Collector Denise Gonyer presented them the portion that concerned her office.

Selectman’s Chair John O’Brien, who had initiated the discussion with Town Administrator Scott Dunn via e-mail after the deliberative session vote, said he wasn’t a selectman in 2004 and didn’t realize the comprehensive study was available.

The Town Clerk Tax Collector’s Office has four full-time employees, including Gonyer – who is elected – and a deputy TC/TC. There is one part-time employee who works an average of 22 hours a week and one volunteer who works an average of six hours a week and typically only helps to prepare the month-end numbers.

As part of the 2012 budget development, Selectmen had asked Gonyer – as well as all of the other town departments – to identify and make recommendations as to where or what positions could be eliminated or reduced so as to reduce the bottom-line budget.

Gonyer said she would be able to reduce one full-time employee to 24 hours per week, without health insurance. Selectmen, however, chose to eliminate one of the full-time positions altogether. The reduction was reflected in the spending plan sent to the Budget Committee.

With Bonyer making a personal appeal, the Budget Committee voted to reinstate $12,200 to her budget and took a like amount from the Department of Planning and Land Use. The change was reflected in the budget that ultimately went before the deliberative session.

According to Gonyer, she was informed by Town Administrator Scott Dunn that selectmen would spend the money in the Planning Department anyway but that he would support her request for an additional 24-hour a week employee if she went before the deliberative session and got an additional $12,200 for her department.

So she did.

Opposing Gonyer’s motion at the deliberative session was Hayes, who wanted voters to understand that selectmen had offered to share one full-time person between the Planning Department and the Town Clerk Tax Collector’s Office but Gonyer had rejected the suggestion because the person in the land use position earned nearly $4 per hour more than did any of her employees and she felt it would be bad for moral.

The vote was close but Gonyer's amendment to the bottom line was passed by the deliberative body and is included in the bottom line Budget Committee’s recommended budget on the 2012 warrant.

E-mails provided yesterday indicate Dunn, at the request of O’Brien, solicited both MRI and the Local Government Center for information as to whether each organization was equipped to conduct a personnel needs assessment of Gonyer's office and how much it would cost.

Learning MRI could perform the study for about $2,000, Dunn told O’Brien that the discussion and vote to spend the money on a study was one for public discussion and he would recommend an open vote and discussion of the board before finalizing any contract.

Under New Hampshire law, selectmen have the authority to spend the amount budgeted for the year as long as they don’t exceed the bottom line appropriation – with the exception of a special warrant articles.

Gonyer said she respects and understands the legal authority of the selectmen but said the voters specifically voted to keep the 24-hour position in her office.

“I made it very clear that I need these 24 hours and the voters said they want these 24 hours in 2012 in the Town Clerk Tax Collector’s Office,” she said yesterday.

A Right-To-Know request for all e-mails on the subject between selectmen, Gonyer and Dunn was made yesterday afternoon by The Daily Sun. Gonyer responded late yesterday afternoon and the town has five business days to reply to the request.