Town Manager Dave Richards Advertisement

Town Manager Dave Richards received a 2 percent merit increase, retroactive to June 2007, with the board's approval of a resolution accepting his performance evaluation summary.

Both the amount of the increase, less than the 4 percent Richards has traditionally received, and the retroactive date spurred discussion among the board and the public.

The board voted 4-1 for the increase at its Tuesday, Jan. 8, meeting.

The evaluations ranked Richards' work from July 1, 2006, to June 30, 2007, and ultimately deemed his work satisfactory on 14 points ranging from written communication to "career development."

On Wednesday, Richards said he was disappointed by the board's decision.

"I don't understand why it's only 2 percent," he said. "And even more curious, I don't understand why it's only retroactive to June."

At the meeting the night before, the town manager conceded it was ultimately up to the board as to how much the increase would be, but he did point out that the town's personnel manual called for step increases.

Those increases are not on an established schedule -- the policy was approved but a specific schedule never was -- Richards told the board that the administrative staff generally received an annual merit increase of up to 4 percent.

"Normally, if the staff meets expectations, they get the 4 percent," Richards explained.

In addition, he pointed out the town manager's employment agreement provides for annual wage and benefit adjustments, and previous town boards have made the increase effective on Richards' hiring date of Jan. 20.

Richards explained the town's personnel policy did not mention fiscal years or calendars, but referred to the employee's hiring anniversary date.

For that reason, he said, his past merit increases went all the way back to January even though the increase wasn't usually approved until long after the start of the year.

"That's been standard," Richards said.

Chairman Laurayne Murray, however, seemed to disagree with using the past as a valid measuring stick.

"That's the discussion that we started several months ago," Murray said. "And we determined that the town does not follow the personnel policy, and that in fact we do not do step advancements at all, so that whole part of the policy has not been followed for town employees per se."

However, Murray did concede the town manager's employment agreement did obligate the town to consider cost of living adjustments and consider other benefits.

"So based on that, determining the current policy where merit increases are given consideration on an annual basis for all other employees of the town, an amount of 2 percent could be considered by the board for a merit increase."

She added that cost of living increases had already been issued, which made Richards' actual increase about 5 percent total.

Board Member Dan Sprouse, who gave Richards higher rankings than the other board members, voted against approving the resolution.

"I felt he probably should've gotten the 4 percent," Sprouse said after the meeting. "I couldn't justify giving him higher marks and then not giving him the whole raise."

In addition, Sprouse said he felt the evaluation process could be improved by adding a meeting where an action plan for improvement was written for the employee being evaluated. He said he was working to bring that into the process.

Local resident Dave Stevens vehemently disagreed with the board's decision.

"He should get the 4 percent," Stevens said. "These people who work for the city have no grievance committee. Be fair for goodness sake," he said.

"This is the best town manager that I have seen in this town that we have ever had," Art Jones said. "And he's still around and he's taken a whole lot from this town."

Charlie Gronda, a former town board member himself, told Murray the evaluation was more complex than necessary and didn't need to encompass 14 categories.

"I've been through many of these in my career, and I just looked at this and it didn't make any sense to me," Gronda said. "I think some of this could have been put together and it could have been more simple."

"They wait until October to even do my evaluation, and then they don't give me credit for six months of work," Richards said Wednesday. "But they're the board and I live by their decision."