Wages, Benefits, Perks...

In the world of business, publicly traded companies answer to stock holders who wish a well run, profitable company. Stockholders buy shares and look for dividends, a reward for their investment or shares of stock. In a municipality, taxpayers look for dividends as well, as a reward for their investment or shares as in their tax dollars, their excise taxes and other local fees. Their reward they expect or wish is the services provided as in decent schools, decent roads and someone their when they call or visit places such as Town hall. In a privately held company their are CEO's, boards of directors, chief financial officers, etc., who are charged with making and keeping a company profitable so as to pay dividends. In a Town such as Templeton, we have a Town Administrator who is charged with day to day business, we have CEO', as in Board of Selectmen and we have a board of directors, as in Town meeting. In municipal government, selectmen are often referred to as the executive branch with Town Meeting being the legislative branch in that they generally okay the allocation and spending of Town funds, (taxpayer money) and there is where employment perks come into play because those perks, whatever they may be, are expenses of running the business that is a Town. It does not matter what adjective you use to refer to them or how they are arrived at or whether you are for or against, think they are too much or too little or what the purpose they serve, such as an added incentive because of perceived low wages. Any extra benefit or job perk is an expaens of that position or department and there fore should be in the discussion of budget because someone has to pay for them and those additional items take up a piece of the money pie.

Templeton does have a Town Administrator who is authorized by the Board of Selectmen to perform certain tasks to include union negotiations, but as is said often in the military, one can delegate authority but not responsibility, so no selectmen, past or present can or should just point to the Town Administrator as the one who is responsible for any signed agreements involving the Town. I believe if you check state law and/or Templeton by-laws, you find the BOS are the ones who are responsible for signing contracts and all things legal, which I do believe includes collective bargaining. After all, how can selectmen, present or past,  say they are the ones responsible for a budget if they do not take part and okay a final collective bargaining agreement? A Town Administrator is not there for selectmen to toss everything into his/her lap so as to resolve themselves of any involvement when the light gets shined on something they may wish had remained in the dark. There are some rules contained in the Open Meeting Law that deals with those issues.

Jeff Bennett