Weekly Roundup - Norwich News, for week ending March 2, 2013

Dresden Election Brochures Are MIA

Informational brochures about the election and annual meeting mailers were late going in the mail.  I guess the dog ate the memo. Read the brochure here. Valley News Staffer Sarah Brubeck reports about the annual  meeting in the story below.
Dresden Contracts Questioned
By Sarah Brubeck, Valley News Staff Writer
March 1, 2013
Hanover — The number of School Board members rivaled the number of attendees at last night’s annual meeting for the Dresden budget, and it might have been because people didn’t receive mailers announcing the meeting.
At the end of last night’s hour-long meeting, former School Board member Kari Asmus took to the microphone and criticized the board for not getting information out to voters in a timely fashion.
The School Board decided not to mail out annual reports to each household this year because they are expensive and many residents toss them aside.
Instead, annual reports are available at town halls, libraries and the SAU 70 office, and small informational mailers would be sent out.
When Asmus didn’t receive a mailer before last night’s meeting, she was a little taken aback. But she shrugged it off and said she thought, “Oh well. I can come to this meeting and learn what I need to learn.”
So she headed to Hanover High School, but to her surprise, the doors were locked. Without the mailer, she hadn’t realized that the meeting had been moved to Richmond Middle School.

Read the rest of the story.
LINKS:
http://www.sau70.org/budgets/13-14_budget/brochures/Dresden_Brochure.v3a.pdf
http://www.vnews.com/news/schools/4767060-95/board-contract-meeting-teachers

Opinion

Does democracy suffer when the Town Manager has an agenda? Is the ballot box an adequate remedy?
Column: Direct Democracy Is Struggling in Norwich and Other Towns
Watt Alexander, For the Valley News
February 26, 2013
“Practice makes perfect,” it’s often said, but surely not in reference to democracy. We’re clearly not getting any better at it.

The democratic debate over competing interests — from New England town meeting to state legislatures to the U.S. Congress — remains as fractious and messy as ever. Messier, maybe, as that democratic debate is increasingly filtered through a vast and growing bureaucratic layer of government administrative roles and regulation.

Indeed, throughout the Upper Valley, New England’s experiment with direct democracy is giving way to a more modern, suburban bureaucracy. More and more town meetings are replacing customary floor debates and votes with annual Australian ballots. Volunteer selectboards cede ever more authority to professional administrators, signaling that American government, even in small communities, may no longer be a matter for amateurs.

Here in Norwich, our experiment with professional administration began in 2002 when we hired our first town manager. Barely 10 years later, convulsed by a series of public controversies, we’re on to our fourth town manager with new controversies brewing. While the details of these spats are fascinating to the participants — and make for good Valley News headlines — the underlying struggle they signify is relevant to all of your readers: Where do we, the amateur citizen-taxpayers, fit within this increasingly bureaucratized democracy?

Read the rest of the story.
LINK:
http://www.vnews.com/opinion/columns/4692948-95/town-democracy-manager-selectboard

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Wage Increases In The Budget Are Way Too Much

Seven full-time Town employees that primarily work from Tracy Hall will be receiving raises that average over 16%, if the budget is approved by voters.  For context, police officers in Norwich are getting a 3.68% increase in pay.  My Social Security check went up 1.7% this year.  Wall Street bonuses rose 8% in 2012.

Call me a Tea Party wannabe, but those bumps (jumps!) in pay strike me as imprudent. Norwich faces significant but not budgeted expenditures in the coming years: $200,000 for communication gear on the Tower (with or without VTel), at least $500,000 for record restoration, and $2 million for a new police and fire station. These are spread over years but the cumulative budget impact is unknown. 

The uncertainty is not just for big ticket items.  Union contracts expire this June.  We might add hours for an assistant Town Clerk. In addition, the Town Manager wants to let employees choose cash in lieu of benefits, which no doubt will cost the Town more.  And, health care costs in 2014 will be more uncertain than usual as Norwich is required to be part of a health exchange.  

The Condrey and Associates report was not cheap, costing $15,000. Norwich has 20 full-time employees, 9 of which are in a union.  Why did  the Town need to hire an international consulting firm to develop a plan for 11 non-union workers? That is over $1300 per employee. 

Admittedly, the study covered union and part-time employees, making the total 29.  But if Norwich needs an expert from afar to set part-time wages, then the Town Manager is not doing his job.  Union pay is set through negotiations, not by reference to a study. 

The Town did not hire a consultant for advice on economic terms with VTel.  Negotiating a tower lease must be at least as complicated as setting wages.

Town Manager Fulton wanted a classification and compensation plan to treat employees uniformly. He told me that a prior Town Manager had gone “local and cheap” and got little to show for it, wasting $6000. However, as noted in the Valley News, getting Norwich to adopt a step-and-grade compensation plan is a project Mr. Fulton "has been working on since 2002,” when he was on the Selectboard.  Was it needed? If so, a flawed consultant’s report is not the way to go. 

For critiques of the Condrey and Associates report, check out the Finance Committee listserv post on March 1, Harry Roberts letter to the Selectboard on November 30,  my blog post from January 17 and the charts on the municipalities surveyed by Condrey and Associates and on the percent increase in pay.

How did the Selectboard and Town Manager respond to the outcry about jumps in pay? They reduced spending by $50,000.  But only $4800 was cut from salaries -- less than 1.4% of the amounts involved and only from three employees. Seven employees are getting big increases.   The Selectboard approved the budget by a 3-2 vote. (Moran and Cook voted no).

The elephant in the room is the Town Manager's pay.  At over $97,000, he makes nearly 23% more than the next highest employee.  The pay is a stretch for Norwich but circumstances support it. But, it is not a basis to give big raises to others, particularly when the Finance Committee cannot justify the increases after looking at market data. Similarly, if the Town is overpaying some employees, that needs to be sorted out over time.   Defter management and Selectboard vigilance for taxpayers seems a better course than simply handing out big raises.

To me, it almost appears as if  some members of the Selectboard are afraid to say “no” to the Town Manager, rather than fight for the taxpayers. Telling is the action of the Selectboard regarding the Town Manager's pay.  On January 9, the Selectboard approved a cost of living increase. Town Manager Fulton said the increase was “unacceptable” and reflected poorly on his performance, because it  was $614 less than the “scale” set by Condrey and Associates. CATV [01/09/13 Selectboard, minute 211- 220]; Valley News.  

At the next meeting on January 16.  the Town Manager presented a revised budget, making the cuts in  the dollar amount - $50000 - the Selectboard requested.  What was ADDED to the budget was the full amount the Town Manager wanted, not the lesser amount the Selectboard had approved by a vote a week earlier. No member of the Selectboard called the Town Manager out on this action.  

LINKS:

http://catv8.org/videos-demand.html 

http://lists.valley.net/lists/arc/norwich/2013-03/msg00017.html

http://norwich.vt.us/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/SBc121130-Roberts.pdf

http://norwichobserver.blogspot.com/2013/01/salary-study-by-condrey-associates.html

http://norwichobserver.blogspot.com/2013/02/towns-in-salary-study.html

http://norwichobserver.blogspot.com/2013/02/percent-increase-in-wages.html

http://www.vnews.com/news/3766559-95/fulton-budget-selectboard-town

http://www.vnews.com/news/townbytown/norwich/4397511-95/town-budget-selectboard-increase

A subscription may be required for access to the Valley News stories. 

Is VTel married to Norwich or just shacking up?

Last Friday, the Brattleboro Reformer reported that a signed contract  between the Windham County Sheriff and VTel was no more. Not much detail was provided about the break-up, other than VTel had found a different site and had made a $15,000 donation to the Sheriff. The deal was similar to the proposal the Selectboard has under consideration  -- at little cost to the taxpayer, VTel agreed to replace an aging tower next to the Sheriff’s office, with a taller tower that VTel and the Sheriff would share..    

That led me to ask: how legally committed is VTel to Norwich to deliver a tower by Fall 2013.  The answer is: not much. Under the Lease, the company is not required to act with any kind of dispatch. At present VTel may be highly motivated  to build the tower, but it isn’t married to the idea.  

The Lease contains no general timetable.  VTel has TWO YEARS under the Contract to obtain the necessary permits to build the Tower. [§3, page 2.]   Admittedly, the company must use “commercially reasonable efforts”  to obtain the necessary permits.  [§2(g), page 2.]  But that is far from the “all deliberate speed” that Norwich would exercise if it was pursuing permits to assure the safety of first responders and residents.

Worse, section 20 allows VTel to terminate the Lease at any time, if the company “determines that it will be unable to attain optimal use of the Facility within its communications network.” [§20(a), page 9.]  I am not sure what this means but it seems as if the company can end the arrangement if the site is no longer fits the business plan.  That is a huge LOOPHOLE.  The decision is in VTel’s “sole and absolute discretion“.  

[As an aside, I am not even sure VTel is obligated to build a tower.  Once permits are obtained, VTel must pay rent, but we are not charging any.  That is a topic for another day.]

These provisions protect VTel, but not Norwich.  They make more sense to a landowner who is passively collecting rent.  I accept that permitting is something of an unknown.  But if VTel needs two years, perhaps we are better off going it alone.  Also, the loophole noted above gives great pause. 

These contract terms seems hardly the stuff of a public/private partnership or the way to assure that a much needed tower gets built.  There may be “understandings” about a timetable but if not the “definitive agreement”, then they are unenforceable.

I am not a telecommunications lease expert.  To me, the Lease gives far too much wiggle room to VTel to say that the company is committed to build the tower PROMPTLY.  Is VTel married to Norwich or just shacking up?

LINK: 

http://www.reformer.com/ci_22642405/vtel-finds-alternate-newfane-site-cell-tower