Berlin Police Chief Arnold Downing on Monday presented a budget request to the Mayor and Town Council. Downing originally requested an administrative assistant, but that was taken out of the draft presented because town officials said the justification did not merit adding a new position.

By Josh Davis, Associate Editor

(May 3, 2018) New positions, salary increases and employee bonuses took center stage during Town of Berlin budget discussions on Monday night.

Two weeks ago, the mayor and Town Council, with department heads present, discussed a $7.05 million general fund budget package in the first draft of a fiscal year 2019 budget.

On Monday, talk turned to the utility fund, which includes water, wastewater and stormwater. The council also heard an extended presentation from Police Chief Arnold Downing on his department.

Water Resources and Public Works Director Jane Kreiter requested funding for a water treatment operator at the wastewater treatment plant. Salaries at the treatment plant were projected to increase 92 percent, from about $95,000 to $182,000.

Electric Director Tim Lawrence asked to add what he called a hybrid technical position, combining lineman, substation technician and relay specialist. He said of eight employees in the department, four were “at the point they could actually retire, today.”

Salaries in the power distribution department were projected to increase 24 percent, from about $409,000 to $505,000.

Not included in the budget draft was a request by Police Chief Arnold Downing to hire an administrative assistant.

“We put $45,000 [in the budget]. The numbers came back and those numbers were changed,” Downing said. “I stood on the table a little bit and said, ‘why did the numbers go ahead and change,’ especially without me having any idea or notice, and that’s where we were.”

Downing said there were 14 officers in the department, along with four full-time dispatchers, three part-time dispatchers and one full-time records clerk. He said the new position would be for high-level administrative work, including managing training and firearm records.

“The last person other than myself that even assisted me doing that was an officer doing that task,” he said. “We end up having officers doing some of those tasks … if we go ahead and have a non-sworn person doing that, I can get [police] on the road a little bit more.

“If dispatchers were administrative assistants, most of them probably wouldn’t be working here – they’d be administrative assistants making money somewhere else,” Downing added.

Allen said the initial request did not include a written justification for the position and one submitted later “did not include some of the information I had requested.”

“From my perspective, the primary argument that the chief is giving me is that every other department has administrative support, and to me that’s not enough of a compelling argument to add a position,” Allen said. “What I had suggested to him is that he identify the workload that justifies the need for the additional position, and I didn’t get that in the justification.”

Burrell asked for a copy of the written justification.

“I’m sitting here and I’m not able to follow this spoken word when it comes to duties and responsibilities,” he said. “If I could see it in writing and I could be able to weigh what your recommendation is, we might be able to make a decision on your request.”

The current budget draft current includes a 3 percent raise for all town employees, although there was some discussion whether that figure would also be given to hourly workers.

There was also talk of increasing the one-time payment given annually to employees around Thanksgiving.

For the last five years, the town has given each employee $500. Mayor Gee Williams asked the council to consider increasing the annual contribution, considered employee retention, to $750.

“The reasoning is our frontline employees will get a greater benefit from that,” Williams said.

Human Resources Director Jeff Fleetwood said the cost for $500 payments to all employees was about $36,000 each year. To increase the payment to $750 would bring the annual total up to $56,000, a $20,000 increase, he said.

Councilman Zack Tyndall asked the council to consider instead the same amount in a deferred compensation match.

Fleetwood, based on his experience handing out checks during the last five years, said he did not believe most of the employees would take to the idea.

“They really look forward to it,” he said. “When you give them a $500 check, cash money, at Christmastime, that employee can go buy something [for their family] that’s tangible.”

Councilman Thom Gulyas also did not favor making a change from payments to deferred money for retirement.

“I just think it’s awful challenging to mess with something that we’ve got in place like that. It’s kind of like taking that carrot and throwing it way on the other side of the fence and saying, ‘if you can get over it, you can have it,’” he said.

“Some of these people live paycheck to paycheck – they’re not like you and me … this is a lot of money to them” Gulyas continued. “If you offer something to somebody, you can’t mandate what they’ve got to do with it – that’s not right.”