Has the family town of Malta become dysfunctional?
These and other questions were posed at a standing-room-only town board meeting Thursday, Nov. 8, during which accusations flew, tears were shed, voices were raised and people speaking were either cheered or jeered.
During a public hearing on the proposed 2008 budget, members of the audience spoke heatedly for 80 minutes, with most comments surrounding the proposed cuts in the town clerk’s office and its political ramifications.
During board budget workshops to craft the 2008 spending plan, a change was proposed to decrease the hours of the deputy town clerk from full-time to 20 hours per week, representing a 19 percent decrease in the overall budget for the office of Flo Sickels, full-time town clerk.
Supervisor Paul Sausville expressed his frustration at the board’s attempts to reduce the clerk’s budget to $60,000, which he said was the lowest of any clerk’s in Saratoga County.
I think it’s irresponsible for the town to be at the lowest level; it’s totally inappropriate, said Sausville.
In February 2007, board members Cliff Lange and Sue Nolen questioned the hours Sickels was working as town clerk, and whether her employment in the Saratoga County clerk’s office was overlapping with her town job. The board members used the Freedom of Information Act to obtain Sickels’ time sheets to review the number of hours she worked for the county.
Thursday night, members of the public rallied against the cuts, speaking aggressively to defend Sickels and the deputy clerk, Linda Duprey, who would bear the financial brunt of the departmental cuts, if enacted.
`The previous town clerk had three deputies, and in my mind I keep wondering if this is a way to attack the office,` said Claudia Smith. `I’ve lived here 60 years and I’ve never seen such nonsense.`
`What’s happening here is a lot of splitting hairs,` said Ted Willette. `There have been things done that are malicious and disrespectful. Our town garage workers now have a union because they fear having their hours cut; it’s gotten to the point where we feel we have to protect ourselves from one another. That’s crazy.`
Saratoga County Clerk Kathy Marchione spoke as Sickels’ supervisor in her second job in the evening.
`I went through Flo’s timesheets, and out of all this commotion, Flo has put in 14 hours before 4 p.m. from January until now,` said Marchione. `To me, this is a witch hunt. I’ll be happy to let anyone see the records in my office.`
Nolen, who was interrupted by audience members without the meeting being called back to order, countered that the board began looking into Sickels’ hours in February, and that she may have been more careful working the two jobs after that time.
As an elected official, Sickels is not required to put in specific hours in the clerk’s office, which is open from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.
`People hang out in her office for hours at a time; that office is a den of political activity,` said Nolen. `You can’t take money from two employers at the same time. There were a lot of people whose votes showed they are also concerned.`
On Election Day, Sickels retained her post as Malta clerk with 1,485 votes against Democratic contender Cynthia Young, who proved a formidable challenger with 1,351 votes.
Duprey spoke in defense of the amount of work done in the office, including marriage and hunting licenses, death certificates, processing meeting minutes and serving as notary publics.
`You are caught in the middle of this, Linda, and I regret that,` said Nolen.
Members of the audience frequently interrupted Nolen, jumped to their feet, and raised their voices in defiance of Robert’s Rules of Order for fair and orderly meetings. The set of guidelines adhered to by most municipal boards include the provisions that `all remarks must be directed to the chair. Remarks must be courteous in language and deportment ` avoid all personalities, and must never allude to others by name or to motives.`
After prolonged discussion, the board said it will hold a special meeting on Monday, Nov. 19, at 6:30 p.m. to adopt the 2008 budget. The meeting will be preceded by a closed executive session.
`Right now we’re gathering information from the public, and we’ll spend a week digesting this,` said Sausville. `We’ll talk about personnel issues appropriately in executive session.`
The revised 2008 budget totals $7,226,052. The town is entering its 24th year with no general town tax aside from the specific purpose $.02 per $1,000 tax rate for the volunteer ambulance services and a $.6542 per $1,000 fire protection tax rate. The budget includes no highway tax for the seventh consecutive year and no outstanding debt. This budget means that a property tax owner with a $200,000 assessment will pay only $135 next year in real property taxes for all town services.
In other personnel issues, salaries of town employees include a cost of living and merit adjustments on the average of 3.5 percent. A full-time planner position for the building and planning department has been established in the preliminary budget. “