When the Town of Colonie’s released their $92.7 budget, some town residents and one town board member were surprised to see the Town Historian’s salary was cut by $17,000, while some historians and historian associations argue the cut is too significant.
Kevin Franklin, 58, Colonie’s town historian for the past seven years, received an annual salary of $27,000 up until this year when it was reduced to $10,000. Franklin said that the position he currently holds is currently his full-time job, but now with the reduction in salary he might have to look for an additional means of income.
I have to survive, he said. `I have to find, perhaps, another part-time job due to this loss in income.`
With an office located in Town Hall, Franklin works five days a week and sometimes has work he performs over the week. He said his hours vary, but generally his is in the office from 9 a.m., till 4 p.m. Though he will admit, it is not always strictly 9-4.
`Most of the time I’m not working out of Town hall but it all depends on what’s going on,` he said. `[The hours] doesn’t include things I do in the evenings or on the weekend. For instance, I help conduct the local Boy Scout tour over at the Pruyn House. With parents included, you’re looking at about 60 people.`
The tour would include learning about the Pruyn House crowns and learning about the history of the town itself.
Franklin has also been involved in the Fonda Cemetary restoration project, which he said he worked nearly every weekend in August and September of this year by corresponding from people all over the country who have family ties with the Fonda’s.
`Everything isn’t confined to the office,` he said. `I’m going out, documenting photos and interviewing people. I’m receiving collections given to the town and the historical society. There’s a bit entailed in this job.`
When the Colonie Town Board voted 6-1 to pass the budget on Nov. 5, Republican Councilman Dan Dustin was the one dissenting vote, and spoke out in defense of the Franklin and question whether the cut was fair.
As the liaison for the town historian, Dustin said he was astonished by the work done by Franklin, and said he certainly should be making more than his current salary.
`Frankly, he does more work than his salary suggested,` he said. `I’m impressed by the amount of work he does.`
The New York State Arts and Cultural Affairs Law Sec. 57.13 and 57.15 require a local historian be appointed and make an annual report. According a Local Government Historian Survey compiled in 2007 by the Association of Public Historians of New York State (APHNYS), 64 percent of the historians are paid for their work and 49 percent have an office in a municipal building. An average annual budget for most town historians, which according APHNYS is made up of mostly their salary, equals to $11,042, comparable to what Franklin will be making in 2011.
Compared to other local historians in the Capital Region, Franklin makes more than others, but most are not full-time
Susan Leath, Bethlehem’s historian, is a part-time historian with the town who makes $2,600 annually. She calls the job `a labor of love` and that she tends to work around five to ten hours a week. Even though they are part time hours, she does wish she should have a higher salary.
`I think I should be paid much more, but that’s the reality and I’m all right with that,` she said. `It’s [the money] nice, but I’m really doing it for the love of the history and the love of the town.`
She enjoys her situation, though, because she is able to be a stay at home mother and said that her position as the town historian is really what she makes of it. Some of her work included assisting the historical society, which she refers to as volunteer work, and goes in to schools and talks to students about the town’s role in the American Revolution and the history of ice harvesting.
Clifton Park Town Historian John Scherer makes $3,000 a year, has published several book on the town’s history, does lectures in various places in town and is involved with the preservation of historic locations around town.
`In a place where development is so rampant, we’re constantly trying to work with developer to preserve historic resources in town,` he said. `I’ve put five buildings on the National Registry.`
Scherer takes his position very seriously, as he understands the importance of making people in the town aware of its history. Even though he doesn’t directly work in providing the genealogy for families who are requesting the information, he does point them in the right direction and gives them references.
As the former senior historian at the New York State Museum, Scherer said the work he does for the town certainly deserves more money for the work they do.
`We absolutely do more than what the salary gives,` he said. `We’re worth more than we’re getting paid. But there’s a pecking order, according to the town. One would argue we do more work than the dog catcher.`
In an effort to ease the effect of the cut in Franklin’s salary, Town Supervisor Paula Mahan requested that the Pruyn House help in offering him an annual salary to compensate the work he has done for the historical site.
`I am requesting consideration of your Board to supplement his annual salary to reflect his work for the benefit of the Pruyn House,` she writes in a Nov. 8 letter to Friends of the Pruyn House President Michele Zilgme, `I believe this would be mutually beneficial to both the Pruyn House and his role as Town Historian.`
Zilgme said a review of the proposal will not happen until December and said the Executive Committee would discuss it. She added that they would have o review Franklin’s job description, as the Pruyn House is a not for profit organization and the agreement would have to fit their guidelines as a group.
`We would have to look at what the [Pruyn House’s] mission statement to see if the guidelines would even allow it,` she said.
There are still some who disagree with this plan and feel the town should continue to pay Franklin his current salary. In a letter to Mahan date Nov. 17, APHNYS President Carol McKenna said she understood the pressure the town faces with its budget, but stressed the importance of the role Franklin plays as the town historian.
`Mr. Franklin is a trained, dedicated professional and should be compensated as such and not treated as a volunteer,` she writes. `It is unfortunate that he is not a member of a union, as I understand other town employees are seeing a 3.25 percent increase in pay in 2011.`
She then alleges that the town took the money they cut from Franklin’s salary and moved it into the salaries for part-time staff at the Pruyn House, increasing their budget from $32,280 to $49,100, which Mahan said is not true.
`You further allege that you have reduced the budget,` McKenna writes. `Anyone with a modicum of intelligence can see that you have moved the monies from the own Historian line to the Pruyn House line in the budget.`
Dustin said asking the Pruyn House to supplement Franklin’s salary isn’t the best idea during these economic times.
`I’m not a liaison to the Pruyn House, but I’m told that they already reimburse the town for some salaries,` he said, `and moving the burden of additional salaries to a non-profit, even during this economic climate, is hard.`
Franklin hopes that everything will work out for him, adding that he loves his job and that he hopes the office will remain as busy as it is.
`At this point, everything is still up in the air,` he said. `People are reviewing the proposal and hopefully something will gel.“