By Dan Moffett
The town manager and deputy clerk of Briny Breezes are resigning their part-time positions, effective the end of the year, saying their workloads are too great and their pay too small.
“Part-time work, part-time wages but full-time responsibility,” Manager Dale Sugerman said during a hastily called special Town Council meeting on Nov. 14 to consider the resignations.
“People may not realize it but we only have two part-time employees, who have full-time responsibility for everything,” Sugerman told the council. “I think that’s what the real dilemma is.”
He said that since he became the first manager in Briny’s history two years ago, his duties have continued to expand: “I’m the utilities director, I’m the finance director, I’m the public safety director.”
Sugerman said that in his 40-year career as a municipal administrator, he’s never filled so many roles.
Deputy Clerk Maya Coffield, whom Sugerman hired shortly after he started, said she is overwhelmed by the nagging problems that have plagued the town’s building permit procedures.
Coffield complained of poor performance by C.A.P. Government Inc., the town’s building inspection contractor, and said she’s forced to work overtime to deal with permit errors and disputes.
Briny has had five different deputy clerks in the last six years.
Mayor Gene Adams said he asked Sugerman and Coffield to give the council a list of proposed changes that might persuade them to reconsider their resignations. They suggested hiring a part-time permit clerk, excluding council members from permit disputes and replacing C.A.P. with another vendor.
But the most problematic request from Sugerman and Coffield was for an increase in pay.
Sugerman requested a raise to $55,000 a year from his current salary of just under $40,000, and Coffield, an hourly employee, asked for a fixed annual salary of $41,000 to replace the roughly $31,000 she now earns with overtime.
The council voted 3-2 to reject the pay raises. Council President Sue Thaler, Kathy Gross and Christina Adams voted no; Chick Behringer and Bill Birch voted yes.
Sugerman and Coffield told the council they were a “package deal,” worked well together and were unwilling to negotiate separately. They said they were willing to stay on until Dec. 31 and help the town with the transition.
Residents and council members praised the two for their contributions over the past two years, but the call for higher wages found little support.
“That’s a large increase in money,” Gross said. “Where does that come from?”
Sugerman said the town had enough money in its unrestricted general reserve fund to cover the raises and hire the part-time permit clerk.
Alderwoman Adams suggested that addressing the permit problems with the contractor could improve conditions for the staff. “It does sound like we’re still having an issue with C.A.P.,” she said.
Thaler said both employees had added “tremendous value” to the town but said she was frustrated that the resignations came in before the council “had an opportunity to fix the permitting problems.”
Said Thaler: “I feel we were held hostage. I’m not happy with the way this was done.”
Birch said he thought it was in the town’s interest to do what was necessary to retain the employees — to “give them what they want so we can keep them.”
Behringer asked Sugerman if he was willing to accept a smaller raise. The manager said no. Though Behringer voted for the increases, he cited the manager’s proposed 38% raise and said, “Those are high numbers in any kind of business.”
In other business:
Five candidates have qualified for three council seats to be contested in the March 17 municipal election.
Incumbents Christina Adamas, Birch and Gross are seeking reelection to another two-year term. Newcomers Charles Swift and Lynne Weiner also qualified during the filing period that ended Nov. 26, Coffield said. The top three vote-getters will take the at-large seats. Incumbents Thaler and Behringer are not up in March.
Coffield said Gene Adams has preliminarily qualified for another term as mayor, pending verification of petition signatures.
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