Kathleen Dailey Weiser
By Steve Plunkett
Town commissioners balked at signing a contract with Interim Town Manager Kathleen Dailey Weiser but this time around had no qualms about promoting the deputy finance director.
Weiser, Mayor Bernard Featherman and Town Attorney Tom Sliney negotiated a contract proposal calling for Weiser to be paid $125,000 starting June 30. But Featherman wasn’t comfortable with either the amount or the date.
“We thought the base salary should be between $90,000 and $100,000,” Featherman said.
Commissioner Dennis Sheridan said that range would be less than the $109,000 the police chief is paid, even though the chief reports to the town manager.
Featherman also was concerned about starting Weiser’s contract the same day the contract with suspended Town Manager Dale Sugerman expires. Others questioned how much Weiser should get in pension benefits, insurance and car expenses. Commissioners ultimately decided to have a special meeting at 9:30 a.m. June 6 to resolve the contract.
They had much less discussion over promoting Deputy Finance Director Cale Curtis to acting finance director. Curtis will get a 10 percent raise, to $70,567, and will drop the “acting” part of his title once he obtains his bachelor’s degree in July, Weiser said. Curtis said he is studying at the University of Phoenix.
Sugerman last summer planned to hire a finance director, noting that town policy was to promote from within, and delete the deputy position.
Commissioners told him not to hire department heads until they worked out his contract extension.
But Weiser said the Town Charter requires the town manager to appoint a finance director.
Sugerman was suspended in January after commissioners learned he planned to put Town Clerk Beverly Brown on a one-month unpaid suspension for forwarding racist e-mails on the town’s computer system.
Sugerman has been paid $144,000 this past year and has a leased car the town pays for, according to a summary for commissioners. Weiser has been interim town manager since Feb. 22 and is paid half what Sugerman was getting and has no benefits, other than a car allowance.
A hearing officer in April decided Brown should be punished with a written reprimand. Ú
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