Linda Stumpf is still Manalapan’s acting manager and is still negotiating an employment contract.
When town commissioners fired Town Manager Tom Heck in late October, they merged his position with Stumpf’s job as town finance director and named her acting town manager pending a “mutually satisfactory’’ agreement. Stumpf and Mayor Kelly Gottlieb were to negotiate the new terms.
But the proposed contract was taken off the Nov. 16 agenda at the start of the meeting.
“Linda felt that it would not be approved so she asked me to pull it,’’ Gottlieb said.
The negotiated contract called for $109,980 in salary and contained a clause that Stumpf could revert to her finance position if she or the commission requested it. If she was fired without cause within a year of reverting, she would have received three months’ severance pay.
Heck was paid $123,000 a year and received six months’ severance when he was terminated.
Commissioners Louis DeStefano was tasked with renegotiating the agreement.
“For the record, Linda Stumpf has been a dedicated, very hardworking employee for about eight years in town,’’ DeStefano said. “We are not going to be in trouble; there’s nothing to worry about. It is our job … to make sure that Linda Stumpf, our dedicated employee, goes nowhere.’’
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