Local/New Hampshire Politics:

A Failure to Govern

A Failure to Govern

A cursory look at some budgetary worksheets that the East Kingston Selectmen have used over the years reveals inconsistencies that are proving to be very expensive for us taxpayers. A glaring distortion in financial management appears when one looks at town employee hourly rates and yearly salaries. It would appear that, with the retirement of a long-serving Assistant to the Selectmen in 2006, the hourly rates of pay for the remaining administrative assistants took a quantum jump that is out of proportion to the work and skills required to do the job. At about the same time, the Board of Selectmen decided to do away with a performance and salary review program that was linked to adjustments in compensation and benefits.

Being apprised of what on the face of it must be called financial mismanagement, concerned taxpayers, including myself, approached the selectmen to find answers to some difficult questions about the Board’s management and leadership practices. They were asked directly to provide solutions to correct the inconsistencies and inherent unfairness of some of their policies and practices.

Here, briefly, is what they agreed to do:

1. Publish as an integral part of the 2009 Town Report the salaries and hourly rates of all town employees. It is our expectation that the information would be included in the report each year.

2. Reinstitute the annual employee performance and salary review to better justify to voters any adjustments to wages and benefits.

3. Engage a disinterested, knowledgeable third party to conduct an audit of town employee job positions and compensation. Doing so would establish a more fair and equitable salary structure which the selectmen can in turn apply, as well as present to their constituency evidence of their good governance.

4. Reexamine their inadequate 2010 budget proposal presentation materials in time to provide voters at Deliberative Session with clear and unambiguous budget information. Transparency and completeness are necessary ingredients.

Despite today’s economic environment, the selectmen proposed for 2010 an increase in town employee salaries. Despite their having to work with a default budget from 2008, the selectmen proposed a 2010 budget that is $78,000 more than last year’s proposal. The voters said no at Town Meeting 2009. What do they expect to hear in 2010? It is my considered opinion that at the heart of the problem is the selectmen’s failing to be conversant with their duties and responsibilities to a degree necessary to obviate such distortions in finances, and their failing to do the homework involved. Bottom line? Selectmen constitute our governing body. Their job is to govern in our best interests, and it appears they haven’t done that of late.

James Roby Day, Former Selectman
East Kingston