PRINCETON: Attorney says look at shared services during transition

By Victoria Hurley-Schubert, Staff Writer
   Shared services might be one way to sort out personnel this year to take further steps toward consolidation, according to Transition Task Force attorney William Kearns.
   By sharing services, the existing governing bodies would be able to make appointments this year that hopefully the new governing body would take under consideration. It would then be up to the new governing body to make the final choices and appointments when they take office next year, he said.
   His opinion was given to the Task Force on March 14 and discussed at its meeting on March 17.
   Mr. Kearns said all municipal appointments will terminate at the end of the year and the new mayor and council need to make all personnel appointments when they take office in 2013.
   Tenured employees
   When employees have tenure, it raises additional concerns and issues with dismissal; but, only a handful of employees in the two towns have tenure.
   After serving in a position for five or more years, the municipal clerk, tax assessor, tax collector and the financial officer are eligible for tenure under specific statutes.
   ”Clearly, the consolidation law contemplates the continuation of officers and employees and the challenge arises where there are two people filling what will be a single position,” wrote Mr. Kearns. “The new mayor and council will have to decide on the individuals to fill the positions, and, as a matter of general municipal law, layoffs are permitted for economic reasons. In this circumstance, some layoffs will take place in order to carry out the consolidation plan approved by the voters.”
   He concluded that where there are two people tenured for the same position, the duplicate position can be eliminated.
   One key tenured position is the municipal clerk. Clerks are granted tenure after serving continuously for five years. A clerk can only be removed “for good cause shown after a fair and impartial hearing.”
   Choosing a clerk should be fairly simple, since there is no clerk in the borough because the clerk retired at the end of last year and the borough administrator has been acting as the clerk in the interim.
   ”For Princeton, this position will be easy, since it applies only to the township clerk, who has tenure,” Mr. Kearns wrote. “That individual will become the tenured clerk of the consolidated Princeton. The tenure protections will follow her and be applicable in Princeton.”
   Neal Snyder, the joint tax assessor has tenure.
   The tax collector in the township does not have tenure. The borough’s tax collector retired last year.
   ”You only have one tax collector left,” said Mr. Kearns, explaining his opinion on Saturday morning. “Could the new governing body appoint someone new as a tax collector? Yes, they could. Are they likely to? Predictions are always difficult, but with the new governing body, if they want this to be a success, they are not going to disrupt anything.”
   The most complicated position could be that of chief financial officer. Both CFOs have tenure, so the new governing body will need to choose, unless one resigns or retires. The consolidation report calls for a CFO and an assistant CFO.
   Mr. Kearns offered a possible solution in his opinion.
   ”It might be possible for whichever CFO is not selected as CFO for the consolidated Princeton to become the deputy CFO and/or tax collector and to thereby respect the tenure protection, although tenure would not apply in the new position,” he wrote.
   At least one CFO does not have plans to leave.
   ”I have served as the CFO for over four years and, therefore, have tenure,” said Sandra Webb, borough CFO. “But I have been with the borough for 12 years and I don’t have plans to retire or to leave.”
   Township CFO Kathryn Monzo did not respond to questions by the Packet’s deadline.
   Non-tenured employees
   Employees without tenure are at-will employees. The key position in this category is the administrator, as both towns have long-serving administrators.
   A choice will need to be made between Robert Bruschi in the borough and Jim Pascale in the township.
   Mr. Bruschi has been with the borough since July 1999. Mr. Pascale has been with the township since May 1983.
   ”Both Jim and I are eligible to retire. We both serve at the pleasure of the governing bodies,” said Mr. Bruschi. “In other words, we are at-will employees and have no tenure rights. I have made no decision on retiring. Although my original plan was to retire at the end of 2011, it is very unlikely that I would look to continue my career in municipal government if it is not in Princeton.”
   Mr. Pascale did not elaborate on his plans when asked.
   Administrators who are terminated are entitled, by statute, to three months of severance pay.
   Shared services
   Sharing services can be done with a host of departments, such as construction, police and courts to move forward. Shared services do not have to be a long-term thing.
   ”Princeton is familiar with shared services agreements. You’ve done a lot of sharing of different functions over the years,” explained Mr. Kearns on Saturday, giving an example using the construction office.
   ”If you have a shared services, the borough and township can agree that we’re going to merge our (for example) construction official office and this is the construction official. They’ve agreed to that, it flows to the end of the year and there is continuity and people know what is happening.
   ”But the shared services agreement doesn’t guarantee that the new governing body will make a retrain appointment. Those new council members are free to appoint whomever they choose.
   ”Where tenure doesn’t come into play, no one can guarantee who is going to be there,” he said. “But I think we have to assume there is going to be a level of sanity and the new governing body isn’t going to come in and say we are hiring all new people for all new positions. That’s just not going to happen.”
   Mr. Kearns used the administrators as an example. If one of the two administrators retires, the community without the administrator can do a shared services agreement with the town that has the remaining administrator.
   Shared services agreements are done on the government level by the mayor and council, who have full power until Dec. 31. The Transition Task Force can make recommendations as to how the process should take place and how decisions should be made, but they have no decision power, that is left up to the governing bodies.
   If any shared services agreements are made for this year, it would then be up to the new governing body to take the next step and appoint someone to that position in the new year.
   ”Obviously, the challenge in this is — and is something the Legislature didn’t make clear and clearly did not think through when the adopted the consolidation act — was how to deal with making sure you have continuity and not have employees who are saying ‘I don’t know if I’m going to have a job. I’m looking around.’
   ”Well, if one of them leaves, it makes it easy or if there is incentive for someone to leave, that makes it easy. You certainly want to keep experienced talent into 2013. Otherwise things come to a grinding halt with people trying to learn the whole system.
   ”With some positions, the new government may want employees who can continue on for a certain period of time. This would enable the new mayor and council to evaluate their performance.”