By Victoria Hurley-Schubert, Staff Writer
The Transition Task Force this week approved a recommendation of involuntary separation meaning the municipalities will decide who will be let go as a result of consolidation for most employees.
The five goals of the plan are to minimize cost, minimize organizational disruption, limit loss of knowledge, meet consolidation mandates in savings and head count and treat employees fairly, said Gary Patteson, personnel subcommittee member.
”The choice would be made by the borough and township about who was staying and who was leaving,” said Mr. Patteson at the TTF meeting at Borough Hall on Wednesday evening.
It would be up to the municipalities to decide what to offer and to offer incentives to employees to stay throughout the transition. It is still not clear when the staffing decisions will be made.
The TTF recommends that the terms of the separation be above the current policies in place and to have a policy that is consistent through all departments. The subcommittee considered four options: attrition, voluntary separation, involuntary separation, and early retirement incentives.
Attrition was not recommended as an option because it is uncertain which positions would leave and what the timetable would be for the departures.
Qualitatively you cannot control retention,” said Mr. Patteson.
Early retirement was also not recommended because too many people might leave or too many might not leave and the objectives of consolidation would not be met.
Many people in the redundant positions do not meet the 20-years of service qualification or the age 55 mandate the task force would recommend for early retirement. Many people in non-redundant positions meet the requirements so the towns could loose experienced people they wouldn’t want to loose.
Voluntary separation presents a similar problem, if offered, because the municipalities would not be able to chose who would stay and would go.
A package would be offered to the employees and the employees decide to stay or go.
For the police, the personnel subcommittee has not decided yet which option to offer, but it did say that early retirement incentives would not work because of the lack of control over who would stay and who would go, plus the high cost of a net $4.4 million.

