In
case you haven't heard, the most recent (of many) hot button issues
in Christiansburg, VA has to do with a sudden push to get a contract
in place for the Town Manager before the newly elected officials of
the Town take office in September. It is at that same meeting that,
historically, the Council has decided whether or not to enter into
another 1 year verbal contract with the Town Manager for his
services. Not only has the timing changed, it has now become
important to make sure that it is in writing and for a time frame
roughly 3 times longer than in previous contracts for that same
position. (See these two Roanoke Times articles for further
information and 'the' sample contract here.)
Christiansburg
council discusses contract for manager - Roanoke.com
Why
rush a contract? - Roanoke.com
It
appears that someone outside of town government has received a copy
of that document. Since it wasn't me, I had to resort to a more
inquisitive approach to try to determine what might be up.
Starting
with the assumption that the Town Manager is not an Attorney as well
as an Engineer, I went back through the data on the 'pay the bills'
sheets looking for any organizations that the Town might be paying
membership fees to that would offer this type of document.
My
first look was to the VML site where I found nothing. After a few
more trial and error episodes, I finally landed at the ICMA
site online where they have a sample government document "Model
Employment Agreement that is a downloadable pdf format. Since I
did a fairly extensive search and this is the only model I have
found, I feel it is safe to assume that this model document is likely
to have formed the basis for the Town Manager's contract. You can
view
the document as a pdf here or simply click on the link on the
ICMA page above. (Please note that this particular document was
generated in 2003 and there is no evidence to indicate updates have
occurred. This could mean that parts of the document are no longer
consistent with State Codes.)
You
will find a lot of blank spots on this document which would be where
the specifics of a given contract were denoted such as the length of
time that the document is in effect. That could be 3 months, 1 year,
3 years, 10 years, etc.
Page
1 of the document (page 3 of the pdf), under Section 3: Compensation
subsection C provides information on an annual basis to increase
compensation with 4 options available. All of the options address pay
increases or bonuses (read the document for more details).
Oops!
Sorry got ahead of myself. Start with the Table of Contents. Here is
where you can get an overview of everything covered in the document.
For example:
Section
6 Automobile
Section
7 Retirement
Section
8 General Business Expenses
Section
9 Termination
Section
10 Severance
Section
11 Resignation
Section
12 Performance Evaluation
Section
13 Hours of Work
Section
14 Outside Activities
Section
15 Moving and Relocation Expenses
Section
16 Home Sale and Purchase Expenses
I
included those examples because if a precedent is set whereby such a
contract is used in the future for the hiring of any new Town
Manager, Section 15 and 16 could be particularly important.
Section
9 includes a lot of Termination related details such as #2:
2.
If the Employer, citizens or legislature acts to amend any provisions
of the [charter, code, enabling legislation] pertaining to the role,
powers, duties, authority, responsibilities of the Employee’s
position that substantially changes the form of government, the
Employee shall have the right to declare that such amendments
constitute termination.
So,
not only the Town, but the citizens and EVEN THE STATE OF VIRGINIA
are limited in making any legitimate changes to the Town Managers
functions without the Town Manager being able to decide he has thus
been terminated and is entitled to all benefits under the terms of
termination.
No
reduction in pay can occur unless it is applied equally to all
department heads. (How does that encourage good performance?) There
are several options listed there which all have the Town as the short
end of the financial stick. However, Section 11 gives the Town
Manager the right to resign any time he wants without having the town
for any inconvenience or extra expense the town incurs due to his
actions.
Section
10: Severance, recommends a minimum of one years salary at current
pay to be paid in a lump sum. (Glance back at termination section to
see that virtually any reason for the Town Manager leaving his
position, including breach of contract by either party, warrants this
severance pay.)
Section
17: Indemnification, even requires that the Town go beyond the
applicable Federal, State, and Local Law to provide legal coverage
for the Town manager "against any tort, professional liability
claim or demand or other legal action, whether groundless or
otherwise, arising out of an alleged act or omission occurring the
the performance of Employee's duties"... This even includes
independent legal council for the Town Manager at the Town's expense.
Please
read this document. If you have any information as to how accurately
this reflects the contract that the Town Council is currently working
on, I would love to hear about it.
I
cannot believe that this sort of manipulation is under consideration
by our Council. At first, I was irate about the timing. Now, I am
just disgusted in general.
I
want to know what Town Council members knew about this before it was
presented by the Mayor in those nice little manilla envelopes. I want
to know what Council members may have even provided feedback in
setting up the final copy that includes all of the dates and rates.
If
Town Council and the Town Manager had any hopes of restoring trust
with citizens, this should just about 'sink that ship'. But,
obviously, it is business as usual with no respect for citizens.
This
just totally STINKS!!! Read it and form your own opinion.
CMA
site online where they have a sample government document "Model
Employment Agreement
As
to a roughly 3 year contract, there are citizens who have complained
to the Town Manager about problems for years without the problem ever
being addressed. Maybe that contract should include something whereby
he is responsible for paying for the damages to property from sewer
and stormwater, for devaluation of homes because of that and because
of poor decisions made (i.e., Aquatic Center expansion). Maybe he
needs to cover the costs for every time DCR has had to come in and
enforce the very laws that the Town is suppose to be enforcing
concerning Erosion and Sediment Control.
Maybe,
just maybe, if the Council and Town Manager had paid a bit more
attention to what citizens wanted instead of what they wanted,
citizens would be a bit more agreeable to this contract.