Wage Concerns Councilman

AMENIA — Councilman Wayne Euvrard took issue with a particular wage when the Town Board was setting the salaries of town employees at its annual reorganizational meeting Jan. 4.

The meeting’s agenda stated that Scott Beyer, who is the assistant to town bookkeeper Rose Greer, should be made a salaried, part-time town employee who works 20 hours or less per week.

"On Scott Beyer, would you consider controlling it by an hourly rate?" Euvrard asked the rest of the board.

"He’s doing a lot of the things that Rose is not doing. Right now he’s going to prepare all of the budget numbers for this year," town Supervisor Janet Reagon said. "It’ll take him a while to do that. It might take him five hours, it might take him 25 hours."

"I’ll be using Scott for town clerk bank reconciliations, too," Town Clerk Gail Hermosilla added.

"But once we have him salaried, we’ve kind of lost control, right?" Euvrard asked.

"Absolutely not," said Reagon, who added that if an outside consultant was brought in to do Beyer’s work, it would cost considerably more. "We’re ahead of the game as far as cost goes. With the salaried people, all that matters is they get the job done."

Councilwoman Victoria Perotti stressed that Beyer "absolutely" needs to be in Town Hall when Greer is present.

She also wondered if Beyer should fill out time sheets.

"No, and I don’t think he has to. If the job is done, what does it matter if it’s two hours or 24 hours?" Reagon said.

"But you said he was only working 20 hours," Perotti said.

Ultimately only Euvrard voted against making Beyer a salaried town employee.