To Add Legitimacy, Personnel Board Should Be Included in Charter, Not Just Bylaws

The Charter Review Committee heard arguments recommending establishing the roles, duties and responsibilities of the Personnel Board in the Charter, not just in the bylaws.

For the last few years there have been efforts to marginalize and even disband the Personnel Board, along with counter efforts to make greater use of the Board's expertise, according to Jack Petropoulos. He said there were two reasons for these conflicting efforts.

First, there is confusion about the role and powers of the Personnel Board. Unlike pre-Charter, the Personnel Board is now an advisory board without separate powers, serving only to help and advise other boards, he explained. Second, he added that being referenced only in the bylaws tended to delegitimize the Personnel Board, creating a tendency to 'push them out and not use them.'

Giving an example of the Personnel Committee's value, he explained that there was another recent attempt to marginalize the Personnel Board, preventing it from conducting an arms-length survey of compensation for town managers, thus providing real objectivity to the salary survey, a survey likely needed for negotiating the Town Manager's contract renewal.

Including the Personnel Board in the Charter instead of just in the bylaws, would leave no doubt about its role, importance and influence, he said. "If selectmen, the town manager and other entities know that the Personnel board is included in the Charter, it will be less likely to be ignored." he added. However, he emphasized that the Charter should state clearly that the Personnel Board's powers are only advisory, otherwise, 'they can be too intrusive,' he said. But, it should be included in the Charter so there is no doubt about its importance, its influence.

Petropoulos explained that the Personnel Board was very useful because, "We don't have the funding to hire an experienced Human Resources Director who can handle a $17 million organization with a hundred plus employees with lots of part-time summer employees. But, we have resources in town that can help that person [the HR Director] to grow their career, to come in here as a mid-level HR person and under the tutelage of real experts, that person can end up with a great track record and good job skills."

Review committee member and Selectman Stuart Schulman asked whether this could be accomplished within the existing structure. Petropoulos said that it was possible, but that 'with an advisory personnel board, enabled by nothing more than a personnel bylaw, we have had a tendency to wrestle over whether or not that board should be included at all or whether it should even exist."