Despite some impassioned discussion about cutting the salary of a public works employee, Greenfield residents passed all 24 warrant articles at town meeting Saturday.
Most of the articles, including the $905,000 town budget, the $240,000 police budget and the $130,000 fire department budget, passed almost unanimously, with the exception of the $470,000 public works department budget. An amendment to cut the public works budget to $462,000 failed by a 52-20 vote, following a discussion over the $47,476 salary for the department’s building and grounds manager. Resident Andrew Heck, who requested the motion, also requested the vote be done by secret ballot.
Together, the articles came to a tax rate of $16.46, roughly 50 cents higher than last year.
The building and grounds manager, Rick McQuade, was hired last year at an estimated salary of about $40,000, according to officials at the meeting. Last year, after former President Barack Obama’s administration released revised rules under the Fair Labor Standards Act, the town increased McQuade’s salary to $47,746, to avoid paying him overtime.
“Among 13 neighboring towns…we were the only one that had to bump someone’s salary up to meet this plan, so we did,” said select board member Stephen Atherton.
The rule was put on hold due to an injunction issued by a federal district court judge in Texas. The matter is awaiting a hearing at the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals.
Resident Jack Moran, who encouraged Heck to file the amendment, would not say how he voted, but he said he supported Heck’s position that the town should “go back to the status quo” on the salary.
“The gentleman accepted a job and a salary, not that long ago, that was fine at that time,” said Moran after the meeting.
The proposed cut drew some emotional pleas from some residents, like Ron Lucas, who told the crowd of about 75 people that he objected “strenuously” to the amendment.
“My perception is: We are trying to drive down the salary of somebody, who based on what I’m hearing is, they think the man is getting too much money,” said Lucas. “Times have changed and we cannot just expect people to give up a fair salary for their position.”
Greenfield Town Administrator Aaron Patt asked the Ledger-Transcript to withhold McQuade’s name from the report, because the discussion was about the building and grounds manager salary and not McQuade’s performance. McQuade’s name was mentioned by officials at the meeting.
Voters also approved 14 of 15 zoning amendments — the failed amendment would have repealed the open space development ordinance and replaced it with a different subdivision ordinance “within the parameters of the master plan.”