A proposed job description for Township Manager Anthony Burdick prompted extended discussion during the April 11 meeting of the Sumpter Township Board of Trustees.
Discussion of the proposed agenda item which included specific areas of authority and responsibility of the manager took place during the public study session prior to the meeting.
Trustee Don LaPorte said that he favored the outline of authority as he felt it was important to have a point person available at township hall able to move forward without the board members “meeting every 20 minutes.” He suggested authorizing the township manager to make decisions would help the efficiency of projects currently under way or proposed.
LaPorte said his original concern with approving the advanced degree of authority was that it could lead to a repeat of previous problems with a township employee. “She was always busy doing something, but nothing was ever getting done,” LaPorte said. He said he felt that Burdick was doing a good job of keeping the board abreast of what is going on from meeting to meeting. He added that without Burdick's ability to make some decisions, the board would have to get together “every single time a decision had to be made.”
“I don't want to add another level of management. In this building we have people that people report to. Union employees report to the treasurer, clerk and supervisor,” LaPorte said and explained he felt it was not productive to add the township manager into that level of employee management. “I do believe we need a person that is a champion and point person on projects and moving bigger items down the road,” he said.
Trustee Matt Oddy, who chaired the meeting in the absence of Supervisor Tim Bowman, said he believed the description needed to be more comprehensive and detailed as there were currently employees in the building who had no specified manager. “Who does that employee report to?” Oddy asked. “So there are things that the township manager has to be in charge of because we do not have a specific supervisor in the building. We need the township manager to have oversight.” He said his intention with the job description was to correct a situation when a township department had no hands-on manager.
Oddy explained that another concern and basis for appointing deputy officials was to preserve the operational history in several departments. He noted that after an election, the township could have a new clerk, treasurer or supervisor and without a deputy in place, “all that knowledge is lost.”
Oddy suggested more discussion about the details of the proposed job description. LaPorte agreed, noting that he felt the trustees needed to “think it through a little more and make sure it is done correctly. We have already approved a set of duties and I think it has to evolve again and be tuned and built on as we go.”
Clerk Esther Hurst explained that the trustees were not in the building all the time and “Mr. Burdick is here. Who manages a union employee on the hour-to-hour, day-to-day basis?” Township attorney Rob Young noted that Burdick is a valued member of the management team in township hall. “We value his input, we value his oversight and we value his suggestions.”
“Somebody has to have some ability to review all this stuff on a consistent basis-I'm not talking about job performances,” Young said. He explained that providing Burdick with the authority outlined in the job description could prevent “a lot of problems we've seen in the past.”
Burdick told the trustees that “as attorney Young brings up, there are certain things that just happen.”
He said he had no intention of overstepping any direction of the board whom he considered the decision makers and that he acted only at their instruction to implement the decisions made by the trustees.
Oddy suggested that the board “tidy up the language” of the job description and told Burdick that he was extremely happy with his performance. “We are not telling you to stop doing what you're doing,” he said.
LaPorte agreed. “This is nothing negative toward you. This is an effort to optimize your time. We don't want you overloaded,” he said.
Trustees agreed to remove the item from the meeting agenda to allow for more discussion and clarity of language.
