Personnel Board
Rhodes Building
7:10 p.m.

Present:  Bill Martel, Gordon Palley, Sharon Downs, Ed Martin, Jim Huber

MEETING SCHEDULE
The next meeting is scheduled for Thursday, July 10, 2008.

MEETING MINUTES
The minutes of the May 14, 2008 meeting was read and accepted.

OLD BUSINESS
Members of the Fire Department attended.  Rich Hall acted as spokesperson, asking whether the Personnel Board would be supporting the pay raises for the fire personnel.  He had heard that the Personnel Board would only support the raises if the Department agreed to keep track of hours.  Sharon responded that the Personnel Board had not tied support to tracking of hours, but had asked the Department to keep track of hours as other personnel do.  She said that it would go far to enhance the credibility of the Department and help make the Department’s case for the raises.  Rich said that the Fire Department would revisit keeping track of hours when the chief returned from vacation.

MEETING DISCUSSION
Gordy told the Selectmen that the Personnel Board would like more direction from them regarding the next major activity to be tackled by the Personnel Board.  Sharon asked whether the Selectmen had additional priorities for the Personnel Board.  Jim Huber asked if it would be possible to discuss the possibility of a Town Manager for the Town.  Sharon said that, at the current time, the biggest issue would likely be justification for hiring one given the current Town budget.  Jim said that Shutesbury is able to afford a Town Manager because the Manager writes grants, more than offsetting the cost to employ.

TOPICS FOR NEXT MEETING
The Personnel Board agreed that the next order of business will be to make sure that each Town employee has a current job description and to work structure job descriptions to be similar in terms of the information listed.  Bill said that he will ask Kim to pull together the current job descriptions.  Gordy asked Bill to check with the Select Board to tell the Personnel Board whether there are any additional priorities.  Bill will let the Fire Chief know that he is welcome to come to the next Personnel Board meeting to speak with the Board.

MEETING ADJOURNED
The meeting adjourned at 7:55.

Respectfully submitted,
Sharon L. Downs