As part of spending reductions in the current year’s budget requested by the Finance Committee, School Committee, and selectmen, the Board of Health was told by Town Administrator Tim Bragan to lay off its part-time administrative assistant, Shanna Large, and is refusing to do so, said health board Chairman Tom Philippou this week.
The health board met in a closed-door, executive session on Feb. 5 with Large to discuss the ramifications of losing her. The board, said Philippou, is basing its refusal to lay her off on Massachusetts General Law, Title XVI: Public Health, Chapter 111: Section 27, “Organization of boards; appointment of physician and clerk; compensation,” which states, “It [the health board] may fix the salary or other compensation of such physician and its clerk and other agents and assistants.”
Referring to “the foolhardiness of a cut like that,” Philippou, in a Feb. 16 telephone interview, said that he had used just those words when explaining his position to Bragan. Not only does the board operate in a lean and efficient manner, he said he told Bragan, but it is only the health board that has the right to determine its support staff. “Once we determined this at the executive session, we determined no changes would be made,” Philippou said.
When asked what the bottom line is after giving the board’s refusal, Philippou said, “We expect we’ll be able to keep Shanna because of the minimal impact to town budget, and the important role she plays in the Board of Health. She’s a key person involved in emergency planning.” Working with Selectman Leo Blair, Philippou said they are trying to secure other funding sources to partially offset the need for spending reductions.
The board also refuses to make the cut because it feels it would be taking what Philippou calls “a disproportionately large cut.” A 2.5 percent reduction is being sought in the town’s budget, he said, which would come to only $715 in the health board budget. It is being hit with “a cut more than tenfold that amount,” he said.
“We’ll take a proportionate cut, but not a disproportionate one,” he said.
