Efficient towns, some larger than Vernon, have three administrators, a mayor or town manager, an administrative assistant and an executive assistant.
Compared to an efficient town, Vernon has twice as many administrators: a mayor, a town administrator, an assistant town administrator, an executive assistant and two administrative assistants. As fringe benefits (health insurance, pensions, etc.) are over 40 percent of wages, the actual cost of these additional administrators is roughly a quarter-of-a-million dollars.
Having studied all of the nearby towns, I can say that Vernon has more administrators than any of them. Despite this, almost no one wants to cut Vernon’s administrative overhead. I was the sole Council member to vote against filling the assistant town administrator’s position at the last Council meeting. Surprisingly, Mayor Apel ruled that speaking against filling the position was “out of order”.
I believe in government services, provided efficiently. Spending unnecessarily on administrators, while simultaneously eliminating recycling pick-ups after holidays, is moving in the wrong direction.
