Stipend granted
Councilwoman’s added pay is raising some eyebrows
A Stillwater councilwoman will be paid $37,440 for promotions, other work.
The Town Board voted Thursday to pay a councilwoman $720 a week, or $37,440 a year, to head up the town’s administration, promotions and public relations standing committee.
Lisa Bruno was appointed chair of the committee at the town’s reorganizational meeting on Jan. 17, and tasked with assisting town Supervisor Ed Kinowski with programs, grants, state legislator coordination and general administration.
On Thursday, the board approved a stipend for the position, based on a $24 per hour rate for a minimum of 30 hours per week.
Kinowski said Thursday the board decided to pay a stipend for the job
due to the high volume of work it would demand as the town continues to grow.
“There’s only so many hours in the day, and my wife said I’d better stop working so late,” he said. “So we started spreading the wealth. I don’t think anybody should be spending nights, weekends and everything else of their own time unless they’re paid some level of effort for it.”
Supervisors from the surrounding Saratoga County communities of Clifton Park, Halfmoon and Malta said Thursday that none of their town committee chairs, many of whom are town board members, are paid stipends.
“I consider it part of their job,” Supervisor Kevin Tollisen said. “They go to the meetings and report back to the town board.”
Clifton Park Supervisor Phil Barrett said that his board members act as unpaid liaisons to the town committees and programs. For example, he said Amy Standaert is a liaison to the youth court; Linda Walowit, with the
town’s senior center; Jim Romano, with the open space committee.
“They work with the committees on different initiatives,” Barrett said. “They don’t get paid extra.”
But Kinowski defended the stipend, saying the town’s growth in recent years has added an unprecedented amount of work to his board members’ workload. The reopening of Brown’s Beach on Saratoga Lake in 2015 was a major turning point, he said.
In 2017, the board voted to start paying Arthur Baker, chair of the buildings, grounds, parks and recreation committee, a $12,000 stipend for his work in that department. In 2018 and this year, Baker’s stipend is $10,000 for the same committee, town minutes show.
Bruno’s and Baker’s stipends are on top of the pay they receive as town board members. In 2018, each town council member earned $7,775 for the year, the town budget shows. The town’s January reorganizational agenda did not indicate what the town board members will be paid in 2019, nor is the 2019 budget available on the town’s website.
In Malta, Supervisor Darren O’connor said that his committees are chaired by town board members or residents who have expertise in a particular area. The residents are volunteers and
the board members, again, serve as part of their duties as elected officials.
“I am grateful to everyone who sits on committees, the volunteers and elected officials,” O’connor said. “It’s a lot of work and time.”
All of the supervisors contacted by the Times Union were surprised by the stipend proposed for Bruno and even more so by its amount.
Julie Wash, a resident who regularly attends Stillwater Town Board meetings, is not happy about the stipend.
“The is an elected official who already has court issues for serving minors alcohol,” Wash said. “It’s not a good look for the town on so many fronts.”
She is referring to Bruno’s arrest last July for allegedly serving alcohol to minors.
Wash said she is particularly upset because Kinowski’s son Adam just secured a $78,000 a year job with the county.
Kinowski, who was chairman of the County Board of Supervisors in 2017 and 2018, said he had no idea that his son even applied for the county’s deputy director of human resources job.
“If Ed’s son applied to the county while his father was the chair of the county, he would have needed to tell the county,” Wash said. “It’s not right.”