Perham Citizens Approve 

Municipal Officers' Salary

Let $700 Misallocation of Funds Slide

By:  David Deschesne

Fort Fairfield Journal, March 23, 2011, p. 11

PERHAM, Maine—At their recent town meeting, inhabitants in Perham entertained an article to raise money for their municipal officers. The article requested a return of the selectmen's annual salary to $1,500 from last year's initial lowering to $1,200, to be prorated for time served and paid quarterly. With taxes, the total requested was $4,995.

Addressing some concerns from the audience regarding the appearance of the increase being a “raise,” selectman, Angela Beckwith said; “My understanding is it's not an increase. It's actually been $1,500 for the past at least seven years or more that I counted and last year it was set back to $1,200. So we're just starting back with the new town meeting to see if you want to vote to bring it back to $1,500.”

A question of whether the town of Perham should be paying the Federal taxes of selectmen as if they were employees was raised. “We pay payroll taxes of $135 to the selectmen but they're not employees.” said Deborah Viola. “I don't know why they're being paid as employees when we don't tell them what time to be here, what hours, et cetera. We have been doing this for a number of years, I've objected to this before. I've looked into I.R.S. law; we're not supposed to be paying their payroll taxes. I wonder why this keeps coming up. No one can show me where it says that they're supposed to - that they're employees. “

When asked to provide the I.R.S. code which she referenced, she did not have it with her at the time.

“While we don't have chapter and verse, I know that Federal standards define an employee as being required to report to duty regularly throughout each week at a regular time. One other member of this audience has already said, 'nobody pays my taxes,' and I think that's reasonable,” said Jan Greico. “I'm a contractor, I pay my own taxes. They don't tell me when I have to be here or what I have to do and that's covered under Federal law.”

Head selectman, Leslie Taylor indicated that if the question of taxes was presented to her in writing, she would look into it and respond within seven days.

A major point of contention was last year, selectman Ray Wood resigned before his term was up but took his entire pay for the year prior to tendering his resignation. “We did not know he was going to be leaving at that time,” said Taylor.”

Angela Beckwith was voted in by special election to replace Mr. Wood and received pay of $700 to serve the balance of his term. This money was above what was initially approved for municipal officers at last year's town meeting, thereby creating a deficit on the town's books. However, when questioned by Perham citizens at March's annual town meeting, none of the selectmen could explain where the money actually came from to pay Beckwith since it was never agreed on or allocated from any specific town account.

“Last year we voted to pay three selectmen $1,200. If three selectmen got paid, how did they wind up paying another selectman?” asked Viola. “Because we never voted on that.”

Taylor indicated she would have to do further research on that question. “I'll have to get back to you on that,” she said, “I may have missed that, I was away. I don't know.”

Roger Connolly noted that since $3,600 was raised and paid out, then an additional $700 above and beyond that, there must be an account somewhere within the town that is now short $700. “It seems like to balance the books you would need to amend the article to raise a little more money to take care of that,” he said.

“When [Mr. Wood] left he took his whole salary for the year. So he worked four or five months and took $1,200,” said Viola. “So, there was nothing left over; there was no more money left in that account.”

“When he left, whatever month it was, he took his whole pay because there was nothing in the articles to say he could not do that,” explained Taylor. “We have since changed that so that we get paid quarterly based on the amount of quarters that we have dedicated to the town. It's to be pro-rated based upon the time served, to be paid quarterly. We have done that purposefully so that can't be done again.”

Jan Greico asked, during the town meeting, if there been any effort to recuperate the funds Mr. Wood received that were paid for service he did not perform. “It seems to me that's kind of the definition of theft,” said Greico.

“I have spoken to [Mr. Wood] twice, more on a personal level than it was on a selectman level,” said Taylor. “I was told, 'no,' he would not [pay the money back to the town]. It was mentioned at that time what my feelings were on it and he still said no. So, that's as far as it went. We had no statute, we had nothing to fall back on. So that's why he didn't give his pay back.”

The article was amended to raise from the taxpayers the $700 taken by Wood in order to balance the account that was used to pay his replacement. At this point, there was no discussion of legal action to be taken with regards to compelling Mr. Wood to return money to the town of Perham that he did not earn.

Mr. Wood could not be reached for comment prior to printing this story.

With the additional $700 amendment approved, the total raised for municipal officers in Perham was finally approved at $5,605.