Raisin Township Board votes no to higher wages

The Raisin Township Board of Trustees voted no to raising the hourly wage of two Raisin Public Works Department employees while working around a current grievance committee request by one of the employees. The two employees, Richard Burgett and Sandra LeVeck, make $11.25 hourly. Raisin Township Supervisor Jay Cavanaugh made a motion to raise both to $15 an hour. Burgett is a full-time, year-round employee while LeVeck is a full-time seasonal employee working from March to November and then working part-time the remainder of the year. The motion to raise both employees pay, particularly LeVeck’s who filed the grievance committee request, stems from LeVeck being paid both an hourly and per-job wage. According to Cavanaugh, it was believed LaVeck was employed under a 1099 though it was discovered she had filed a W2. Cavanaugh said LaVeck has had several of her paid-per-job cleaning duties taken from her in the last several months. “I don’t know what’s going on here, but I also am getting word that other people are getting assigned these cleaning duties,” Cavanaugh added. “Whether they’re getting paid or not, I don’t know anybody who works for free. So I assume they are. So, I don’t want to get into whether she’s been fired… So I’d like to ask [Raisin Township Supt.] Mr. [Jim] Palmer directly what is going on with Mrs. [Sandra] LeVeck’s current employment status with regards to the duties I mentioned?”Last month, the board instructed Palmer to approach the budget committee to see if a pay increase was possible. “The budget committee is reviewing that,” Palmer said. “It looks like we need to describe that job.”Palmer said that he’d asked for three job descriptions. Currently, Burgett and LeVeck are the only two employees in the works department. In 2014, the township budgeted $23,400 for a full-time employee, $14,000 for a seasonal full-time employee and $3,000 for a temporary employee. Burgett and LeVeck do such duties as mowing of the campus and township cemeteries, facility and park maintenance and repair, and cleaning amongst other duties. Trustee Tom Hawkins said there is no real job description for the works department and that “this is becoming a budget nightmare” without those descriptions. In the minutes of a November 5, 2013, special meeting when Burgett was hired and the works department created, it was recorded “Michigan Townships Association has a job description for a foreman for Public Works.”The minutes also reflected: “Development of a Public Works Department. This would cover the work in the Township, Public Safety Department, park and cemeteries. This will require revising the Park Ordinance.”Hawkins suggested independent contractors should be considered as Burgett and LeVeck are incurring overtime to complete their required duties. “With all the overtime allotted, we need more people.” “There’s been no talk of cutting anything, but yet we’re going after the works department, the two lowest paid employees in Raisin Township,” said Cavanaugh. “That’s a concern.” Cavanaugh asked LeVeck if there was a firefighter cleaning the Raisin Community Center (RCC) and township hall. Trustee Debra Brousseau then asked for a recess so she could have an off-the-record conversation with attending attorney Phillip A. Schaedler. Township attorney David Lacasse was unable to attend the meeting. After the recess, Schaedler said it was inappropriate to ask LeVeck that question, as it could be perceived as harassment and as retaliatory employment practices. Cavanaugh then asked Palmer who was cleaning township facilities. Palmer said the police and fire departments had been cleaning their own areas since last summer, and the township office has been cleaned by volunteer work because LeVeck has not had enough time in her 40-hour workweek. Cavanaugh then asked who cleans the RCC after board meetings. Neither township clerk and trustee Betty Holdridge nor Palmer knew who completes that cleaning. “I don’t feel at this time that this appropriate,” said Brousseau of raising the two employees pay. “I’m not saying they don’t deserve it because by all means I think they do.” She continued that it would be best to wait until the budget and grievance committees have finished their work before making a decision. She also noted the grievance committee, of which she is a member, only received the official request less than two weeks prior to Monday’s meeting. Cavanaugh was the only trustee to vote in support of the pay raise. Trustee Kami Johnson was absent from the meeting. “This had nothing to do with duties,” said Palmer in a phone call Thursday, May 14. He stressed it appeared Burgett and LeVeck were overburdened and he didn’t want to be “that kind of catch-up organization.”