Council Clashes Over Creation of New Employee Title

Soon-to-be interim borough manager Jim Van Kruiningen has worked as the manager’s assistant for the past six years performing a myriad of tasks from website administrator to grant preparer to coordinator of special projects.

All the while he’s held the antiquated civil service title “Keyboarding Clerk 2/Administrative Support Specialist.”

Going forward, the Republican members of council would like to codify Van Kruiningen’s actual job responsibilities along with a few additional ones under the new title “Deputy Borough Manager.”

As deputy borough manager, Van Kruiningen, or whoever holds the title in the future, would plan, direct and coordinate complex borough programs and projects under the manager’s direction, assist the manager in the supervision of all borough departments and governmental activities, act as the borough’s website administrator, assist in the preparation of personnel policies and standard operating guidelines, and perform numerous other tasks that carry some level of administrative decision-making power.

Rather than the manager selecting a department head to run the borough when he is absent for any reason, the deputy manager would be designated to fill that role.

By proposed ordinance, the deputy borough manager title would come with a stipend of between $18,000 and $30,000. If the deputy borough manager were to become the acting manager, the person filling that role would receive an additional stipend of up to $29,614.

If creation of the deputy manager title is approved by council on May 14, Van Kruiningen said he would receive a $20,000 stipend for assuming that title and another $10,000 when he becomes acting manager on June 4. Combined with the $86,800 he makes as the borough’s Keyboarding Clerk 2/Administrative Support Specialist, Van Kruiningen would be pulling in $116,800 per year.

By comparison, borough manager Tom Metzler is making $140,000 per year, or $23,200 more than Van Kruiningen will make with both stipends.

Democrats Lisa Swain and Kurt Peluso oppose the creation of the deputy borough manager title, arguing that it will add additional costs to the borough’s payroll.

“I care about this community and I care about the residents and the one issue that all the residents keep telling me is property taxes are too high,” Peluso said at the April 23 council meeting. “If we keep adding stipends and positions and new roles it’s going to increase the fees no matter how you want to paint it.”

Deputy Mayor Ed Trawinski called Peluso’s opposition to creating the title an election year gimmick and noted that the ordinance would not increase personnel or salaries, but rather would codify what the manager’s assistant has been doing for more than a decade.

“The stipend that this ordinance would pay is far less than the stipends that the councils have given other people who have stepped out of their positions to serve as the borough manager and the net effect still of this change is that the total salaries will decrease,” he said.

After last Tuesday’s meeting, Peluso said he was unconvinced that the borough needed to create the title and would prefer that the next borough manager determine whether he wants or needs a deputy. 

“I would like to see a borough manager in place first and let’s see what their strengths and weaknesses are and base deputy manager on that, if we’re going to go in that direction,” he said.

Deputy Mayor Jeanne Baratta said she believed the duties currently fulfilled by the manager (Metzler) and assistant to the manager (Van Kruiningen) were too much for one person, but that if a future council preferred not to appoint a deputy manager or not to appoint Van Kruiningen as deputy manager, they were free to do so.

She said the borough would not hire a new employee to perform Van Kruiningen's current duties once he slides into the acting manager role on June 4. Rather, an existing employee may take on some of those responsibilities.

Van Kruiningen said that if next year's council majority decides to appoint a new borough manager rather than bring him on as the permanent manager, he would gladly return to his current position and continue doing what he's done for the past six years rather than seek a manager job in another municipality.

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