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After months of debate and speculation, the Southampton Town Board on Friday agreed to restructure the municipality’s financial department, demoting Town Comptroller Steve Brautigam and appointing Tamara Wright, the town’s financial consultant since June 2008, in his place.
Starting on Monday, June 1, Ms. Wright will assume Mr. Brautigam’s post as town comptroller and earn $115,000 per year. Mr. Brautigam, who had come under fire for his job performance in recent months, will resign to accept a newly created position in the General Services Department, assistant town management services administrator. Mr. Brautigam will make $100,000 a year—or $17,000 less than his current salary as comptroller.
The resolution was approved by a 4-1 vote during a special Town Board meeting on Friday, with only Town Councilman Chris Nuzzi objecting. He said he opposed the measure because the Town Board is creating a new and protected position for Mr. Brautigam, who, the councilman said, has not performed up to his job requirements as town comptroller.
“It’s not a secret that there have been numerous questions about the comptroller in position,” Mr. Nuzzi said prior to Friday’s vote. “Why are we rewarding those issues with a six-figure salary and benefits? ... How do we justify to the taxpayers, and other employees, a $100,000 job with benefits?”
Additionally, Mr. Nuzzi said he opposes the move because it creates another position at Town Hall, which will cost the town more money, and because the post was established after the town had instituted a hiring freeze.
But both Town Supervisor Linda Kabot and Councilwoman Nancy Graboski disputed that statement, with Ms. Kabot noting that the approved resolution was “budget neutral,” because Mr. Brautigam’s new position, under an earlier title of director of audit and control, is already included in the budget. That position, which was budgeted with a salary of $85,000 a year plus benefits, was abolished in the resolution approved on Friday.
Mr. Nuzzi added that Sandra Cirincione, who also holds the title of assistant town management services administrator and will be working alongside Mr. Brautigam, received a $1,500 raise and will now be making $100,000 a year. The councilman said she received a raise so Mr. Brautigam would not be making more money than she is.
Town Councilwoman Anna Throne-Holst, who upset her fellow board members in February when she spoke publicly about plans to introduce a similar resolution that would have demoted Mr. Brautigam and replaced him with Ms. Wright, also disagreed with Mr. Nuzzi’s assessment of the resolution. Ms. Throne-Holst agreed that the changes will have no financial impact, noting it required only that the board reallocate money already in the budget.
Additionally, Ms. Throne-Holst noted that Mr. Brautigam’s new civil service position comes with a six-month probationary period.
Peter Collins, the president of the Civil Service Employees Association and an employee of the Southampton Town Highway Department, lambasted the Town Board for creating a new position for the embattled town comptroller in the middle of a hiring freeze.
“We’re threatened with layoffs all the time,” Mr. Collins said about his union. “Now we have this ... Did $100,000 miraculously appear in the budget?”
On Tuesday, Ms. Throne-Holst again emphasized that the changes, namely the elimination of one unfilled position and the creation of a new post, will not result in more spending. She stressed that the director of audit and control position was already budgeted for in the town’s 2009 spending plan.
“We shuffled the deck in a way that will serve our needs,” she said.
Still, Ms. Throne-Holst and Mr. Nuzzi agreed that the decision to restructure the town’s comptroller’s office should have been made on Tuesday night, during the board’s regularly scheduled meeting. Instead, the changes were adopted during a sparsely attended special meeting on Friday. At that meeting, Mr. Nuzzi asked why board members were voting on the resolution “under the cloak of darkness on the Friday before Memorial Day?”
“I was unclear why we needed to do it on Friday,” Ms. Throne-Holst said Tuesday. “We usually only have special Town Board meetings when it’s time-sensitive, and that was not the case here.”
Ms. Kabot, who presented the resolution, said she gave her fellow Town Board members ample notification about her intentions on Friday. “Discussion has been going on in executive session for the last four months,” she added.
When interviewed last week, Mr. Brautigam said he was happy with the shift in position even though he is taking a $17,000 pay cut. He noted that, as of June 1, he will be a civil service employee, when, in the past, he was a political appointee whose contract was set to expire at the end of the year.
“I’ll be making less money, but I’m exchanging that for job security,” Mr. Brautigam said.
Ms. Wright, who has worked as a manager for PricewaterhouseCoopers in Manhattan and was senior vice president of Prudential Securities Futures Management, has been employed as a financial advisor by the town since last June—months before the town’s recently discovered financial troubles surfaced. Under her initial contract, Ms. Wright was retained in that capacity for 90 days, at $450 per diem, with a total salary not to exceed $40,500. The town extended her contract in December for a full 12 months, and her salary was not to exceed $50,000.
Ms. Throne-Holst said that Mr. Brautigam, with his extensive experience in dealing with state audits, is better suited for his new role as assistant town management services administrator. Along with audit oversight, Mr. Brautigam will also be keeping tabs on the town’s capital projects in his new position.
Ms. Throne-Holst said Ms. Wright’s list of duties as town comptroller has been expanded to include more financial planning, and systems and control oversight. That’s something we’ve needed for quite some time,” she added.
Ms. Throne-Holst came under fire for crafting a plan in February to restructure the town’s financial department. Her plan, which she never introduced in resolution form but was mentioned by Ms. Kabot during Friday’s special meeting, called for the creation of a commissioner of finance in Southampton Town and the demotion of Mr. Brautigam. The councilwoman said this week that she is pleased that her ideas are now being implemented by the board.
“I’m glad we are finally making the changes I’ve been calling for,” Ms. Throne-Holst said. “I was criticized for publicly suggesting these changes, but they were changes that needed to be made.”
Staff writer Brian Bossetta contributed to this story.
Joseph Shaw, Executive Editor on May 27, 2009