In February, the since folded Waterbury Record wrote an article about Duxbury Select Board assistant Jonathon DeLaBruere. Apparently, DeLaBruere was getting paid for more work than he should have been doing. According to the Waterbury Record article, DeLaBruere was working 40 hours a week in what was budgeted as a 20-hour-a-week part-time job, and in some cases breaking into overtime.
DeLaBruere has since moved on to a new position as town administrator for the town of Fairfield, Vermont. However, Duxbury has kept him at 20 hours per week to help administer some of Duxbury’s grant projects, which are now requiring him to work more hours and ultimately, costing the town more.
Why does the town need more hours from DeLaBruere? To start, he has the most experience applying for grants. “I don’t have the experience with filing the paperwork,” said select board chair Kevin Garcia at a July 13 Duxbury Select Board meeting.
Additionally, select board members hoped that they could put the extra grant paperwork organization tasks on DeLaBruere and use the grant money to reimburse him for his extra hours, to save money for the town. On July 13, a board member even made a motion to approve raising DeLaBruere’s hours to more than 20 hours a week, but that motion was quickly shut down by select board member Dick Charland.
“I’m not quite sure what we’re looking at that’s going to be an increase in Johnathan’s hours,” said Charland, who wanted to know exactly what DeLaBruere would be doing with his extra paid hours.
DeLaBruere, who was at the meeting, explained that applying for a grant is not a one-and-done process. He explained that, with any project, there is constant communication between the town representative and the contractors. “There will be questions that come up in the first weeks of construction that need to be answered. There are always random questions that are going to come up,” said DeLaBruere.
Charland argued that Duxbury’s resident engineer should be able to act as supervisor and town representative for grant projects. “We’ve got all of the supervision we need with the resident engineer,” said Charland.
Eventually, the board agreed to keep DeLaBruere at 20 hours a week.
