By Alice Waugh
The Water Department is asking for a significant increase in its operating budget for next year, as well as another substantial hike in water rates. And in a sign of ongoing concern about the department, no less than six residents have taken out nominating papers for the three seats on the Water Commission, which oversees the department.
At its December 10 meeting, the commission approved a budget request for fiscal 2021 of $1.835 million — a 38% increase over this year’s figure. It’s also seeking $250,000 in capital spending, though the department expects to ask for even more in fiscal 2022 to replace the aging Tower Road well and remodel the second floor of pump station. The total cost estimate for the well project is $575,000 to be split over two years, so another six-figure amount is in the cards for the fiscal 2023 capital budget.
The requested spending increases come on top of votes at two Town Meetings last year to approve borrowing for the Water Department totaling almost $2 million. Water rates last year went up by 25% as a result, and they’re expected to rise this year by as much as 30% (or even 34% if the board decides to increase its retained earnings by $150,000 to allow for unanticipated expenses). This would involve hiking the base meter rate, the water usage rates, or both. The average annual total bill this year is $667.
The Water Commission will settle on an approach for hiking rates at its meeting on Tuesday, Feb. 4 at 9 a.m. and has scheduled a public hearing on the proposal on Tuesday, Feb. 25 at 9 a.m.
The explosion in spending over the last two years is a result of several factors: deferred maintenance and insufficient spending on capital projects in previous years, repair costs in 2019 for two water line breaks as well as a chemical leak at the town well on Tower Road, and a rash of staff departures requiring expensive short-term help to keep the water treatment plant operating.
Staff vacancies
More than two-thirds of the proposed operating budget increase in fiscal 2021 is for staff (salaries and overtime) as well as contract labor to fill the gaps created by vacancies. Exacerbating the problem is an ongoing statewide shortage of licensed water operators, especially in the public sector, with dozens of jobs going unfilled for long periods. Lincoln’s openings have been advertised for months with few if any applications, and the town recently raised some starting salaries to attract more applicants.
When Superintendent MaryBeth Wiser was hired in March 2018, the department was at full strength, with a water treatment plant manager and three plant operators in addition to the supervisor and administrative assistant. By February 2019, operator Victor Vasselin and plant manager Heather Clary (a Lincoln resident) were gone. Then just weeks ago in December, around the time a new plant manager was finally hired, the remaining two operators, Jeremy Bernard and Will MacInnes, left. For at least a week, before plant manager Gary Tuck began work, all four of the plant staff positions were vacant.
The commission expects to vote on hiring another new operator at its February 4 meeting, but that will still leave the four-person plant staff at only half strength.
Bernard and several former Water Department employees told the Lincoln Squirrel that morale had been low since Wiser’s arrival, saying she was not qualified and was abusive to staff. By the summer of 2018, about four months after Wiser was hired, complaints about her had reached the point where “employees were lined up daily one and two deep at a time at the front counter of the selectmen’s office,” according to minutes of the commission’s August 8, 2018 meeting.
At that meeting, which devoted considerable time to a discussion of Wiser’s rocky transition, Higgins said he was “astounded that they had to counsel the staff on basic professionalism, basic courtesy and respect for each other and the superintendent” and alluded to “challenges faced by the previous superintendent with the Water Department employees.” He also said that the commission “needs to discuss whether they would like to keep Ms. Wiser [and] Ms. Wiser needs to think about whether she wants to stay.”
Bernard and MacInnes did not respond to requests for comment about the reasons for their departures.
In addition to the plant operator turnover, four administrative assistants have come and gone since late 2018. As a result, the department has had to pay an outside software consultant to help with billing and training the series of administrative assistants. As of July 2019, he had been retained for three quarterly billing cycles at a projected cost of about $38,000.
When asked this week if any of the past administrative assistants had voiced concerns about Wiser and why there had been such rapid turnover in that position, Water Commission Chair Ruth Ann Hendrickson said she could not comment on personnel issues.
Lincoln’s water treatment plant must be fully staffed to maintain its licensure from the state Department of Environmental Protection, and “they’re paying careful attention to that” and requiring “regular, sometimes daily updates,” Town Administrator Tim Higgins told the Board of Selectmen at its meeting on December 9.
MassDEP spokesman Joe Ferson said earlier this month that the agency is “continuing to monitor the situation” and that the town “believes they can manage this situation and is working on a longer-term strategy to come into full compliance with regulatory requirements.” Part of this strategy is budgeting for a new position of utility laborer, which would be filled by someone who would learn on the job in a journeyman capacity and eventually qualify for promotion and licensure.
Extra pay for superintendent
The short staffing has meant many hours of extra work for Wiser, who has has been the only person on call to respond to mechanical problems at the treatment plant in recent weeks. A qualified operator must respond in person to equipment malfunction alarms, some of which are due to aging water filters that can’t be replaced until they arrive on a ship from Australia in late May at the earliest.
Although the superintendent is an exempt job category that’s not entitled to overtime pay, Wiser asked for a stipend to compensate her for the extra hours — a request that took the Water Commission by surprise at its January 7 meeting. “It would have been helpful if you had come to me ahead of time so I could give it some thought,” Hendrickson said.
At that meeting, the commission suggested Wiser take comp time, but the ongoing staff shortages make that impossible, she said. After some discussion, the commission on January 21 approved paying Wiser an additional $7,000 a month retroactive to December 2019 until the new staff members are familiar enough with the plant’s operations to take call after hours. The panel will revisit the matter at its March meeting.
Many Water Commission candidates
The Water Commission itself has undergone considerable turnover as well. Robert Antia and Heather Ring resigned from the three-member panel last year, with Ring citing lack of confidence with Wiser and a “hostile work environment [that] festers.” This required the town to make two emergency short-term appointments in October: Michelle Barnes and Selectman Jennifer Glass. Both terms expire this spring, and Hendrickson’s term is also up, meaning there would be a completely different board after the town election on March 30.
As of this week, six residents had taken out papers to gather the signatures needed to appear on the ballot. Hendrickson announced earlier this month that she would run for a two-year term, her last on the commission, and Steven Kanner has filed papers to run for the same seat. Jim Hutchinson, who is completing his service on the Finance Committee, and Housing Commission member Allen Vander Meulen, who ran for the Board of Selectman in 2017, are eyeing the one-year seat, and Barnes and Ephraim Flint have pulled papers for the three-year seat.