Frankel and Tierney do the dance.

This evening's Brighton Town Board meeting raised some interesting questions regarding filling the needs of the Town in the wake of the departure of Communications Director, Melissa Hantman.

In the absence of a Communications Director, Supervisor Frankel requires the services of contract workers, Donna Jackel and Julie Nusbaum to fulfill the communications needs of the Town for a short term. An hourly rate of fifty dollars was agreed upon and this evening was amended to forty dollars per hour.

In September 2006 the Board approved Ms. Jackel's services for twenty dollars per hour for the same services. A year later she and Ms. Nusbaum won't accept anything less than forty per hour.

Councilman Tierney objected to this pay rate and mentioned qualified persons within Town Hall receiving much less could perform these tasks.

Here's the interesting statement made by Frankel. She stated the rate of forty dollars per hour is less than the compensation (salary and benefits) of the previous Communications Director.

Let's look at the math.

$40 x 40 hrs/week = $1600/week x 52 weeks = $83,200

Hantman's salary was $51,480.

The difference is $31,720.

Supervisor Frankel was implying that Melissa Hantman would have received benefits above her salary of over $32,000/year (62% of her salary).

Nice gig. Where do I sign up?