CLEARFIELD – The Lawrence Township Supervisors are pondering how to compensate for outside services.
At Tuesday’s meeting, the supervisors voted to rescind a resolution, which states that the supervisors cannot be employees of the township.
Supervisor Jeremy Ruffner said all three supervisors have been volunteering their time to perform work outside the scope of their duties as supervisors.
Ruffner said a lot of work the supervisors have been performing is work the township would have had to hire an outside agency to do.
“We’re doing this to make it appealing for future supervisors,” Ruffner said.
Solicitor James Naddeo said the township will have to work out the legalities regarding what they’re trying to accomplish.
He said there were different categories of “employees,” such as, “assistant secretary,” “assistant treasurer.” Naddeo said what the supervisors want to do could possibly be considered a consulting contract, where the supervisors could set payment and limit the amount of hours worked per week.
However, Secretary Barb Shaffner said she was concerned that there may be a conflict, as the supervisors will have to vote to approve the new resolution to allow payment for services as well as voting to pay the individual performing the work.
She said while one supervisor can abstain from the vote, if two of the supervisors are being paid at the same time, they won’t have enough votes to approve the payment.
Ruffner and Supervisor Randy Powell suggested that the payments for services be set on a quarterly basis.
Naddeo suggested that the supervisors continue to work out the details and legalities for the next meeting.