Franklin City Hall awoke recently to find that it had created a ‘Monster’ by entering into an extraordinary Employment Agreement with Cal Patterson, Franklin’s Director of Finance and Treasurer.
Based upon public documents the “Monster” appears to have first emerged on Wednesday, May 11, when the Finance and Personnel Committees received a 14-page email entitled “The City of Franklin Financial Office Succession Plan” written by Franklin's Director of Finance and Treasurer, Cal Patterson. This so-called Succession Plan addressed, among other things, the current make up of Franklin’s Finance Department, a brief comparison to a number of surrounding communities, as well as Patterson’s own recommendation for a transition plan which called for the temporary split of his current position of Director of Finance and Treasurer into two positions: Treasurer and Director of Finance and naming the incumbent (Patterson) to the part-time position of Treasurer, create and fill a full-time position of Director of Finance; theoretically providing the new hire time to “learn the issues in the City of Franklin incrementally…”
Patterson’s Plan: According to his memorandum, the plan would come full circle at the time of the retirement of the current Treasurer (Patterson), with the adding of the Treasurer’s duties to the Director of Finance. Patterson estimated his transition plan would negatively impact the 2011 budget by $13,000, provided that two hiring deadlines are met by August 1 and September 1.
Furthermore, Patterson claimed his plan was beneficial in that it included time for the necessary institutional knowledge transfer to occur.
Partterson’s memo was followed shortly thereafter by a memo from Director of Administration, Mark Lubrda, regarding “Succession Planning for Director of Finance and Treasurer.”
During the May 16 Special Joint Meeting of the Finance and Personnel Committees a number of commissioners expressed concern over the lengthy (several years) transition period proposed by Cal Patterson, who as a Finance Committee member was also in attendance during the panel’s debate.
Taking his responsibility seriously, at one point Dennis Ciche, Vice Chair of the Finance Committee rebuked the joint committee’s decision to recommend a plan to the Council, pointing out that he had no confidence in recommending a [transition] plan without seeing the qualifications of the new person being considered for the job; calling the current process utterly ridiculous. EDITORIAL: Who are you going to believe, me or my lying mouth?
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