A divided Lancaster Town Board granted the new supervisor's wish to hire his own secretary, a move that sparked sharp debate at Monday's board meeting and will leave another town employee jobless.
While two Town Board members objected to a stipend paid to the new secretary and raised concerns about the town's obligation to pay benefits to the former worker, Supervisor Dino J. Fudoli defended the move.
"What we're doing is just going back to the letter of the law," Fudoli said at Monday's Town Board meeting.
With Fudoli hiring Lynn Sacha as his assistant, Mary Nowak, the longtime secretary to former Supervisor Robert H. Giza, exercised her right as a member of the Civil Service Employees Association union to move into the Town Clerk's Office.
Nowak was able to "bump" the clerk typist with the least seniority in that office, Diane Terranova, leaving Terranova without a job -- for now.
The twin resolutions that allowed for the hiring of Sacha and the shifting of Nowak to the clerk's office both passed by 3-2.
The Republican Fudoli won the backing of two Democrats, Mark S. Aquino and Ronald Ruffino Sr., but he was opposed by two other Democrats, John Abraham Jr. and Donna G. Stempniak. The secretary position "wasn't in the budget," Stempniak said at the board meeting, prompting Fudoli to reply, "It's in town law."