LIVERMORE FALLS – After an executive session Monday, selectmen voted 4-0 to officially award Town Manager Martin Puckett a $5,000 raise that he actually received more than a year ago. They did not take action on extending his contract, selectmen’s Chairwoman Jackie Knight said Tuesday.

The board never took a vote to increase Puckett’s salary from $45,000 to $50,000 after six months on the job last summer, but did put the money in the budget to cover a raise. Past practice with former town managers has been that if money is put in the budget for salary, and voters approve the budget, then he or she gets the raise beginning July 1, Town Clerk/Treasurer Kristal Flagg said previously.

“As Board of Selectmen, do you intend to continue paying an unauthorized salary increase to the Town Manager Martin Puckett?” resident Miriam Buchanan read from a written statement Monday night. “The contract between the town and Puckett, under the heading ‘compensation’ states, ‘Employee’s salary shall be subject to adjustment, as the Board of Selectmen shall determine based upon an annual performance evaluation of employee,'” she stated.

Selectman Ernie Souther said research was done on the raise after it came to the board’s attention, and after reviewing minutes and other documentation, selectmen determined that the raise was granted through a past-practice precedent and by selectmen signing the warrants for nearly a year with Puckett making $50,000 instead of the original $45,000 rate of pay.

Puckett was hired Jan. 3, 2006, and received the raise while he was on six months probation.

Puckett maintains that selectmen gave him the raise.

Selectwoman Louise Chabot said she hates the words “past practice” and hopes to never hear them again. The board, she said, intends to set some policy and procedures to put controls in place so this type of situation doesn’t happen again.

Former Selectman Michael Collins asked selectmen if they knew what the tax collector was making or any others working in town.

The point is, he said, “We actually put faith into individuals who put the warrants together.”

If selectmen had to go line-by-line and check-by-check to see that each salary and expenditure was correct, they would be micromanaging and they’d be there a long time, Collins said.

It wasn’t correct, he said.

“It leaves egg on the former board – I’m willing to take the hit. There was an error there,” he said.

The intent was that Puckett was supposed to have an evaluation and money was put in the budget to cover a possible raise, Collins said. But they never gave him a raise, he said.

“It’s a mess,” Flagg said.

Previous town managers had line items in budgets and that is what they got, she said. Former Town Manager Alan Gove didn’t receive a raise in 2004 or 2005 because union negotiations were going on and other staff did not receive raises.

“I don’t like the situation. I don’t like the looks of it,” resident Fred Nadeau, a transfer station attendant, said. “I have to stand up being fair and impartial as possible. I think the board needs to look over options.”

If the board’s intent was to give him a pay raise effective July 1, 2006, Nadeau said, “You need to take action.”

Technically, Puckett getting a raise is a violation of contract and if the board lets it continue without action, it sets a terrible precedent, Nadeau said.

“It’s very sad that we have to discuss something like this because we don’t have policies and procedures and the controls needed in place,” Chabot said.

She said the board will give clear directions to the town clerk and town manager from now on.