With a job description approved, a proposed salary range between $68,000 and $78,000, and advertisements announcing the opening appearing this week and last in area newspapers and on the web, the search for the town's first finance director has begun.

A search committee composed of town consultant Glen Klocko (who is also Bristol's controller), a municipal finance specialist from Milford, and town Board of Finance member Jane Butterworth was tapped to screen the initial applicant pool and craft a short list of qualified candidates to interview. Klocko was

optimistic that interviews would begin in early January and that a finalist would be selected by the end of January.

"There will have to be additional funds identified for the proposed [finance director] salary and we will have to go before the town to get the additional funds," said Board of Finance Chairman Paul Connelly.

Connelly said that from his perspective, there also may be a need for additional clerical support staff in the town's new

finance office, but the hours needed and when that help should be added were

uncertain.

"We'll be relying on [the

incoming finance director] to recommend how the office would operate best and with what

staffing profile," said Connelly.

Last March, the Board of Finance voted to move any part-time salary funding that remained in Treasurer Darlene Jones's budget into the budget of the Office of the First Selectman. The move was made at the time, according to First Selectman Noel Bishop, because the town's accounts payable assistant had reported to Bishop but was paid from the Treasurer's Office part-time payroll budget. The funding shift continued this year with the $12,700 allocation for part-time financial help again appearing in Bishop's budget rather than in Jones's budget.

During budget planning

discussions last March, the Board of Finance also voted to move from Jones's budget into the first selectman's budget the $32,000 she'd requested for a new, 25-hour accountant. As a result, at the beginning of the current fiscal year-July 1, 2009-the first

selectman's office had $44,700 budgeted in two different line items to pay for salaried

accounting help and for part-time

financial clerical help as needed.

But when the Board of Selectmen voted to accept Glen Klocko's financial consulting proposal in August 2009, this $44,700 originally slated to pay for salaried accounting support and part-time help was transferred from the first selectman's office budget into the office's contract services line to cover Klocko's $42,000 consulting contract. At press time, Bishop said that Klocko had not invoiced the full amount and that about $10,000 remained in the first selectman's contract services line.

Money transferred from the first selectman's salary and part-time help lines to pay for Klocko's contract, however, was still

needed to pay for ongoing payroll expenses of the first

selectman's office, according to

Administrative Manager

Gerda Ziolkowski. These known expenses included the funds needed to pay for the weekly contract services of Peter Apatow, the first selectman's part-time

accounts payable manager, and to pay for part-time clerical hours of two town employees who assist

Apatow with his work by preparing and mailing town checks and

filing paperwork.

Since coming on board, Apatow has been paid out of the selectman's part-time salary account even though he's a contractor. This has complicated the town's financial reporting by mixing payroll checks requiring FICA

deductions in the same account with contractor payments for services that don't have these deductions. This practice also depleted the part-time salary account used to hire temporary office help to cover vacations and busy times in the selectman's office.

To restore needed funds to these accounts to cover known town payroll, the selectmen voted to ask the Board of Finance to add $7,500 to the current year's Office of the Selectman's salary account for part-time payroll and to add $1,500 to accounts paying employees to assist the town's contract accounts payable

manager, Apatow.