EASTHAMPTON — The city has appropriated roughly $22,000 to restore the hours of a handful of municipal employees who had their workloads reduced when the new fiscal year kicked in on July 1.
“For a pretty small amount of money this is going to have a pretty significant impact on the morale of multiple departments,” said interim Mayor Salem Derby at the City Council’s Oct. 8 meeting.
The council voted unanimously to reinstate the hours through two different motions. The first appropriated $5,830 from reserve funds to restore the salary of City Auditor Hetal Patel, and the second was to appropriate $16,250 from a contributory retirement fund divided between five different employees — a police clerical for $8,190, a fire clerical for $4,640, a technology assistant for $1,300, and a Council on Aging (COA) outreach worker for $1,110 and COA clerical for $1,010.
Derby said at the meeting that one of the seven employees who previously had their hours reduced no longer works for the city.
The fiscal 2026 budget, crafted by former Mayor Nicole LaChapelle and approved by the council earlier this year, reduced the hours of two COA employees and an IT assistant administrator from 35 to 34, an office manager at the Police Department had hours reduced from 40 to 34, and an office manager at the Fire Department had hours reduced from 37.5 to 34.
Patel’s hours were restored to a full 40 a week, though it will only be for the rest of the calendar year, when the council may revisit the topic.
“Our auditor has gone through a decent amount of tumult in the last year, I would say, and I just want to put it on the record that it’s really important for us to support our auditor because the work that she’s doing right now and helping straighten out the budget with the lack of a treasurer for over a year is critical,” Derby said.
Many councilors supported reinstating Patel’s hours, including Peg Conniff, Thomas Peake and James “JP” Kwiecinski, all of whom lauded the financial stability she creates for the city.
“I am certain that she is working more hours than she is paid and I have seen her in the evening working and I have heard her talking about the hours she spends even on the weekends, so I welcome this and hardily approve it,” Conniff said.
Similarly, councilors showed support for the other five employees whose hours were reinstated.
According to Derby, this was “one of the first things” he looked at once starting his interim role, reaching out to the department heads of the employees whose hours were cut.
“As I read those rationales (from department heads), it became extremely clear how important these employees are to their departments and how damaging it was to kind of have these arbitrary cuts hoisted upon a very small number of employees,” he said.
City Councilor At-Large Brad Riley thanked Derby.
“I want this to sort of be a message to the community that even when there are financial constraints involved, the government of Easthampton has always tried to do the best that it can by people with compassion and empathy,” Riley said.
