Gray Recreation Department cancels February programs
GRAY
2/5/2010

By Emily Parkhurst

Following an unexpected dismissal and a controversial personnel hearing, Gray Recreation Director Dean Bennett is back at work. However, his return is not without conditions.

After the lengthy personnel hearing in December, which was held in executive session, the Town Council presented a letter to Bennett that cited failure to collect and account for $8,069.50 of department revenues, and failure to adequately respond to direction and instruction from the town manager regarding the department's policies, as just cause for a month of unpaid leave followed by a probationary period. Bennett's 17 years of service, past positive performance evaluations, innovative programs, support from the community, and pledge to be responsive to the manager's direction in the future were cited as the reasons for his reinstatement.

During Tuesday night's meeting the Gray Town Council unanimously approved a list of performance improvement goals for Bennett. The goals included creating a scholarship fund, application and specific policies for distributing financial aid to recreation program participants, adherence to an administrative control policy drafted by the town manager and controller, as well as a number of other administrative goals.

''We itemized a bunch of items that needed to be addressed,'' said Bennett during the meeting. ''A lot of them have already been established and are already being implemented.''

Some of the listed goals must be completed immediately, while others have timelines attached to them with required dates of completion and implementation.

''It's taken so much more time in the office,'' said Bennett. ''I'm having to scale back on the hands-on work and on programs.''

Bennett said that the department would usually be offering a four-day camp during February break, but his new duties have not provided him the time necessary to organize the program. As a result, the camp will not be offered this year.

He also explained that the administrative duties require approximately 10 hours of his time per week. For an employee who says he often works overtime, adding more work has meant leaving some tasks uncompleted.

''I'm starting to lose my grip on the small things,'' he said.

However, he said the administrative duties are important and need to be completed.

''I'm just glad it's all out in the open now,'' he said. ''I'm like the Nike commercial: Just do it.''

Bennett will present the Recreation Department budget to the Town Council during a budget workshop at 7 p.m. on Feb. 22.

Town Manager Deborah Cabana did not return request for comment by deadline.