Residents Push Against No Overtime in Schoharie

SCHOHARIE - On Tuesday evening, the Schoharie Village Board heard remarks from the audience on their latest executive order to suspend overtime for their employees.

The order originally came from last month’s meeting, where Mayor Colleen Henry pointed to their dwindling budget as their primary reason.

“We want to return to a forty hour work week. No one should be requesting overtime for routine tasks,” Mayor Henry said at that time.

It was decided by the Board that employees could still request overtime if there was an emergency that required them to stay later than normal, but the final ruling would be strictly adhering to the principles of the executive order.

Now that the news has settled for a month’s time, some residents have taken issue with the order.

One local living on Bridge Street spoke up during Tuesday’s public comment period to address the Board, speaking in favor of the highway crew specifically.

“I know those boys, and my heart lies with the Lily Park, which they take very good care of,” she said. “I’m worried that this will mean that the park doesn’t get as much attention and care as it properly deserves.”

Elaborating further, she said “They’ve had to cut their mowing short. They used to be able to do it all in one shot, but now they have to do it piecemeal because there’s no overtime.”

“I really don’t think that there’s anybody who would abuse overtime,” she concluded.

The sentiment was followed by Darlene Patterson of the Schoharie Promotional Association, who also held her own concerns about the lack of overtime.

“That’s a good crew that you have, they’re all honest and trustworthy,” she said.

The Board took their comments into consideration, but they relayed that Mayor Henry was unfortunately absent for the meeting, and she would be the one to speak with on the matter.

Deputy Mayor Peter Johnson invited anyone with a grievance to visit Mayor Henry during her hours in the office, and noted that they will still be receptive for public comment come next month.