GUILDERLAND — The town’s attorney, James Melita, was appointed recently to head Guilderland’s ethics board. This means that part of his role as ethics board chairman would be to investigate any complaint that might arise about town officials, while part of his role as town attorney would be to advise those same officials.

Melita, who was hired in 2014, made $31,365 as town attorney in 2016; his salary this year is $42,571, said Stacia Brigadier, the town’s personnel administrator, who noted that that increase is not based on hours worked but is a salary increase.

Melita was appointed on Jan. 17 as the temporary head of the ethics board, following the resignation of Brigitte Fortune.

According to the town’s code of ethics, members of the ethics board may not be town officers or employees. People appointed to fill vacancies are subject to this same caveat, the code says.

The code defines “officer or employee” as “any officer or employee of the Town, whether elected or appointed, paid or unpaid.”

Duties of the ethics board include handling any complaints about town officers and employees, conducting hearings, and recommending disciplinary action.

Town Supervisor Peter Barber said Friday that Melita is there just to “fill the gap” left with Fortune’s decision to leave so that she can concentrate on other professional responsibilities.

The board had decided that, while waiting to find a new chairperson, it would ask Melita, “who already is a liaison to that board and knows its inner workings quite well,” to be the temporary chairman.

The town attorney “already does get involved in, I think, certain confidential matters, although not necessarily ethical matters,” Barber said. “So you put a lot of trust into your town attorney.”

He hopes to find a permanent replacement for Fortune soon, Barber said. Melita’s appointment was intended to make sure that someone was in place “just in case anything came up,” said Barber.

Barber mentioned that the ethics board starts to review, in March or April, the annual disclosure statements, and that he wants to have a chairperson in place when that occurs.

Asked about the code’s statement that vacancies should not be filled with employees or officers, and why the board hadn’t appointed a current ethics board member to take over temporarily, Barber said that Melita’s appointment was temporary.

The members of the board are David Carpenter, Ellen Howie, F. Lee Jones, and Knapp Lowell.

Barber later emailed The Enterprise to say that Melita had not yet been sworn in, and the ethics board has no plans to even meet until March or April, and that “if necessary, we’ll likely appoint another member as temporary chair.”

He said that the former chair had recommended that an attorney be appointed as chairperson. He said that the town board would “take care of any adjustments at the February 7th meeting.”