The CSEA, which represents non-instructional workers at the Berne-Knox-Westerlo Central School District, won raises for its members with a 3-percent increase for the 2019-20 school year and a total increase of 18-percent by 2023. Workers who have been with the district for 15 years or longer get additional compensation. 

In the absence of the town attorney answering our questions, we urge Berne Town Board members themselves to read New York State’s Civil Service Law, then to do the right thing: Reinstate Cheryl Baitsholts as dog control officer. The new board members took an oath of office on New Year’s Day to uphold the law. Failing that, we urge Baitsholts to do as the Knox workers before her did: File for a ruling that will force the town board to restore her job.

At its reorganizational meeting on Jan. 1, the new town board of Berne removed several long-standing employees from their posts, stoking the ire of residents. Some of the board’s decisions are illegal, The Enterprise has learned.

If our elected boards develop meaningful codes of ethics and set up ethics boards to guide them, the character of our communities will be sterling.

An opinion issued March 15 by the Albany County Department of Civil Service states that the two transfer-station workers who worked for the town for over five years should have been protected by the state’s Civil Service Law.