Mar 6, 2019 3 min read

CECIL – Two months after Cecil Township supervisors put a hold on plans to hire Jacque King for a position they’d just created, the board voted to make him the new assistant township manager at a salary of $65,000.

The 3-2 vote on Monday consummated a proposal that officials first raised in January, when the board voted during the previous meeting to create the position of “assistant manager/planning director.” Following a contentious discussion at that meeting, the board had tabled the proposal.

On Monday, supervisors Cindy Fisher and Ron Fleeher reiterated their previous opposition, at one point pressing a reluctant board Chairman Eric Sivavec into specifying King’s salary before the vote.

“I think we had it in the article in the newspaper. Isn’t that right, Don?” Sivavec said, apparently addressing township manager Don Gennuso, when his colleagues asked him to say the figure aloud.

“That’s not how it works,” Fisher retorted. Sivavec finally cited the $65,000 figure. That number is the same as the one announced at the previous meeting.

Fleeher focused on costs of hiring to fill the new position, which he said wasn’t necessary.

“You’re looking at about $100,000 a year,” Fleeher said, citing benefits that go along with the salary. “We could have had this position filled by an employee in this building who was very, very qualified, for $10,000 to $15,000, but they chose not to do that.”

Sivavec said the benefits had been budgeted for, but he and his colleagues who supported hiring King – Thomas Casciola and Frank Egizio – didn’t give further justification for their decision.

Fisher agreed with Fleeher and said her reservations about the board’s decision weren’t personal.

“We have to be financially and fiscally responsible, and we had an opportunity that a majority of this board chose to overlook,” she said. “So while this is not personal for me about any specific candidate, I don’t think that this board really did a good job of considering finances and spending taxpayer money wisely.”

The township’s operating budget is $9.4 million this year.

Gennuso said on Tuesday that township officials had received 20 applications and interviewed six people.

The position was advertised for a week on the website Monster, plus the township website.

Officials had previously interviewed King for a position they filled in November for a new zoning director. Bruce Bosle, who held that position until he died in August, had doubled for years as director of planning.

The township has never employed an assistant manager.

King’s start date is March 18.

In January, the board’s agenda called for officials to decide whether to hire King, who hasn’t worked previously in government. Among the credentials listed on his LinkedIn profile is a Ph.D. in organizational leadership from Regent University School of Leadership Studies, which offers the program as an online degree.

During that meeting, supervisors ultimately voted 4-1 to table the move following a lengthy discussion in the open meeting room and in private during an executive session they’d called.

Casciola, who’d supported hiring King that night and voted against delaying to consider other options, said King had relevant administrative experience.