MONROE — Members of Monroe Common Council approved a severance agreement with City Comptroller and Director of Finance Bridget Schuchart, whose job was a casualty of the 2019 budget cutting process, during their meeting Dec. 3 at City Hall.

Schuchart began her tenure with the City of Monroe Dec. 20, 2011. She will end her time there by Dec. 14.

The severance agreement was negotiated during a city Finance and Taxation Committee meeting Nov. 27 at City Hall during a closed session discussion with Schuchart. The closed session lasted roughly 30 minutes.

The conditions of the agreement include a lump sum payment of over $12,000, roughly nine weeks of Schuchart’s annual salary with the city. She leaves at an annual salary rate of just over $72,000. The payment will be made by Dec. 31. The agreement allows Schuchart to remain under city health insurance until the end of 2018 and roughly $7,600 will also be paid to her for accrued vacation hours.  

The agreement notes that the execution of the agreement is voluntary. 

The comptroller position was the only long-term employee lost in the 2019 budget process. The draft budget had proposed not filling the parks supervisor position and instead delegating duties to other city employees with a slight wage increase. However, public outcry prompted aldermen to call for City Administrator Phil Rath to re-evaluate how costs could be cut in order to retain a full-time supervisor within the parks department. 

With a recommendation to eliminate contracted services with Ricoh USA, an employee service which provided Administrative Secretary Amanda Swedlund of Juda, the city also reduced its staff by one and delegated more administrative duties to the City Clerk’s office. The employment service ensured a replacement, temporary workers could be at City Hall in Swedlund’s place if she were to go on vacation or have a sick day. 

A handful of members of the public criticized the concept of “contracting out” services.

In the budget process, there were also two Monroe Police officers who indicated they may possibly retire. Rath set aside funding for the department to cover the cost of those officers if they both remained with the department, with the exception of roughly $37,000. Council members recovered the funding for that cost to ensure officers could be rehired after residents called for a strong public safety presence within the city. 

Cutting the comptroller position was part of the original budget, and though members of the public criticized the concept of “contracting out” services, no one specifically called for the retention of Schuchart’s position. The city plans to contract with an outside accounting firm beginning in January to fill the duties of the comptroller position.