After an illegal vote on Jan. 23, the Standish town manager’s contract renewal is headed to a second vote next week.

Amid criticism from local government watchdogs, the three-year contract renewal for Standish Town Manager Gordon Billington is headed for a re-vote.

With three councilors absent due to illness, the Standish Town Council voted 4-0 on Jan. 13 to approve the contract, which would keep Billington, who has held the position since 2001, on the job through January 2018. Councilors Lynn Olson, Phil Pomerleau, Steve Nesbitt and Michael Blanck voted in favor of the contract, while John Sargent, Margaret Spencer and Wayne Newbegin were absent.

The vote violated the town’s charter, which requires an affirmative vote from at least five councilors to approve a town manager’s contract. On Tuesday, the council will vote again on the contract, which would increase Billington’s base salary from $91,525 to $93,813.

Billington, who asked for the contract renewal more than a year before it was set to expire, said the council was following its formal rules of procedure, which require a four-person majority to approve measures. In light of the violation, Billington said the rules of procedure would be modified to include language requiring a four-person majority vote “unless superceded by charter or statute.”

“I think I would term that as an administrative oversight,” Billington said, referring to the charter violation. “When brought to our attention, we immediately agreed to remedy the situation.”

The contract is likely to face opposition Tuesday from Dan Kasprzyk, the outspoken town government critic who pointed out the charter violation to town officials. Billington’s existing contract expires in June 2016, and the new contract contains a variety of new provisions, quadrupling the size of his severance package and protecting him from targeted salary, compensation and benefit reductions. Kasprzyk, as well as the Standish Watchdog Group, of which he is a driving force, are raising questions about the terms and the timing of the proposed contract.

“It came up a year and a half early,” Kasprzyk said. “It gives us concern. When we did review the contract and compared it with all the contracts since 2001, there’s some major changes to this contract that have been inserted that have never been in a town manager contract.”

Billington’s previous contracts have typically been approved several weeks or months prior to expiration. Typically they have included a 90-day severance package and no protections from salary reductions.

The proposed contract includes a 12-month guaranteed severance package. It also protects Billington from council attempts to “reduce the salary, compensation or other benefits of the manager in a greater amount than an applicable across-the-board reduction for all employees.” If such an event occurs, Billington will have the option of terminating his contract, and receiving a 12-month severance package.

Billington, 72, said one of the reasons he submitted the contract, which is modeled after the Augusta city manager’s contract, is that he hopes to have three years to plan for his expected retirement in 2018. Billington said he also wanted to update the contract’s termination and severance provisions to the standard promoted by the International City/County Management Association.

Another reason, Billington said, is the impending introduction of Town Council term limits, championed by Kasprzyk and recently passed by Standish voters, which will force Pomerleau and Spencer from the council this summer. The contract renewal, Billington said, is an attempt to provide stability during a coming period of turnover.

“In my discussions with the council, we recognize the town’s going to go through quite a bit of upheaval because of term limits, which forces councilors to leave,” Billington said. “We mutually agreed that the extension of my contract would give more stability to town government during this period of turmoil.”

Billington also noted that he and his wife, Carol, attended a December meeting of the watchdog group, a year-old pro-transparency nonprofit group of Standish residents that has frequently critiqued Billington’s performance as town manager, where one of the discussions focused on “How do we get Gordy?”

According to Kasprzyk, the group, which holds weekly public meetings at a local restaurant, had received a number of requests to discuss the process of removing the town manager.

“We said, ‘Getting rid of someone is not something you should take lightly, whether it’s a town manager or any kind of employee,’ but we did explain how you go about doing it, because that’s one of the things we’ve been getting a lot of requests on,” Kasprzyk said. “When you get a lot of people saying, ‘How do you do that,’ you’ve got to address that, and we did.”

The group will not take a formal position on whether Billington’s proposed contract should be approved or rejected, Kasprzyk said. In his capacity as an individual Standish resident, however, Kasprzyk opposes the contract.

“I do question the motive that the council has for renewing a contract a year and a half early unless there is some overwhelming reason that it would benefit them,” Kasprzyk said. “From seeing the contract that they approved illegally at the last Town Council meeting, there is no benefit to having them sign a contract early.”

Kasprzyk declined to comment when asked if he would run for council this summer.

Council Chairman John Sargent said that Billington’s contract, while unusual for Standish, is similar to other managerial contracts across the state. Sargent, who did not attend the Jan. 13 council meeting, compared Billington’s contract renewal request to events at the state level.

“Gordy’s request for an extension of his contract is a sign of the times,” Sargent said.

Just look at what’s happening in Augusta. You’ve got a governor who wants to eliminate his Attorney General and the Secretary of State, because he doesn’t want two Democrats in power when he’s governor.”

“Everybody wants to have their own people in place,” Sargent added.

Gordon Billington