Canfield city manager stays on until replacement can be hired

The city manager will stay on to help train his replacement.

By JEANNE STARMACK

VINDICATOR STAFF WRITER

CANFIELD — A vacation-day benefit in the new contract for the city manager passed despite one council member’s objection.

That same council member, Dan Frazzini, abstained from voting for Andrew Skrobola as president during the council’s reorganization.

That’s because Skrobola waited too long to run an ad for a new city manager, Frazzini said.

City Manager Charles Tieche is retiring, but council authorized 4-1 a three-month employment agreement for him at its meeting Wednesday. Tieche will stay on until council finds his replacement and will help to train that person, council members said.

In the contract, Tieche will get a portion of his present $73,000 salary and will accumulate sick leave as a new employee would, Skrobola said.

The five days’ vacation was included for past service and because Tieche deserves it, Skrobola asserted.

Frazzini said, though, that a severance package included in Tieche’s previous contract takes good care of him, and he disagreed that he should have the added benefit.

Tieche’s severance package amounts to $50,000, including $18,000 severance, $15,000 compensatory time and $17,000 in accumulated sick leave, Frazzini said.

The rest of council backed Skrobola’s reappointment as its president, with Frazzini abstaining because he did not want to actually vote against him.

“Andy is a great guy, and I couldn’t vote against him, so I abstained,” he said.

Frazzini said Skrobola should have ordered the ad for the new city manager to run the first week of November, but he did not do so until mid-December.

Skrobola said council discussed the ad in a closed session and it was unclear as when to start it.

“I went on vacation right after that,” he said.

Skrobola said that he doesn’t believe the delay will mean more than a few days’ difference in the hiring process, because the holidays would have slowed it down anyway.

Tieche has been city manager since 1991.