By Tom Gilchrist
Staff Writer
ARBELA TWP. — There is such a thing as a paid lunch — in Tuscola County’s Arbela Township.
Several township employees aren’t taking a lunch hour, but they’re getting a paid lunch hour, anyway, according to township Supervisor Kenneth Panek.
“They’re paid an extra hour after they go home, plus we’re paying their pensions and their (Social Security and Medicare) taxes on that extra hour,” Panek said.
Debate about the paid lunch hour took place at the Sept. 8 township Board of Trustees meeting, when Trustee Wayne Schultz asked why township workers get paid for eight hours of work when they work for seven hours from 7 a.m. to 2 p.m.
“I worked in the shop — everybody’s worked in the shop — and if you worked through your lunch hour, you didn’t get to leave at 1 p.m. when you were supposed to be there at 2,” Schultz said. “You either got paid extra — if you worked through your lunch hour, they paid it — but I don’t understand this.”
The workers receiving the paid lunch include John Gunnels and Deborah Cerasoli, who work in the township hall and cemetery, according to Panek. The supervisor said Trustee William Jacobi, who supervises Gunnels and Cerasoli, also might be receiving the paid lunch hour.
Gunnels and Cerasoli “work right through their dinner hour and don’t stop for lunch,” Jacobi told an audience of about 33 people at the township board meeting.
Panek said he wasn’t questioning the performance of the township workers, but the way the township pays them. The Advertiser could not reach Jacobi for comment on the issue.
Cerasoli said the township has paid workers that way for the 25 years she’s worked there.
“It’s been done since day one — if you want to change it, then you’ve got to make a motion to change it,” Clerk Mary Warren told Schultz.
“When it’s 95 degrees out and you’re sweating to death out there, I’m more than happy to work straight through lunch,” Cerasoli said.
Schultz said he couldn’t think of anyone who receives a paid lunch. He scanned the crowd and spotted Jack Warren, Mary Warren’s husband.
“Jack, do you have employees out there that you would pay through lunch?” Schultz asked.
Before Jack Warren replied, township resident Joann Helmbold spoke up, urging Schultz to make a motion if he wanted to change the situation.
“Take your toothpick out of your mouth, and make it,” Jack Warren then told Schultz.
Panek said the paid lunch hour amounts to “a lot of money” for the township.
“If you take it over the course of a year — let’s say 50 weeks — you’re talking maybe $6,000 worth of money that comes out of the township’s general fund, for no work at all,” Panek said. “That’s how I see it.”
Panek said he would seek a lawyer’s opinion on the payment policy.
“Why didn’t you find this out before you came to the meeting, Panek?” Jack Warren asked Panek at the board meeting. “Why didn’t you legally find out then?”
Referring to Panek and Schultz, Jack Warren said “You two have been hashing this over before you even came here.”