Chief of Staff position will be tabled tonight
Piersol won't accept job, back to the drawing board
In a stunning reversal, the Exeter Township Board of Supervisors (BOS) will be forced to go forward with finding a Township Manager (TM) after Interim Township Manager (ITM) Larry Piersol has apparently turned down the Chief of Staff position.
A source who wishes to remain anonymous told the Examiner that Piersol turned down the position Monday morning, citing the outrageous cost that the plan would have incurred for township taxpayers.
The plan, released yesterday in an update to tonight’s meeting agenda called for:
A. The creation of a new position for the township, Chief of Staff, that would be inhabited by Piersol. He would report to the TM, and handle day to day duties to free up the TM to work on bigger picture items.
B. The hiring of Kafferlin Strategies, the company tasked with finding a TM for Exeter, to act as ITM until a TM could be found, reminiscient of the deal with Keystone Municipal Solutions that brought Betsy McBride to Exeter for a little better than a year.
C. The eventual hiring of a TM.
Our source tells us that Piersol blanched at the offer of the job because of the “insane”cost to the taxpayer of $5,000 a week that Kafferlin would have wanted to do the job. Piersol is currently being paid $1,000 a MONTH to pull double duty as Public Works Manager and ITM.
Piersol has agreed to continue as the ITM until a permanent manager is found.
There are more moving pieces to the story. The person designated for assignment to Exeter from Kafferlin was company partner Lisa Hagberg. Upon checking into Hagberg’s background, we found out that she is also the Finance Director for Warren County in western PA. So how would Hagberg have found the time to be our TM with two full time jobs already in place?
?
So this “plan” appears to be dead. Credit to Piersol for stepping up for the people.
More after tonight’s meeting, we’re sure.