Hooksett has reached a financial settlement agreement with two of the four former employees fired last year for gossiping about their boss.

According to court documents, former administrative assistants Joanne Drewniak and Jessica Skorupski have ended the case they filed last summer in Merrimack County Superior Court, although the attorneys involved requested additional time to file documentation with the court.

In November, attorney B.J. Branch of Backus, Meyer and Branch confirmed all four former employees were scheduled to attend mediation in early 2008 to try and reach a financial settlement.

Court papers do not disclose the settlement amount. Drewniak and Skorupski didn’t return calls for comment, nor did Branch.

Town Council Chairman Paul Loiselle said the settlement will be paid through the town’s liability policy, administered by the Local Government Center. If LGC presented the Town Council with a settlement and the council rejected it, the taxpayers would have been on the hook for any resulting payments.

The town’s attorney, Debra Ford, did not return a call March 13. Skorupski, who now works as a dispatcher for the Goffstown Police Department, was recently named the department’s Employee of the Year.

Last April, at the same time Drewniak and Skorupski were fired, the Town Council also told Town Assessor Sandra Piper and Code Enforcement Officer Michelle Bonsteel to pack their bags. The four women had worked a combined nearly 50 years for the town.

The council later reversed its decision on Bonsteel. She returned to her job for about six months before resigning the first week of March.

Attorney Jon Meyer, who represents Piper and Bonsteel, wouldn’t confirm if his clients had participated in any type of mediation, but did say his clients are still proceeding with the suit they filed in U.S. District Court, claiming the firings violated the women’s constitutional rights and the town’s own charter.

Other court documents show the town prevailed in a related case that alleged the town council violated the state’s Right-to- Know law. That case, filed by Piper’s daughter, Michelle Gannon, claimed the council met illegally in nonpublic session when it turned down her initiative petition to rehire the employees. The court ruled it was a legal nonpublic session under RSA 91-A and that allegations of a phone poll were immaterial because the council returned the petition several days prior to the alleged phone poll.