For one member of the Budget Committee, an attempt to add a 3 percent raise for a dozen top town officials in the proposed operating budget for 2009 is all about “sour grapes.”

Town Manager Jonathan Sistare has taken criticism from Stephen Campbell, a member for the Budget Committee for 14 years, for breaking with Salem’s tradition by placing the raises for 12 town employees into the operating budget rather than putting them on a warrant article to be voted on during the upcoming Town Meeting in March. Last March, voters failed to pass a warrant article that included raises for those same 12 nonunion positions within the town.

“He’s going against the way we’ve treated this stuff in the past. Its all sour grapes because he didn’t get a raise,” Campbell said. “Sour grapes, that’s what it comes down to.”

As town manager, Sistare, along with the town manager assistant, human resources director, human resources assistant, town clerk, tax collector, finance director, community development director, director of engineering, public works director and fire and police chiefs would receive the 3 percent raise if the operating budget passes.

“It certainly goes against the Town Meeting idea,” Campbell said. “There’s a lot of people in Salem that aren’t getting raises this year because their companies aren’t giving out raises. Why are they the only ones that are guaranteed a raise and the voters can’t do anything about it? Are they so special? It’s just not right.”

Sistare said that the break in tradition has come both as a way to remove politics from the day-to- day operation of the town and to alleviate salary compression – which occurs when subordinate employees receive raises while their supervisors do not, closing the gap between their salaries.

“The primary purpose of a town or city having a manager is to allow the day-to-day operations to be run by a nonpartisan professional who is not influenced or interfered with by local politics,” Sistare said. “There are too many employees of this town who feel interfered with or influenced by politics. It is one of my goals to eliminate that as it does this town no good to have that kind of atmosphere.”

According to Sistare, the town manager statute – adopted by Salem in 1960s – gives him the authority to set and manage the wages of town employees, as well as hirings and firings. Salem is one of the only towns in the area that allows residents to vote on cost-of-living adjustments for town employees, he said.

“Those (employees) who wish to bargain collectively through a union know that their contract cost implications are, by law, subject to a vote of the legislative body. Again, that is the law and that is known by all parties involved,” he said. “ The nonunion employees do not have any of the bargaining rights of a collective bargaining unit and are thus left more vulnerable to management decisions.”

Sistare said he had received the support of the majority of selectmen to put the raises into the operating budget and did not expect a backlash from voters or elected town officials going forward. If the board and the Budget Committee approve the operating budget, taxpayers will get a chance to weigh in sometime in February. If the budget passes as is, Sistare and the other 11 nonunion town employees will receive their raises starting on Jan. 1.

“You can’t vote yes or no on these raises. You get to vote on the operating budget. You can’t just vote on the raises. It goes against the way these raises have been treated in the past,” said Campbell, who remains adamantly against the decision to put the raises into the operating budget. “They’ve changed the rules because they didn’t like the way people voted. I’m certainly not going to approve (the budget).”