Town Mileage Policy

Should people conducting official business for the town of Orange be reimbursed? When? At what rate? The Select Board apppointed an ad hoc committee to look into the matter and make recommendations. You'll find the report here and the policy--officially approved by the Select Board--here.

Comments? Put them below or go to the discussion board.

Comments

[Pat Mercer]

After reading the proposed recommendations for mileage payment, and realizing how much thought and effort , from such good minds went into this project, I am left puzzled as to how
two positions, similar in nature (ie;neither having physical offices, thus always needing to travel to "clients") could have such different policies. I refer, of course, to the building inspector and the welfare director(and what, then of the health inspector)?

[Aimee & Colin Higbie]

Speaking for myself and not necessary everyone else on the committee (I'm sure each person had their own underlying opinions, even though I think we were unified with respect to the final result), we set out to define a single policy for all positions that would be most cost effective for the town as a whole. In the end we realized that there are two positions that didn't exactly fit for very specific reasons: 1) the road agent, because the road agent is responsible for the roads themselves and it actually saves the town money for the road agent to use his own vehicle rather than the town vehicle, and 2) the building inspector, because the building permit fees are intended to pay the cost of the building inspector's travel to the sites, so this travel never becomes a cost to the taxpayers.

I hope that helps explain the logic behind the policy.

Respectfully,
Colin