Donated sick days for Montant are okayed

Co-workers who wanted to give their own sick days to town employee Teresa Montant will now be able to do so.

The Town Board on Thursday, October 6 convened a special meeting and voted to allow town workers to transfer sick days to her under the terms of an agreement between the town, Ms. Montant, the Civil Service Employees Association (CSEA). the Highway Benevolent Association and the Shelter Island Police Benevolent Association.

The Highway Department and public works secretary, Ms. Montant has been fighting breast cancer and is a leader in local breast-cancer awareness campaigns.

At the same meeting, the board hired Cara Cass as a part-time clerical assistant until the end of the year to help Justice Court Clerk Beverly Pelletier with what she and Town Justice Helen Rosenblum called a “crushing workload” at last week’s Town Board work session. Ms. Cass will be paid $4,200 at a rate of $16.50 an hour for 20 hours. The funds are available in the court’s budget, according to Ms. Pelletier and Justice Rosenblum.

“I’m asking for this to see me through this season,” Ms. Pelletier said earlier at the work session last week. New laws, DWI processing, probation cases, “interlocking jurisdictions, [and] cases to the county,” she said, were swamping her. If the town instead paid her to work overtime to keep up with all the tasks, she said, “My brain would be dead the next morning.”

Justice Rosenblum told the board that Ms. Pelletier was meticulous, hard working, and never complained, and if she said she needed help, the board should consider it a valid request.