HOWLAND, Maine — Town Manager Tracey Hutton has been placed on administrative leave with pay for an undisclosed reason and for an undetermined amount of time, officials said Friday.
Glenn Brawn, chairman of the Board of Selectmen, said the leave began Monday morning. Town office workers including Deputy Clerk Kim Soucier and Water and Sewer Clerk Kelly Sirois and selectmen have filled in for Hutton since then, Brawn said.
“The whole crew has basically stepped up where they have needed to. Things are going on pretty normally,” Brawn said Friday. “We have a very seasoned crew, and they are good at their jobs.”
Hutton has an unlisted telephone number. A message sent to her via Facebook was not immediately returned on Friday.
The Board of Selectmen voted 4-0 in November 2012 to hire her to replace departing Town Manager Jane Jones at a starting salary of about $52,000.
Hutton has two master’s degrees from the University of Maine, in ecology and environmental science as well as in public administration.
Hutton served as a code enforcement officer for several years in towns including Hermon and Harpswell and was a regional shoreland zoning coordinator for the Maine Department of Environmental Protection in its Bangor office, she has said.
She was a city planner for Claremont, New Hampshire, before taking the Howland job, she has said.
Brawn said he expected routine town business to continue. The board will meet in a budget session at 6 p.m. Tuesday at the town office and hold a regular meeting at 6 p.m. March 30. The town’s auditor, RHR Smith of Buxton, will work at the town office on Tuesday and meet with selectmen solely to help them continue preparing next year’s budget, Brawn said.
“There was a budget timeline laid out, and we intend to follow it. We have no reason to think we won’t be able to comply with it,” Brawn said.
The board usually holds a town meeting in June to seek voters approval of the budget.
Howland is a Penobscot County town just south of Lincoln. It has a population of 1,241, according to the most recent census.