TIVERTON — Cracks have appeared in the relationship between Town Administrator W. Glenn Steckman 3rd and the Town Council, which has been conducting a closed-door review of Steckman’s “job performance” since late September, according to the agendas of regular and special meetings for the last three months.

The most recent session, scheduled for last Monday, has been postponed until next Tuesday.

The current performance review began only about three months after the council had concluded the yearly evaluation required in the town administrator’s contract.

That evaluation had been originally scheduled for December 2006, the end of Steckman’s first year on the job. But the review was suspended while the council considered the appeal of Police Chief Thomas Blakey, whom Steckman had fired in early January over employee complaints of sexual harassment.

In April, the council reinstated Blakey on 4-to-3 vote, although it did not restore an estimated $25,000 in pay he lost while he was out of work on appeal. The council also required Blakey to complete unspecified supplemental training and certification by Aug. 1.

Yesterday, Steckman declined substantive comment on the current council review of his job performance, but did say that he has received all the raises spelled out in his contract.

According to the contract, he started work in January 2006, at a salary of $76,200, which was later boosted to $80,000.

In January of this year, he received a raise of about 4 percent, to $83,200.

And at the start of his third and final year, in January 2008, he is to receive another 4-percent raise, to $86,500, pending a performance rating of “satisfactory or better,” according to the contract.

Since the Blakey decision, the council has questioned Steckman’s recomendations several times in public.

The council has also declined Steckman’s requests for changes in his retirement plan, car allowance and cell phone contract.

And the council has heard from a retired Fire Department captain, who submitted his resignation as director of the town’s Emergency Management Agency saying that Steckman has embarrassed him among peers who trusted his word.

“I don’t get paid enough to waste my time doing this,” said the former captain and former acting fire chief, Howard Passwater.

In mid-May, Steckman recommended a one-year contract for his assistant, Pauline Keneshea, who at that point had been on the job a total of about four years.

In an unusual move, Keneshea requested that the discussion of her contract renewal be held in public, at the council meeting of May 14.

When Councilman Hannibal Costa asked Steckman why he had recommended a one-year contract, the town administrator cited budget uncertainty, saying the position could become a part-time one if the fiscal climate became extremely bad.

But Keneshea contradicted Steckman. She said the town administrator had told her she was being offered a one-year contract because her raise would be keyed to negotiations with the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, which would not begin until December.

According to the meeting minutes, Costa said he found no justification for a one-year contract. Keneshea’s salary could always be adjusted pending AFSCME negotiations, he said.

At the end of June, in an apparent response to Costa’s expressed concerns that a one-year agreement would send a negative message to a valued employee, Steckman put forth a three-year contract for Keneshea.

He proposed adjustments that would link her salary to AFSCME wages in the second and third years.

Keneshea ultimately took another job, and the town is still looking for a replacement.

In late September, Steckman told the council he wanted to replace Keneshea’s position with a part-time assistant and another part-time human resources director. But council president Louise Durfee quibbled with the way Steckman proposed to reorganize Keneshea’s job.

Durfee suggested one full-time position, with the successful candidate having a human resources background and the capacity to “grow into the job,” according to the minutes of the meeting on Sept. 24.

A month later, Steckman presented a job description for an assistant who would oversee human resources, general office management, and office payroll at the same rate Keneshea had been paid — about $20.25 an hour.

Steckman sought a candidate with a minimum of 10 years’ experience to work for 37 to 40 hours a week — more than the 32½ hours a week Keneshea had put in.

At Durfee’s initiative, the council agreed that the advertisement for the position require a minimum of five years’ work experience and that no salary be mentioned.

About 30 people have responded to the ad, according to officials in the town clerk’s office.

In the meantime, council member Carroll has recently reiterated a request he initially made last spring that the town solicitor draw up a proposed staffing policy.

Yesterday, he said his request is not related to any staffing recommendations Steckman might have made.

Carroll said that combining jobs might seem advantageous in the short term, particularly in a fiscal squeeze, but such quick fixes might not serve the town well in the long run.

Carroll also said he has “never been a big supporter of one-year contracts, especially when someone is already an employee of the town.”

While Keneshea never agreed to a one-year contract, the part-time municipal court clerk did, Steckman told the council last May.

The minutes of the May 29 meeting show that the council approved a one-year contract for the municipal court clerk on a vote of 5 to 2, with Costa and Councilwoman Joanne Arruda opposed.

In August, the council publicly ignored Steckman’s request for three amendments to his contract:

•An option to transfer retirement benefits out of the state employees’ system into the pension plan of the International City/County Management Association.

•A vehicle reimbursement allowance of $350 a month or a new midsized car, because he did not feel safe driving heavily-used town police cars.

•A cell phone allowance of $25 that would allow him to use his own service provider.

Christopher Cotta, chairman of the town budget committee, told Steckman that a $350 car allowance was excessive. According to the minutes of the meeting Aug. 14, Cotta said there was “nothing wrong” with the state retirement plan. And there is cheaper cell phone service available than the $25 Steckman requested, Cotta said.

The council took no action on any of the three requests.

Meanwhile, Howard Passwater’s resignation as director of the Emergency Management Agency will take effect on Friday.

Passwater said in a recent interview that the volunteer position has become more onerous since he took it on two years ago, now requiring some 15 to 20 hours a week.

But the “straw that broke the camel’s back” was Steckman’s treatment of him over an emergency disaster plan for mass inoculation of the population in case of a pandemic illness or bioterrorism.

Passwater said a $2,000 grant had been available through the Department of Health to develop such an inoculation plan, which requires the coordination of volunteer doctors, nurses, pharmacists and other workers on very short notice.

With Steckman’s approval, he said, he offered the grant to full-time firefighters who were well-versed in emergency medical procedures.

But when he returned from vacation in July, Passwater said, he learned third-hand that those who had signed on to do the work would not be paid any stipend.

Instead, Passwater said, he was told that Steckman transferred the work to Fire Chief Robert Lloyd because the administrator wanted it “more professionally done.”

Steckman never bothered to talk to him directly, Passwater said.

Lloyd, who already had a full roster of duties, could not complete the plan on time, Passwater said.

Council members raised questions about the $2,000 grant at a recent meeting.

Passwater said, “it wasn’t necessarily that we lost the grant. It was the chief did the work on his paid time.

“It could have been done more effectively and saved the chief a lot of aggravation” if more hands had been put to the task.

He said the town would have another opportunity to apply for the grant.

gmacris@projo.com