Assessor’s ‘retirement’ resolution takes supervisor by surprise — but longtime official isn’t leaving town employ

The town board honored four retiring town officials with proclamations from the supervisor yesterday, but another retirement resolution on the board’s agenda took Supervisor Yvette Aguiar by surprise: one accepting the retirement of longtime Riverhead Assessor Laverne Tennenberg.

“Somebody who’s retiring that just got elected and now going into — We need to let the public know. I have no idea about this,” a flustered Aguiar said.

“She just got elected and now I see a resolution that she’s retiring,” the supervisor said.

But Tennenberg, who was elected to her ninth four-year term as assessor Nov. 2, is not retiring from her town position. She has put in her retirement papers with the state retirement system. State law allows her to continue working in her town government job, she said.

“I’m not going anywhere,” Tennenberg said in an interview last Thursday. “I love my job.”

She said she has more than the required number of years of service to be eligible for retirement and is old enough to retire. By putting in her retirement papers, she can continue to work while collecting her state pension, she said. This actually makes it practical for her not to retire, she said in the interview. Otherwise, if she doesn’t retire for purposes of the pension system, and dies while still in office, she would lose nearly everything she’s paid into the retirement system for more than 34 years, she said. There is a death benefit payable to her surviving family, Tennenberg said, but it is three times the employee’s salary for the last year before their death.

“Allen’s death was a wake-up call,” Tennenberg said, referring to Town Justice Allen Smith, who died last summer while in office. She said Smith had also elected to submit his retirement papers and continue working for the town, for the same reasons.

The move will actually save the town money, Tennenberg said, because Riverhead will no longer be required to pay into the state retirement system for her.

Yesterday, Hubbard, Beyrodt and Rothwell began to try to explain the situation to the supervisor, who was not happy about it, when town financial administrator William Rothaar took the podium to clear things up.

“As supervisor, she should have gone to me,” Aguiar said. “That’s not the way it works.”

The resolution accepting Tennenberg’s retirement was in the agenda packet for yesterday’s meeting that was released to the press last Thursday and reviewed by the town board at last Thursday’s work session, which Aguiar presided over.

The board passed over the Tennenberg resolution without comment at the work session, when Deputy Supervisor Devin Higgins read the titles of the draft resolutions aloud, which is the manner in which the town board reviews resolutions for the upcoming meeting. Board members, who have the resolution packet on their tablets or laptops during the work session, have an opportunity to ask questions, make comments and discuss certain resolutions during the work session review.

Ellen Hoil of Riverhead, who ran for tax assessor this year, said she’s concerned that Tennenberg, despite what she said in an interview last week, might not serve out her new four-year term. She pointed to the retirement of former assessor Mason Haas in February, after serving a little more than a year of the fourth four-year term he won in November 2019.

Hoil said retiring after winning re-election allows the town board to appoint a replacement, who can then run as an incumbent, which gives the candidate an advantage in the election.

“I’d hate to see that’s the way we’re going to do business now,” she said.

Hoil also questioned how the town supervisor could be unaware of the resolution accepting Tennenberg’s retirement until it was before the board for a vote at yesterday’s town board meeting.

“She’s supposed to be the CEO of the town. She controls the agenda and runs the meetings,” Hoil said. “How do you not know what resolutions you’ll be voting on? I think it’s very telling that she didn’t know what was going on.”

Correction: This article has been amended to omit a reference to Ms. Tennenberg having to obtain a waiver to collect a state pension while still working in her town position. It is allowed by state law without a waiver.