Gardiner officials have reduced by 90 percent the fine they were slated to pay for safety violations listed by the Maine Bureau of Labor Standards from $9,000 to $900.
“This was welcome news to start the new year,” Gardiner City Manager Scott Morelli said Tuesday.
In November, the state agency notified city officials of the fine, following an audit in August in which 69 violations, ranging from missing paperwork to more serious infractions, were found. City officials had hoped for a reprieve because they had addressed 48 of the violations before the Bureau of Labor Standards issued its report, and the balance were corrected a month before the deadline.
“We would have liked to have avoided all fines, but given what I know about municipal workplaces, that’s improbable,” Morelli said.
In a letter sent at the end of December, bureau Director Pamela Megathlin noted all the citations had been corrected.
To correct the infractions, city officials spent nearly $23,000 and hours of staff time at the wastewater treatment plant, the public works garage, the buildings and grounds bays, the fire department, the police department, the south Gardiner fire station and the south Gardiner pump station.
Morelli said he had requested the penalty discussion.
All municipalities are subject to random Bureau of Labor Standards inspections. In 2015, the city of Augusta addressed all 143 workplace violations cited by the state and reduced its fine from $7,000 to $250.
Jessica Lowell — 621-5632
Twitter: @JLowellKJ
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