PARIS — The Norway-Paris Solid Waste board will address Christmas bonuses given to NPSW employees at its meeting Wednesday night.

Norway Town Manager David Holt, who is on the NPSW board, said that although he wasn’t in favor of bonuses except in the case of outstanding work, he acknowledged that employees were counting on it. “We need to make sure these employees know that we appreciate them,” he said.

He said he would look at the cost of the bonuses and decide whether to pay them this year or substitute some other compensation. “So long as everyone understands that we don’t think this is a good idea and this would end after this year.”

The bonus is equal to 1 percent of each employee’s salary, ranging from about $160 to $300.

Holt said bonuses were inappropriate because Norway employees received no raise last year, though he acknowledged that most NPSW employees aren’t highly paid.

The issue came up at the last NPSW board meeting, before which Holt said he wasn’t aware of the bonuses. He said the former board, which was ousted in February, had come up with the bonus system.

“The former board of directors chose to do that. And because they had done it, I think the employees, perhaps incorrectly, assumed that they would be getting that right along.”

At last week’s Paris Board of Selectmen meeting, Selectman Lloyd Herrick said the bonuses may be illegal if they’re not budgeted as part of employees’ salaries, because even though NPSW is private, it receives taxpayer dollars to operate.

Paris Town Manager Phil Tarr said he spoke with a lawyer from the Maine Municipal Association, who told Tarr the bonuses could be considered part employees’ compensation and were legal. Tarr said there’s no line item noting a Christmas bonus, so the money was coming from that allocated for salaries.

Tarr said he agreed with Holt that pulling this year’s bonus at the last minute was a bad idea. “To change at this point with the holidays upon us, I think, would serve to be powerfully negative to the employees. We don’t want that to happen. We have good employees.”

He suggested that in the future, the bonus should be scrapped, but the 1 percent should be rolled into employees’ regular salaries.

Barbara Payne, a member of the Paris Budget Committee and a former NPSW board member, grilled Paris selectmen at the Nov. 8 meeting about the bonus. None of the selectmen said they had heard of it.

Holt warned against overreacting to what he said was a fairly small amount of money. “Neither town is going to go bankrupt because of this,” he said.

The NPSW board meets Wednesday at 5:15 p.m. at the Norway Town Office.

treaves@sunjournal.com