The Town of Huntington filed a lawsuit against Highway Superintendent William Naughton Wednesday morning, accusing him of ignoring town hiring and promotion procedures.

According to court documents, Naughton allegedly attempted to hire eight workers over the course of two weeks without town board approval. The suit names Naughton, the eight workers he allegedly tried to hire and their union, Local 342 Long Island Public Service Employees. Huntington spokesman A.J. Carter said Naughton also tried to give 15 employees raises.

“He never came to the board, and he just proceeded to fill jobs that didn’t exist,” Supervisor Frank Petrone said. “Mr. Naughton refused to cease and desist. He just continued and continued. He was advised by the town attorney of his responsibility and that of the board’s, and he totally ignored that and continued to have these individuals on the job.”

The suit seeks to prevent Naughton from hiring independent contractors or filling vacancies without town board approval, prevent the men he hired from providing services for the Highway Department, and seeks dismissal of a grievance filed by Local 342, which represents blue-collar workers in Huntington government.

Naughton referred calls to attorney Tom Levin, who accused the town of usurping Naughton’s ability to do his job.

“His position is: The town has been interfering with his ability to run his department,” Levin said. “He has statutory authority as an elected official, and we believe they are interfering with it.”

As soon as he is served papers, Naughton plans to file a countersuit, Levin added.

Naughton, elected as a Democrat, has been publicly clashing with the Huntington board since October, when he sent a letter weeks before Election Day accusing them for “usurping his authority” and stripping him of funding needed to maintain roads. In December, he endorsed a ballot measure to create councilmanic districts, a measure which all five board members opposed. It failed by a landslide on Dec. 22, 2009.

The bad blood, especially pertaining to hiring, dates back as far as 2000, when Naughton sued the Town demanding five appointees be placed on the payroll. During that case, Naughton conceded his right to “expend an appropriation is subject to the budget and the collective bargaining agreement” and that the town had the right to set budgets for his department and, by that, the number of people he could employ according to a Sept. 6, 2000 decision on motions for preliminary injunctions.

Each of the eight men Naughton allegedly tried to hire were notified by letter from Jan. 15 to Jan. 19 and again from Jan. 26 to 27 that they were not employed by the town, were not placed on the payroll because there were no vacancies and that they were performing services at their own risk. Naughton attempted to pay six of the men as outside contractors, but was denied, according to the lawsuit.

After the town refused to pay the six workers, a grievance was filed by the labor union and presented on Jan. 22 to the Highway Department, demanding wages and benefits. Deputy Highway Superintendent Carl Cavanaugh granted the grievance, but the town again refused to pay.

Petrone said Naughton is “sending the message that he has little regard for the pocketbook of the average taxpayer and that it is up to the town board to prevent “reckless spending” and ensure it is clear to departments that the supervisor’s office has final say on all appropriations issues.

“Without the authority vested in the governing body of a municipality, we could easily be saying it’s a banana republic,” Petrone said. “We’re not going to run a banana republic.”

This dispute over Naughton’s staffing levels began in September 2009, when he asked the town board to, by a resolution, reinstate funding for a dispatcher and six automotive equipment operators (AEOs), which was denied. A month earlier, the town reinstated five highway positions at Naughton’s request, positions totaling $135,637, according to the town.

Naughton later asked the town personnel officer to post vacancies for seven blue-collar positions in the Highway Department, which she did not do because the vacancies were not funded. Naughton then allegedly attempted to hire four workers on Dec. 31, 2009 to serve as AEOs without having a line to pay them. Eight days later, he allegedly moved to hire three more men – two laborers and one guard, to start later in the month. On Jan. 15, he acted to fill an AEO position, according to court documents.

However, after funds for vacant positions were transferred into contingency accounts at the end of 2009, none of those positions existed, and Naughton would need town board approval to open them again. Under hiring procedures implemented 11 years ago, funding appropriated for positions that become vacant are placed in contingency accounts, and the money in contingency can only be released with board approval.

When the men reported to the personnel department to be paid, they were turned away because there was no budget line for their positions. Without filing the paperwork, they never received approval to be hired and they were never issued town ID cards.