That money pays the Rotary club dues of the town manager, David Bone.

Commissioner Sid Baynes pointed out the expense and his motion not to pay the personal dues of any town employee in a civic organization failed 3-2.

One can argue whether the town should pay such an expense, but we believe it is important that town leaders be involved in the community outside the workplace.

Paying for such a membership is not uncommon and offering an employee perk like paying membership dues is a good recruiting tool for commissioners to use when they solicit top employees to work in Wendell.

Commissioner Carol Hinnant, who voted with Baynes to eliminate the dues payment, said commissioners should have the right to ask any question they want of staff.

But the larger issue here is just how deep commissioners need to thrust themselves into the day-to-day management of town operations.

In the scope of things, the $790 club dues paid by the town amounts to less than 0.02 percent of the town’s $5.3 million budget.

Commissioners are elected to be big-picture thinkers.

Cutting a few hundred dollars here and there won’t bring the town into fiscal prosperity. Establishing sound policies will.

The Wendell Town Board is currently as dysfunctional as any group we’ve seen in government in quite some time.

One big reason for that dysfunction is the disjointed notions of what a board of commissioners is expected to do.

We’d be pleased to see the board retreat to discussing such larger issues.

And leave the details to the town staff. They are a professional group capable of managing the town’s limited resources based on the guidelines set forth by the policy-makers.

Wendell commissioners have a number of policy issues coming before them in the next few months, including consideration of a stormwater management ordinance commissioners have all but adopted, and a unified development ordinance that has taken months to craft.

Planning Board Chairman Sam Laughery has already expressed concerns about adopting such an all-encompassing document without making so many changes that the work of the UDO committee is rendered worthless.

But that can be accomplished if commissioners approach the project in a global fashion.

As they should do with budgeting and expenditures, commissioners should approach the plan with a broad idea of how they would like to see the town develop.

If the proposed ordinance accomplishes those goals then commissioners shouldn’t be the group to nitpick every detail of the plan.

And next year, when budget season rolls around again, commissioners should, as Baynes suggested this year, list a few priorities for the town staff to satisfy,then leave the details to those staffers to work out.

Wendell can again become a smoothly-run town. But it’ll take a change in the approach of the board of commissioners to accomplish that.

— Johnny Whitfield