The Haines Borough reached a settlement agreement on April 12 with former Haines Sheldon Museum director Helen Alten.

The settlement involved a $25,000 payment to Alten. Other details about the agreement are confidential.

“We have reached a settlement that was agreeable to both parties,” Mayor Douglas Olerud said in a Monday interview, declining to comment further.

Alten also declined to comment.

The settlement, which marks the resolution of a grievance filed last July, keeps the two parties from moving to arbitration, the final step in the grievance process.

In a September interview, Alten said she decided to file a grievance because she disagreed with the way her firing was handled. When the Haines Sheldon Museum board of trustees let Alten go, they said they eliminated the director’s position to save money, citing recent cuts to the borough’s portion of museum funding.

The Borough employees’ union business representative Trenton English disputed this reasoning and requested Alten be reinstated in a July 14 letter to the board.

Alten will not be reinstated as part of the settlement, but her name will be added to a list of laid-off borough employees in accordance with borough code. Employees remain on the list for two years during which time they must be given hiring preference for borough jobs for which they are qualified.

Although borough law requires it, interim manager Alekka Fullerton said she believes this is the first time someone’s name is actually being added to a list. “I don’t think we’ve ever had one before,” she said.

Because the law hasn’t been put into practice before, it’s unclear how the preferential hiring will work. Fullerton said she expects if Alten sees a borough position she wants, she will apply. If Alten is deemed qualified for the position, the job will be hers.

The museum board has brought on two emergency hires through the borough since Alten’s position was eliminated—Christine Carpenter, who served as interim curator, and Burl Sheldon, who is serving as interim accountant.

The museum is currently quasi-governmental, staffed by borough employees who are overseen by a nonprofit board. For the past year, the board has been exploring the idea of separating from the borough.