Former Barre public-works superintendent Jason Pimental agreed to a $35,000 civil ethics penalty in a signed settlement that details overlapping paid work for the town and the Massachusetts Department of Fire Services.
The eight-page agreement says Pimental worked approximately 1,082 hours for the state agency between Dec. 28, 2020, and June 20, 2024, during hours for which Barre paid him to perform his town job. It puts the town pay for those hours at approximately $30,294.
Pimental and the State Ethics Commission agreed that he submitted false claims for pay and used his position to obtain an unwarranted benefit. The commission said Oct. 22 that he had paid the penalty.
The agreement also notes that neither the town nor its public-works commission had a written policy governing how the superintendent recorded daily start and end times or the specific hours taken as leave.
Separate violations involved his paid on-call firefighting job for Barre and his approval of department payment requests containing his own expense reimbursements. The agreement says he did not obtain the required exemption for the second town job after being advised in a 2021 letter that he needed one. The reimbursement finding concerns his participation in decisions affecting his own finances; it does not establish that the expenses were fabricated.
Pimental signed Sept. 25, and commission Executive Director David A. Wilson signed Oct. 22. The agreement says it is a consented-to final order enforceable in Superior Court. Pimental agreed to its findings and waived his right to contest them.
Signed disposition agreement, docket 26-0002; Commission's Oct. 22 announcement.