The sometimes rancorous relationship between members of the Nashua Board of Aldermen and Mayor Donnalee Lozeau was on full display during last week’s budget committee hearing. On two key points in the 2015 spending plan, the committee voted to overrule the mayor’s recommendations.

The bigger ticket item was restoring $70,000 the mayor cut from the police department’s $26.6 million budget request, which came in at a 2.5 percent increase, instead of the 2 percent bump Lozeau requested.

Police Chief John Seusing made the pitch that the money is needed to put more feet on the street to combat drug-related crime. The committee agreed.

“I believe as a society, as a city, one of the most important things that people want is to go to bed at night believing that they’re safe,” Ward 5 Alderman and former city officer Michael Soucy said.

Not much controversy there. Seventy-thousand dollars is nothing to sneeze at, but the committee was well within its bounds to determine the police are deserving of the additional money.

The same cannot be said for the decision to shift supervisory control of the citizen services director from the mayor to the Board of Aldermen. It’s a bad move not in the best interests of the city for several reasons.

It is not too difficult to read between the limited lines of explanation to figure out what’s going on here. Some aldermen believe Citizen Services Director Patricia Rogers will be relieved of her duties by the mayor, and they want to keep her in her current role.

As Board of Aldermen President David Dean describes it: “It’s my understanding – through what I’ve heard through numerous sources – that the individual has been, you know, given some options. And I think with the interaction that we, as a board, have had and her ability to function in that position, the majority of us thought that she should remain in the position.”

When Deane asked Lozeau about future plans for the citizen services director job during the budget meeting, the mayor said the position wasn’t going away. However she rightly declined to discuss personnel questions about whether it might be filled by a different person in the future.

That sounds as if Rogers has gotten a little too chummy with the board for the mayor’s liking. Well, so be it. That’s a personnel issue between the mayor and her employee and not really the aldermen’s concern. Since when did the board become the city’s de facto human resources department?

To follow through on the change would set a bad precedent because it suggests that the board has the right to hijack supervisory authority over any other employee it wants or any employee who crosses swords with the mayor. That’s wrong. It’s not the board’s responsibility to decided who should or should not work for the city. To attempt to do so is clear violation of the principle of separation of powers.

It’s also bad government in a practical sense. The city services director is the point person for residents who have concerns and complaints about city business. That means to do the job efficiently and effectively, that person must in constant contact with the mayor and other city departments to resolve problems and fashion solutions. It just makes sense that the job should be part of the administration and not an adjunct of a part-time legislative branch of government.

Yes, the mayor plays it very close to the vest when it comes to sharing information with the Board of Aldermen. A good case can be made that sometimes she’s too secretive. But, even so, that does not give the board justification or legitimate authority to gerrymander the City Hall flow chart.