Stonington — The town has promoted a highway department employee who was arrested last year for assaulting a landscaper while on the job, earning him a raise of almost $7,000 a year.

Timothy Keena was named highway foreman, the department’s third highest post, on Monday after serving in the position on an interim basis since January. Keena, who has worked for the town for 33 years, earned $67,662 annually in his former job as a senior equipment operator and will now earn $74,609 a year. These figures do not include overtime.

The foreman’s job description states that the employee has frequent contact with other town employees and occasional contact with contractors, residents and the general public and those interactions “require courtesy and tact.”

Director of Administrative Services Vincent Pacileo said Keena and one other highway employee applied for the job. A committee, consisting of Public Works Director Barbara McKrell, Highway Department Supervisor Tom Curioso and Human Resources Assistant Kristine Bell, interviewed the two candidates and scored their responses. Keena had the higher score, making him the most qualified candidate.

Keena will now report to Curioso. McKrell oversees the department.

The job requires knowledge and experience in numerous areas, at least seven years of experience in a public works environment and three years as a heavy equipment operator. Duties involve overseeing and working on the construction and repair of roads, catch basins and drainage systems; installing and repairing signs and guard rails, cutting brush and trees, mowing grass, maintaining parks and picnic areas, athletic field maintenance and operations and grounds keeping. It also involves the supervision of employees in the field.

Keena was charged with third-degree assault in connection with the June 2016 incident on Prentice Williams Road in Old Mystic while the landscaper Morgan Dean of North Stonington was charged with breach of peace, third-degree assault and second-degree assault.

According to police, both Dean, who is a mixed martial arts competitor, and the highway employees agreed that the dispute began when Dean drove his tractor over a freshly paved piece of road to reach a lawn on the street.

Highway employees began yelling at him to stop and confronted him, using profanities. Keena told police he approached Dean with a paving rake in his hand and became involved in an argument with him, asking him “What the (expletive) is your problem?”

Dean told police that Keena approached him with the rake and began threatening him with it. He said Keena then used the rake like a hockey stick to cross-check him to the bridge of his nose, breaking his glasses.

Highway worker Joseph Ferraro told police that Dean pushed Keena and Keena pushed back. Dean then punched Keena and Keena retaliated with a punch before falling to the ground, where Dean kicked him in the head.

Keena told police that Dean shoved and punched him, and he punched him back. After Ferraro rushed to help Keena and was punched by Dean, Keena said he got up and grabbed the rake to defend himself.

According to the warrant, Dean and Keena fought for control of the rake at one point and Dean said he threw it into the yard where he was working.

He said Keena later began swinging the rake like a baseball bat as three other highway employees were coming at him. That’s when Dean picked up a lawn chair “like a lion tamer” and told the four employees coming at him to stop. At that point, the fight stopped.

The town suspended Keena for five days costing him $1,268 in pay. He also had to attend anger-management counseling outside of work hours. In January, the New London state’s attorney office decided not to prosecute Keena and Dean.

Under the town’s workplace violence policy, it had the right to immediately suspend or fire Keena.

The fight was not the first disciplinary incident involving Keena.

In 2013, the town found Keena violated the violence policy by threatening an employee. He received a written warning. It is unclear if the policy was in effect in 1991, when the town said Keena was verbally abusive to one supervisor and initiated physical contact with his foreman while threatening both men. He received counseling about “how to deal with stress in a positive manner” after that incident.

j.wojtas@theday.com