WESTBROOK — Two unidentified city employees are serving several months of paid administrative leave, but officials will not identify them.

Mayor Michael Sanphy and City Administrator Jerre Bryant this week confirmed the two employees are on administrative leave, but refused to say who they are, whether they are department heads, and the reasons they aren’t at work.

“It’s a personnel matter,” Bryant said in his City Hall office. “We cannot comment on personnel matters.”

Bryant confirmed Wednesday in an email that the two employees are being paid. He also said the employees have been on leave for at least two months, in one case, and for longer than that in the other.

Bryant said the two situations are unrelated and do not involve possible criminal charges. “It’s complicated,” he said.

Bryant said the city’s lawyer, Natalie Burns of the Portland law firm Jensen Baird Gardner & Henry, is involved in the cases only in an advisory capacity to him and Sanphy, who are the only city officials investigating the matters.

He declined Tuesday to release any city correspondence involving the two employees.

At the city’s Community Services Department, a man identifying himself only as Tom answered the phone Tuesday. Responding to a request to speak with Maria Dorn, who is the department director, the man said she wasn’t in “right now.” In further questioning, the man said she hadn’t been there “for about three months.”

When asked for contact information for Dorn, the man said “she has not left a forwarding number.”

Jennifer Ogden, director of human resources for the city and the School Department, Tuesday did not return two telephone messages left on a phone number published on the city’s website. A woman’s voice in a message identified herself as Jennifer Ogden and said, “At this time, I’m unavailable.”

Greg Post, deputy director of Community Services, and Casey Provost, human resources assistant, did not return calls Wednesday.

Bryant said he has had “a couple inquiries” from the public.

Deb Kennedy Shangraw, who is the owner and president of Emerald Management in Westbrook and has been recognized for her community work at the teen center, weighed in on the matter Tuesday on Facebook.

“I do believe the public has a right to know when employees are on admin leave,”  Shangraw said. “I do know that when they deal in ‘personnel’ matters, I’ve always been told that all that information cannot be released.”

City Council President Brendan Rielly did not return a call Tuesday and John O’Hara, the council vice president, did not respond to an email Tuesday.

Bryant said he and Sanphy expect to wrap up their investigation “soon.”

Robert Lowell can be reached at 854-2577 or [email protected]