Section 7. A housing or redevelopment authority shall elect from among its members a chairman and a vice-chairman, and may employ counsel, an executive director who shall be ex officio secretary of the authority, a treasurer who may be a member of the authority and such other officers, agents and employees as it deems necessary or proper, and shall determine their qualifications, duties and compensation, and may delegate to one or more of its members, agents or employees such powers and duties as it deems necessary or proper for the carrying out of any action determined upon by it. So far as practicable, a housing or redevelopment authority shall make use of the services of the agencies, officers and employees of the city or town in which such authority is organized, and such city or town shall, if requested, make available such services, except, that in the city of Boston, the housing authority may contract with said city for the assignment of thirty-seven police officers of the police department of said city to police the buildings and grounds owned by said authority with the proviso that said authority shall reimburse said city for one third of the cost thereof.

A housing authority may compensate its members for each day spent in the performance of their duties and for such other services as they may render to the authority in connection with projects commenced prior to July first, nineteen hundred and sixty-five. Such compensation shall not exceed fifty dollars a day for the chairman and forty dollars a day for a member other than the chairman, provided that the total sum paid to all the members in any one month or year shall not exceed two per centum of the gross income of the housing authority during such month or year, respectively, nor shall the total sum paid in any year exceed twelve thousand five hundred dollars in the case of the chairman or ten thousand dollars in the case of a member other than the chairman. Such compensation shall be allocated by the housing authority among its various projects commenced prior to July first, nineteen hundred and sixty-five, in such manner and amounts as it deems proper. Members of a housing authority shall be allowed, or be reimbursed for, all expenses properly incurred by them within or without the city or town in the discharge of their duties. Such expenses shall be allocated by the housing authority among its various projects in such manner and amounts as it deems proper.

For the purposes of chapter two hundred and sixty-eight A or paragraph (7) of section forty-four D of chapter one hundred and forty-nine, each housing and redevelopment authority shall be considered a municipal agency and, without limiting the power of a city council or board of aldermen or board of selectmen to classify additional special municipal employees pursuant to said chapter, each member of such an authority, and any person who performs professional services for such an authority on a part-time, intermittent or consultant basis, such as those of architect, attorney, engineer, planner, or construction, financial, real estate or traffic expert, shall be considered a special municipal employee.

Any compensation paid to a tenant member of a housing authority for services as a member shall be included as income in determining rent, and the tenant shall be subject to appropriate rent increases, as provided for in authority policy and as regulated by the department; provided, however, that such compensation shall not be considered income for purposes of determining continued occupancy.