##VIDEO ID:tLMGgVT0gi8## okay good evening everyone uh today is January 22nd Wednesday evening at 7 pm um under this is the meeting of the town of Westport Massachusetts Personnel Board under Massachusetts General Law chapter 30A section 20f this meeting is being recorded this meeting is being held remotely in accordance with with the governor of Massachusetts March 12 2020 order suspending certain provisions of the open meeting law GL general laws chapter 30A section 20 and on March 29 2023 Governor Healey signed a supplemental 2023 budget allowing remote and hybrid meeting options for public bodies through March 31 of 2025 which will be coming up in um just two months um as I indicated this meeting is uh is being recorded okay so uh good evening everyone we have uh just a couple of items to discuss uh this evening I don't want to keep anyone uh too long uh the first item um first of all we're happy to have Carol frus the um veteran service officer joining us uh this evening uh and we're going to discuss um uh a request not only by her but by the U Town Administrator to increase the salary of the veteran service officer uh as you may recall the Personnel Board in conjunction with the select board had a salary survey uh done of many of our surrounding communities and comparable communities uh in the area uh to view whether or not the town of Westport is being competitive in its um uh not only hourly rates but salary rates uh uh annual salary rates and the veteran service officer was certainly one that did um come to our attention as being um the lowest in the range if um lower in the ranges if not one of the uh the very lowest um overall in the area um so uh Carol I know you made a presentation to the uh uh finance committee earlier for your budget but we really did not discuss your salary I will preface this by saying that I believe the select board has not taken this item up for discussion yet the Town Administrator has given it to the Personnel Board first uh to uh to address the item and I believe you are going to meet with the select board um next week is that correct do you know I do not know I have not been informed of a meeting with the select board I don't I don't think they've posted I don't think they've put together their agenda yet but perhaps it it's either next week or the meeting after that that they will address that we have enough we have plenty of time before the budget takes effect and certainly before town meeting uh the first week in May um so I'm G to let you make uh make your case uh I know that there have been some um some figures discussed uh and uh why don't you just make your um make your case uh Carol okay so I don't know if you can see me I have my PowerPoint presentation uh so basically I'm requesting a salary increase to $75,000 and that is based on data from three sources the first one is a salary survey from 12 communities in the Southeastern part of Massachusetts uh includes Abington Dartmouth East Bridgewater Easton Fair Haven Mansfield Norton Ram Rockland Somerset swansee and Whitman um I did not include any cities obviously their population is drastically different from ours um the second item is the study that Cindy referenced the gov HR classification compensation study and the third is the 2023 Town salaries report that I found on the website so based on the salary survey this is for my current salary which is 60,000 this should be 440 there's an extra zero I apologize um and so of the 13 communities that that I included in the survey this ranking is where I fall with one being the lowest two being second to the lowest so that's this that's just the annual salary when you factor in the hours per per week that we're scheduled to work because not every vso Works 40 hours a week like I do my hourly rate is at the lowest at $296 um and so you can see the average salary the average hourly rate the lowest the highest and where my salary and the hourly rate are different from just from the average um it's significantly lower by I want to interrupt you one second Carol do you by any chance have the ability to share your power oh I'm sorry I do yes I I don't think I don't think we all have it in front of us but that's okay that's okay while you're pulling while you're pulling that up I was remiss in when we started the meeting I should indicate uh what members of the Personnel Board Are Presidents so while you're pulling that up I will uh indicate that uh Gary Carrero uh Carrie COA and myself Cindy Brown from the Personnel Board are present at this meeting okay um I I don't know why it's showing let me ignore that message okay that better sorry yeah that's that's better you can't blow it up any do can you um let me see if I can share presentation mode let me stretch it a little bit sorry sorry to put you on the tech tech Hot Seat um me see me do this okay sorry um that's no that's my fault I should have asked you to uh do that sooner take your time I don't know if you can is it coming in uh let's see so right now I have a blank oh there you go that's the first page okay that's better okay I don't know if it's any better okay well go to the next page we'll see if it's better but you can walk us through the numbers a little bit I know the numbers will always look a little bit smaller so that's okay we we get the gist of it I don't know why it's giving me this Green Dot oh oh I see yeah I don't I don't we don't see necessarily see that uh but it's not letting me change slides oh okay oh that's interesting huh okay all right so why don't you just continue okay so there you go there you go oh okay all right so my salary is um from the average my annual salary it right now is $113,000 less than just the average it's about about $26,000 below the highest vso um and then my hourly rate as you can see is a little over $9 per hour less than the average of What the 13 vsos in this survey are making so that is this year um when you just factor in the vsos that work 40 hours a week like me it's still a lot lower um about $112,000 lower than the average salary and about $6 per hour or less when you factor in the hourly rate um so the next slide is very busy I apologize that's all right so what the survey what I did was I asked how long they have been a vso what is their total population of their Town what is the veteran population and these I took these numbers from the from the US Census so it was uh the same Source right so I didn't take numbers from different sources I wanted it to be consistent um how many chapter 115 cases they they have for those of you who don't know chapter 115 is Massachusetts lowincome financial assistance program for veterans and their surviving spouses the number of hours they work per week what their current salary is um a factored in the hourly rate uh what their anticipated FY 26 salary is and that hourly rate and and then what I did this last column average ranking is I I rated everything from lowest to highest one to whatever because some are 13 some are less because I did ranges um and so based on that if you see Westport is the dark orange line I'm second uh third from the bottom of uh the overall average but my salary is at the lowest or second to the lowest so that's that's if I just get the 3% raise that the town is proposing the $ 62,200 would be my my FY 26 salary the next slide shows my a requested salary of 75,000 and again um it's so it does bump up my my salary from second to the bottom to fifth place which is still in the bottom in my opinion uh because there's 13 communities um and my hourly rate only goes to um the third from the bottom so um that's that's the um I have one more to show you I'm sorry so this would be this would be just a comparison of the the vsos who work 40 hours a week that were included in this survey um and so at 75 ,000 I would be right in the middle right um I I don't know dartmouth's information that he's also negotiating um so I didn't include him so of the remaining four five including me I would be right in the middle at 75,000 um but I am I do have more experience than most of these vsos that are on this list um certainly more than Easton more than Dartmouth more than Swansea and more than fair Haven so only the vso in Rockland has been doing this job of these six communities has been doing this job longer than me um and a few of the communities have more chapter 115 cases than me but most have in the same range 30 to 39 as me I don't have an exact number I can't say if they're 30 if they're 39 if they're somewhere in between um but I didn't ask for that I just asked for ranges so that's but in addition to that you're also certified correct so everybody so there's two terms there's certified and there's accredited so certified is what all vsos have to be um by the state in order for us to administer chapter 115 and for the towns or cities to get the the maximum reimbursement of 75% I am accredited by the VA and that is something that not all vsos are um I believe in of all of these six communities the only other one who is accredited is Fair Haven um the others are not they may be working on it I don't know um but yes I am VA accredited um and I I took the initiative to do that myself once we found out that we were not covered under the state for doing VA claims uh so I I took the initiative and did that myself before the state came up with a system to try to accredit vsos do is doth is also accredited Matt's also accredited I mean certified certified certified yes but I but I don't believe he's accredited to do VA claims which is we found out is a violation of federal uh regulations um so so so you're you're saying that EV every vsso ultimately should be accredited uh if they want to do VA claims they have to be otherwise they're violating Federal Regulation yes all right um so basically for the salary survey you know the the the long and the short of it is that I of these 13 communities at least I am on the lower end currently I will still be on the lower end if I only get the 3% raise and if I get what I'm asking for 75,000 it would put me in about the middle of the pack um I thought that that was fair um you know some towns have more of a population some have less some have more of a veteran population some have less so I just put it right around the middle um now let me let me bounce something off of you there something that uh just a thought that I've had would you be um how how acceptable would you um uh uh look at an offer where it was a base say of 72 with a $3,000 stien for your accreditation I mean that does in theory put me at 75,000 right but but when you're factoring raises for future years the typen doesn't get included so it's not an even 3% or two you know whatever the percent is that the to that the town pays everyone um fair fair enough yeah um that that that that's a that's a valid concern that's a valid concern um so then I looked at the government the gvhr study and that report if you haven't seen it that report recommended that my position being in grade level 9ine and in that position with me is the recreation director the assistant director children's librarian and all of the police and fire lieutenants detective sergeants police sergeants um when I was comparing salaries I didn't really include the police and fire I know they work a lot of overtime uh and they make a lot of money um but I did want to point this out that the recommended salary range for grade nine starts at $67,100 which is $6,700 more than what I'm currently making if you added a 3% raise to that 67 that does put it at 69 1556 so you know given that that number was done in fy2 and we're talking about FY 26 I thought it was um fair to show that what I think that recommended pay would be if they were to include the 3% raise I I might be overstepping um and then the third um the third thing I looked at was the salaries for the town for 2020 three because that was the most recent information that I had available to me so of all of the 15 employees that we that I identified um basically what I did is I went through the report I looked at their position titles compared it to this the study and put them in the grade that matched up with the study um so of the grade nine my salary in 2023 was 56,000 which was the lowest by far of all of the positions the 12 police Poli it was just police in that in that um study um that in of employees they were just police they're they made an average of $124,000 um the assistant librarian made 61,000 the recreation director made 62,000 so you're looking at5 $6,000 more than me in 2023 um and I just feel like it's important to note that the recreation director only works 30 hours a week I think as she just got bummed up to 32 um but at the time it was 30 which is 10 hours per week less than me um and then I also thought it was important to note that there were 18 employees not including police officers and firefighters that were in CL grade classifications lower than nine who receive higher annual pay than me now whether that's because they do overtime or they hold multiple position I don't know um but there were three in grades three and four each nine employees in grade level five one in grade six seven and eight each uh of those 18 six began employment in for the town of Westport after me I'm I'm going to be at six years on April 1 and one started in the same year as me but I don't know if he started before after me so um you know I feel like based on what other veterans service officers in the area are making and based on what other employees in the town of Westport are making and based on the value that I have brought to the veterans department the things that I have done um for veterans and for the town of Westport I feel like I um I don't want to say I'm entitled but I I feel like I've earned a $75,000 salary in comparison to everything that I metion okay I think that was a excellent presentation Carol I mean I think that you certainly done your homework uh you use the resources that not only the uh the the town garnered but you took the initiative and went on your own to um to dig out some um further qualifying uh information that will help us uh along with uh with this uh does anyone from the board have any uh questions of uh Carol uh Carrie or or or Gary do do you want me to stop sharing um sure sure uh anyone have any uh any questions of uh of Carol uh discussion does anyone want to open it up to discussion but that's it I have no input other than that right now I can't sign on am I on there you're on oh hi my name is Jean frza yes I am a disabled veteran and I I just wanted to say that since I've met Carol and been involved with uh some personal items you can't get a better representative in your town and I just I'm online to support her and Hope that you grant her her pay increase because believe me she works hard and she deserves it well I know that the uh accolades have been many uh she has very many supporters not only within uh town government but certainly the clients that she serves have been very loyal to uh to her and certainly have appreciated all of the uh the work that she has done for them and her U uh you know how how much she cares for her clients and how much she has uh certainly benefited all of the veterans that she's been able to reach out to and um uh and help and help along the way um Gary did you have anything you wanted to uh addend somebody said they're having an audio issue oh yeah maybe that was Gary Carrie are you with us I guess we're there we go there we go there can you can you hear me yep we can hear you yeah the audio was off for some reason yeah okay I can we can hear you now Gary um okay I know I know these remote meetings can be uh difficult at times um well I I will come right out and say that I'm very supporting of uh of this um of this change I know that the Town Administrator certainly has plans in the master budget to uh uh to adjust your salary uh if not at the level that you are requesting certainly very close to that the Personnel Board is now in a position where we can um uh suggest the salary to the select board that we feel would be warranted for the position uh at this time you know ultimately it's town meeting that that determines the final the final amount uh when they go through the uh budget uh line items at uh town meeting for salaries versus expenses so it still is up to the final say of uh of town meeting but certainly our recommendation as well as that of the uh select board will have h a um uh an impact on uh on on how that um how that's viewed by uh the public so I would very much be uh in in favor of uh of of granting uh the $775,000 uh increase with a $2500 stien for your uh accreditation uh bringing so that way your base you know I totally agree that your base uh should be compounded to the level that um uh that's warranted uh you know we we have to spend some time as a Personnel Board and just as a town to go through some of these different uh particularly the uh grade nine positions some of which are supervisory some are not some of them have as in your case you know you have a client base that you serve um which involves all hours of the day and night I mean you know you can get calls uh weekends certainly in the evenings the early morning whatever the time may be and I know you are always very happy to um to answer the call no matter what time that uh that comes in so all you all of those yeah all of those factors you know need to be taken into um into account when when we look at those things and so although we cannot have just one flat level uh amount for a a grade nine uh person I I think factors such as that have to be taken into consideration and you certainly should not be at the bottom of that level even using the adjustment that we're including here uh is is I is not putting you I don't really feel in in the right tier of that but it's a good start I mean for uh as you as youve heard the Town Administrator say and certainly if you listen to any of the finance committee meetings as well we're strapped for money every single year you know every every year um we spend the total amount allocated to the town right down pretty much to the penny so it's um um we have to recognize where we need to to uh uh reward people for the jobs that they do and I think in this case this is something that's uh long overdue uh and that we should uh adjust it uh accordingly uh but that's you know my say Carrie do you have any thoughts on this I agree with everything there you go yeah go ahead I agree with everything um she works really hard and I've heard nothing but good things and the national average I know we're Westport but it's a lot higher right so right I'm for it yeah great presentation as well thank you Gary you have any thought just um can I just make a comment cind I think that um you know uh the US supporting this you know indirectly supports the veterans of Westport and absolutely you know you know as you look at and time progresses you know you know thank God we're not in any major major conflicts now where you know we're you know back in the in the uh you know World War II era uh where most of these folks are uh you know passed on uh but I think there's still uh the need for it because you know just my experience there's a lot of people that don't even know they have the benefits coming to them and it's not a fault of any of the people that are in place it's just that you know no one and some of them it's out of Pride you know just don't want to ask and you know I I hope that uh you know Carol Works closely with the Council on Aging because I think those two uh organizations work hand inand together they you know people are going to the Council on Aging uh they may be able to S share some of those resources you know um so on and so forth so I completely support this I think that um it shows good faith on not only this board but hopefully the the select board also support it uh and like I said indirectly support the V veterans of Westport I agree if there's if there's 10 or1 15,000 more that we need to spend in the budget this year this is one of those areas so um can I entertain a motion uh with a salary figure yeah I make a motion that we uh put the salary at 75,000 with the with the uh stip in there uh is this a one-year contract is it a are you uh year to year are you employe will uh well I am but generally I do a three-year contract oh threee okay so this is for a three-year contract are we discuss are we discussing the terms of the contract or just the salary amount uh just just the the salary amount for now the uh Town Administrator would work out the details of yeah any if if there were any unusual uh items that they would kick back to the Personnel Board but well like like col is and all that that that that's that's has to be negotiated I'm assuming right and typically they have gone along with the average of any of the uh Union contracts so right now any of them get the uh 3% so um yeah I believe that's what they're looking for uh this year and is a a 3% um increase so um so Gary has the motion on the table second okay and Carrie has uh seconded it unless there's any other um discussion I'm going to say that we'll take a vote on establishing uh recommending the rate to the select board uh be included in the budget for the upcoming year of a base rate of 75,000 with a $2500 stien uh in addition for the uh accreditation um uh the veteran service uh accreditation uh all those in favor I I I I no opposed we'll consider it unanimous and thank you very much Carol for all you do uh you had a great presentation thank you so much I really really greatly appreciate the time and the support no you you go and enjoy your evening and uh hopefully you won't get any calls tonight it's cold out there but um uh thank you very much for your uh for your presentation thank you have a good night good night good night good night excuse me my throat St um okay so we have one other item that's um fairly brief because we've actually already um approved of it last year and this was only solely for the job description itself not necessarily uh approving the notion of the position once again it's just for the job description we really don't have any say over whether or not they should um fund the position uh but they've requested a job description of such um so last year we talked about a uh Town engineer and that was really more in anticipation of the route 6 project currently there's still uh a need for Town Engineering Services there's a great need for it in the highway department uh and looking at the roads there a need forward in the planning department uh when they're looking at some of their um subdivision plans uh rather than uh expending the money uh not only in-house quite often the developer will pay uh for the engineering but the town also has their share of um of engineering studies that they do but also someone to oversee uh and help with the um uh oversight of uh Cemetery right now Jim oversees really the cemetery Department uh potentially the um uh the transfer station uh possibly uh and a higher level of the uh of the highway department whether or not those items negotiated between those unions or anything thing that's really up to the Town Administrator side our role has really just been to address the very small change in the job description and that is that it would include that of um oversight um potentially the oversight and I I'm going to look at the let me look at the job description it says here um that it be a director of public infrastructure for managing the highway department the town maintenance and Cemetary Department operations of the town's engineering function including Public Utilities um and the rest of it is Jim sent me the red line and that was the only Red Line changes from uh from the previous um uh job description was that of really the title and that it would be overseeing managing the um maintenance Cemetery Department uh highway department so um it's a small change but a change nonetheless that falls on the um falls on the lap of the Personnel uh board uh currently that position was funded in fy2 in the current year but was never used um because the uh Route 6 project did not um uh move forward and they're hoping to still use this once again uh no differently than the than the um veteran service officer the final um Des or the final outcome of this um has not been decided by the select board uh there is one member of the select board that that is um um has requested uh a very large umbrella type position uh I think it would be very close to that of the um uh director of Public Works uh which I guess was voted down in this town many years ago whether or not that's going to be revived I don't know um so this is just purely a job description that's being put before us tonight nothing to do with warranting whether or not the position is um um is whether it's worthy of of the position so um did uh Carrie did you have any thoughts on this uh one way or the other um during my rech I went down a rabbit hole with this um I'm not surprised the title I don't think it encompasses the full position okay so the title the title is as uh just just director of public infrastructure right I just just flip the words around to like Municipal infrastructure director that's it just encompasses a little bit more okay so how so explain explain that to me well most uh this position in most towns uh they don't usually have anything to do with Cemetery or it's it's usually just infrastructure and that it it doesn't include the cemetery and like you said I get the impression that this is going to be an um umbrella position right so I think I think the word Municipal will help the person who's looking at this job description maybe help them to understand that there's going to be a little bit more than normal from other towns there there were a couple other suggestions I wrote down but that one is the chief engineer and infrastructure manager um it was recommended that the word engineer should be in it as well especially if we're requiring the professional engineer license right because in the in the job description no differently than uh last year when it was before us the um uh it does require a um Bachelor science degree in civil engineer uh in civil engineer ing uh as well so uh and to have um a preference of being a licens registered professional engineer not a requirement but a preferred requirement uh to be a licens registered professional engineer but certainly have the educational background of um uh of such um Gary in was in uh in Dartmouth the the cemeteries in in Dartmouth is that is totally different department yes it this is a i it's almost apples to oranges um yeah because do Westport right so if you go back a few years ago and you look at what the proposal was it was to bring in a DPW you know to uh to bring in uh cemeteries water water sewer if we would ever get that down the road but you know and I and I was really against that back 10 years ago when they proposed that probably some time now but um and because we don't have those particular we don't have a sew Department we don't have uh you know the the the you know the the volume of a dmouth or a New Bedford or you know the city and I think I think um to the point that was made I think we're trying to do too much with the title and it's yeah it's really not fitting to Westport if you if you will um what do they want do they want an engineer do they want somebody that that uh overseas cemeteries and Parks that's a whole separate Department I mean you're going to have a DPW director or I mean we we have a highway department we don't even have a DPW you know we don't have a department of infrastructure we have a highway department so that's the point I I think that in my opinion I think we need a little bit more clarification on what the scope of this really is going to end up being um I'm not comfortable of with voting on any of this to be honest with you uh without you know knowing a little bit more on what the plan five years down the road is going to be do we want to make a DPW again do we want to bring that up I don't know yeah I I I think it's because of exactly what you identified as is is the problem is that we're not big enough to have you know separate jobs for these things so we have to kind of put a bunch of things in the in the bucket so for example had we'll just say had the root six project gone through the t engineer would have had a boatload of projects to work got right as it is now because Jim has planning board experience quite often he fills the role of a lot of the things that's in this job description right so he looks at uh you know engineering designs he looks at a lot of these things because there's a you know the highway department that the highway surveyor does not have an engineering background so if there are quick things that come in that involve uh engineering or road work or something like that Jim ends up being the one taking that needs to take a look at that the cemetery department has three people in it um and Jim ends up being the they they do have a foreman uh but he ends up overseeing the cemetery Department because there really isn't anybody else if they have a problem they have to go to gym so every anytime anybody has a problem they always end up going to gym and they're they're they're trying to parcel out some of these things no differently than when we discussed on the call the other night you know in HR department because so many things end up on his lap and this was one case and I don't disagree with you Gary that I think it needs more clarification but I think this is the reason why they requested the change is because they can't justify a full-time engineer they need a they need an engineer that can also oversee this and oversee that and oversee this because no one job is a fulltime job right but I in Municipal I think in the municipal World an engineer does not oversee Highway uh Highway and road maintenance it doesn't oversee an engineer is specific to the design of Roads it doesn't it doesn't look at uh you know um uhx andox and cemeteries it doesn't look at all these other things I think that they're trying to wrap into this infrastructure um you know role and to me let them clearly Define what they what they're looking for before we go ahead and slap a job description on something I think that I I think that's that's fair enough and we can at least report back to them that we discussed this and that we don't feel that um uh that the the vision is clear enough as to what truly this position is going to cover um because we you know we don't know if they will get the sign off from uh you know from the unions on some of these things I mean there's a lot of there's a lot of Clauses in these Union contracts that we're not even aware of that you know change of management or change of this or change of that triggers uh an event in the um uh in the overall um negotia in the contract and it it reopens up the contract so uh I think it's fair that that we can tell them that we discuss the issue um and that uh they need to come back to us with a more clearly defined role of I mean to the point we can you know you can you can say well does does the engineer I mean does an engineer engineer roads are they also responsible for the maintenance of the roads the plowing of the roads I mean that's two to in my mind two totally separate functions you know right um right in in normal circumstances in any other community I've ever uh been in an engineer is the design of the road that's it there's no there's no comingling of that like in dmouth in the structure in dmouth we have Engineers we have the DPW director who is who is the uh you know he's the DPW director he oversees the entire operation M um but we don't have a DPW that's kind of what I'm getting at we have a highway department right right um okay well that's that's fair enough I mean we like I said we don't um uh there there isn't anything uh pending in front of us that we need to take action on this um uh tonight um we can easily send it back to them for additional clarification as I indicated there's one member on the select board that um definitely wanted to move forward with it under this type of description uh but it certainly has not had the full vote of the board as to what they really want to do okay and who is that who is that member is that public yeah yeah it was it was in a public meeting is Manny man yeah um man Manny is the one that is um uh pushing to have this type of uh structure but the other board members have not uh have not they've not even had a discussion about it yet so that should happen yeah yeah okay so we can kick it back to um uh to them um okay uh unless there's anything else to discuss we have minutes yeah we have minutes uh I will make one one um note um uh Jess I know Jess you're you're on with us on the um on the minutes um could you include with the minutes going forward just for matters of public record uh if we vote say on a job description uh that we include the job description with the minutes please okay so just uh because when I was going through when I was going through the past minutes and we had um we had voted back in April on several job descriptions um and I know they ended up going to town meeting but the the the actual job description themselves and not posted in town meeting it's just the um um uh it's just the pay grade level and the the the notation of what level they're at so uh Jess when when we do the minutes just make sure that you include if we're discussion discussing a job description make sure you include the the uh the actual description with it okay no problem okay thank you uh so um I will make a motion on accepting the minutes I believe it was April 3 and um I forgot what the other date was here July 16 July 16th I make a motion to accept both of those uh minutes please follow the instructions second okay uh all those in favor I hi we'll do a I'm sorry we had to do a roll call you know and I failed to do a roll call earlier so for so for purposes of um legality in the meeting could we revisit the um meeting Gary you sound like you are you checking into a hotel stoping shop oh you stopping shop you're multitasking there you go you're multitasking uh you can you can run it run out to your car now that you're done through your your checkout and uh get uh warm up your car at least anyway you can do the remote start uh I'm going to do a quick roll call vote of the prior uh vote increasing the salary of the veteran service officer uh to $75,000 base with a $2500 uh stien um Cindy Brown I Carrie I Carrie kuna har COA I great okay so now we have that recorded legally since it's a remote meeting I keep forgetting that so um we there's no vote necessary for this uh for the uh for the meeting uh regarding the um engineer uh but we'll take a roll call vote on the minutes so I accept the um minutes of April 3D and July 16th uh Cindy Brown I Gary Hara I okay and Gary yes okay so we've got those recorded so now we're now we're legal so I just want to make sure we had that taken care of um I apologize to anyone that's watching this uh recording that uh we got a little bit um jumbled up here in our vote so I apologize um okay well I have nothing else before us uh I was contacted uh by some another Department about a job description but I found out that we already did that job description last year so I think that we're fine um and um I don't have any other topics to bring up other than a future meeting uh perhaps um maybe we'll do this after town meeting or maybe just before town meeting we should have a session at some point and have the members of the Personnel Board look closely once again at the at the salary survey and see if there are any other things that stuck out um I think any department heads um that felt that they've been short changed uh have have spoken up uh and address that I mean that the one that sticks out who will not speak up about it is uh the Town Administrator um and he I believe came in dead last of any of the um towns that were surveyed um for Town Administrator I believe that his salary at 140 was at the very bottom of um of the list there might have been one town but he was only a part-time Town Administrator uh that uh was below that but um and of course he won't put in uh an increase uh on his own um but department heads that have uh felt that they were wronged the town clerk comes to mind um but we do not covered that uh position uh as an elected position um she has also requested an adjustment in her salary also as a category nine um uh employee so um so Cindy I have a question um yeah how is this being handled I mean we've got the survey we've got um comparable now comparisons from uh a company that we paid a decent amount of money for to to accomplish this um at some point is the select board going to accept the the provisions of the survey or are we going to be just people coming in and one office I mean to me I mean I don't mind but I think that this has got to be this has got to be an executive decision that you know the select board accepts the provisions of the survey and then you know if they want to adjust salary scales at that point they have to or or they should well you know they they accepted the report uh they had an opportunity to interview uh The Firm that that did the study uh and surprisingly with the exception of you know a few that stick out uh most of which have now been addressed I believe the um the head of the library the head librarian was one veteran service is another um town clerk is another there are a handful of positions out there that stuck out they were mainly managerial ones the hourly rate people including Highway seemed to fall kind of within the boundaries there weren't too many that stuck out too much one way or the other um I believe the police Chief may have been a little bit shy but that's a negotiated contract between the select board and the police chief um other than that I have to admit that I was surprised that we came out um as Equitable as we did um it really wasn't that far off there weren't too many um uh positions other than the ones that I mentioned uh that that stayed away from uh what the what the average is so so what what I started to say is that at some point you know we should all take it upon ourselves to go back to that report a little bit uh you know we all have things to do but go back to that report and see if there really were some things that stuck out there you know there were a lot of things to digest to get through and reading it and try to understand how they arrived at some the numbers that they did but by the time you get to the end you can kind of figure out where where we stand uh the Town Administrator is the one is the final one that sticks out with me and um I think it behooves the select board uh you know to to recognize that and to say look you know we really do underpay Our Town Administrator and uh Jim when you're doing the budget you should address that salary inequity and include I mean gosh even if they gave him $110,000 more above the you know the the 3% I mean I think that would go a long way in recognizing we have a $50 million budget we should be able to find $10,000 okay I mean there's 10,000 somewhere that we can find in this budget that um if we feel that someone is being underpaid and at risk of losing because they're being underpaid we should find that money particularly when we have documentation showing they are significantly underpaid so um you know I have a question yeah go ahead I know you're doing management but a thing that I that sticks with me is our average pay is 40 Grand a year and I don't think that's livable but obviously this these aren't management positions do you want to do anything with those when you say average pay who are you referring to um like the people that run the cameras the the those type of positions well on an hourly basis they're [Music] they're I mean I can look and see and look at that one again if that's one that I overlooked I mean um I don't know if on an hourly basis if they're underpaid I mean they may only make 40,000 but they're not working full-time uh if if if I didn't pay attention to that I'll go back and look at it if you if you think I'll look it too yeah you should look at it too I mean if that's if um you know I don't know who we never see Gary do we ever see the cable the cable uh TV um budget come before the finance committee um I think that's under um not an Enterprise I don't know I don't think that's an Enterprise F I think that's under uh select board select board right so but I think to the point yeah I think to the point that's made I I don't think we can single out individual positions I don't want to say people I'm talking positions because we don't talk about people we talk about positions um I think that again going back to my my comment I think the select Board needs to needs to be the one that digests this report and globally through the town makes and accepts changes whether that be through the unions whether that be and this takes a long time it's it's not going to happen overnight but I don't think we can singly say oh you know uh the um you know I'm just making up the the highway department the you know we got a foran in there they should be making X right that really isn't our really that's not something we should be doing that's something the executive board should be doing and we've got the data we paid good money for it I think that they need to now digest it and move forward with it it's either a yes or no it's very simple if they go to the 75th percentile or the 80 80 80th percentile then they need to and what is the cost of that that really what needs to be projected not only to the the residents but the finance committee so on and so forth right right I I see your point Gary where you're saying you know that we should have a a resounding a resounding level saying okay we should be at the 75th percentile or whatever whatever amount that is because let's face it the employees in town do not work for the Personnel Board they work at the at the um uh under the under the supervision of the board of Selectmen not the Personnel Board they don't work for us you know the the the select board is their boss not us that's my point that the select board should be the ones the executive branch should be the ones that are digesting that report and going and moving forward with it correct name one way or another yeah because if the employees do know that this survey was done obviously so oh yeah you know they they they they could be waiting I mean they're probably waiting for the select board to make a decision on what needs to be done what the next steps right right right um I will definitely have a conversation with the Town Administrator about that to um to discuss that okay that's a good point that's a good point um okay um I don't have any other items we don't have anything else on the agenda so we really don't have much else that we can discuss so um absent that I will entertain a motion to adjourn motion to adjourn you go second okay so unfortunately we have to take a roll call vote so Carrie CA oh hi G Carrero yes cdy Brown yes okay good night