Milford police chief urges role in pay-study scope and job-description updates before external police review

Milford’s police chief said she supports a citywide pay and classification study for nonunion staff but asked council for clarity and involvement before an outside firm examines sworn positions.

The chief told council the city budget includes funding for a pay study and that Evergreen Solutions—used by the city for prior pay studies—was engaged for the 2025 study. She said civilian nonunion employees are cooperating with the firm and that staff work to finalize civilian position information. However, she said sworn positions such as lieutenants and captains require updated, modernized job descriptions before an outside firm evaluates pay for those roles.

"If the request was part of council direction via the budget, I will cooperate, but I should have input on the firm’s scope for sworn positions," the chief said, explaining that current job descriptions do not reflect contemporary responsibilities such as budget accountability and community-based policing. She told council she could produce updated lieutenant and captain job descriptions by late February to early March and said those updated descriptions are needed to establish proper compensatory factors for a pay study.

City Manager Mark and other council members said the pay study line item was included in the adopted budget and that Evergreen had conducted earlier studies for the city in 2017 and 2021. Council members urged transparency and recommended that department heads be allowed to participate in selecting a vendor for sworn personnel work. Evergreen’s representative was available during the meeting; council agreed it would be appropriate for the chief and city manager to discuss vendor capabilities directly and return to council with a recommended approach and timing before asking the firm to perform an external pay analysis of sworn positions.