Kingston budget panel keeps 2025 operating budget, adds wage-study funding and salary-adjustment money; approves fire, paramedic and contingency articles

Kingston officials approved the town—s proposed 2025 operating budget and a package of spending adjustments Tuesday, including funding for a professional wage and classification study and a new salary-adjustment pool intended to address inequities raised during the meeting.

The budget committee voted to forward the operating budget — shown in the meeting as $9,961,369 — after separate votes to add $20,500 to the consulting line for a compensation study and to add $80,000 to a renamed "salary adjustment" line (formerly labeled "pay for performance"). Select-board and budget members also approved warrant articles to create two full-time firefighter-paramedic positions, convert the part-time land-use administrative position to full time, add $50,000 to the fire apparatus capital-reserve fund and withdraw $735,000 from that fund to buy a replacement tanker.

Why it matters: Committee members spent substantial time on employee pay fairness and on ways to avoid a repeat of past confusion about a never-formally-adopted wage matrix. Several members said town hall and public-works employees had lagged behind police and fire in prior adjustments, prompting calls for an impartial study and a one-time pool to bring underpaid staff closer to market without adopting an open-ended "pay-for-performance" approach.

Budget and wage discussion

Committee members repeatedly returned to the wage matrix issue and whether prior pay increases for police and fire created inequities with other departments. A budget committee member summarized the…