Newcastle staff propose 3% COLA and shifting health-insurance share to protect take-home pay

Town staff told the Select Board the main personnel-budget pressure is rising health-insurance costs, which staff estimated at roughly a 9% increase year over year. To prevent take-home pay from declining, the manager proposed two linked measures: a 3% general wage increase (cost-of-living adjustment) and a personnel-policy amendment that would raise the towns employer contribution to health insurance from 85% to 90%, reducing the employee share from 15% to 10%.

The manager framed the proposal as a way to "protect employees" from insurance-cost volatility while still showing an explicit salary increase on paychecks. "I'm requesting to bump [employer share] up to 90% instead of 85%... because I find health insurance to be the most volatile right now," the manager said during the workshop.

Staff explained how to record the change in this fiscal years budget by moving funds from the benefits line into salary lines so the immediate impact is visible to employees while reserving a formal policy change for a later agenda item. Board members asked for a clear personnel-policy amendment to review before any vote and discussed the timing: make an intra-year budget movement now, revisit the personnel-policy change after the budget is approved, and adopt any permanent policy at a later meeting.

No formal vote was taken; staff will draft specific personnel-policy language and show the budget-line movements that make the 90/10 proposal budget-neutral for the current year.

Next step: staff will prepare the personnel-policy text and the revised budget spreadsheets for the March 9 meeting.