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Town administrator presents wage‑study options that would raise payroll costs
Summary
The town administrator presented two wage‑study options: bring all positions to the 50th percentile (~$23,000 annual impact) or use a tenure‑based tiered percentile approach (~$34,882 impact). The board discussed evaluation forms to tie raises to documented performance.
The town administrator presented an employee wage study comparing Tamworth with nearby towns and explained two options for adjusting pay scales. "Option 1 is if you were to say all your Tamworth employees were gonna be at a minimum 50th percentile. That would mean our wages would increase next year by $23,000," the administrator said.
A second option would set starting hires lower and increase percentiles with tenure (for example 0–5 years at the 40th percentile, 6–10 years at 60th, 11–15 at 80th) to phase in larger compensation differences; the administrator estimated a roughly $34,882 budget impact next year for the tiered plan based on current employees. Board members asked for additional data and cautioned that any policy tied to evaluations must preserve the board's discretion in lean budget years.
The administrator also proposed adopting a more structured evaluation form modeled on another town. The form uses a point system and includes a goals section to document achievements that would influence merit increases. Select Board members said they liked aspects of the point system but asked for a simplified, department‑specific version and for mandatory comment fields so scores are justified in writing.
Next steps: the administrator will collect comparative data from additional towns (including adding Ashland to the comparator set as requested), revise the evaluation form to include comment fields and department‑specific variants, and provide dollar figures for the board's preferred percentile model before budget season.
