Oct. 7—PRESTON — About 60% of Preston employees fell below minimum recommended salaries for their positions, a new job classification and compensation study found.
Preston and the Town of Brooklyn, which partnered to share costs, contracted with Randi Frank LLC for an extensive study of all town job positions, creating detailed job descriptions, competitive salary ranges, comparisons with surrounding towns and plans to create a standardized format for annual employee evaluations.
Preston paid $11,600 for the job classification study recently completed and expects to pay less than $6,000 for the remaining work on the performance evaluation plan, First Selectwoman Sandra Allyn-Gauthier said.
The town budgeted $50,000 in the current budget in anticipation that salary adjustments would be needed upon completion of the study. Consultant Randi Frank reported to the Board of Selectmen on Sept. 20 that elevating employees to at least the minimum in the salary-range chart presented by the firm would cost $35,001. To bring the town's part-time firefighters to the minimum recommended level would cost another $39,958.
To bring employees who are now above the minimum but below appropriate recommended levels for their positions and experience could cost another $32,000.
The consultants presented a chart with 20 job classifications, listing minimum, midpoint and maximum salary ranges for each category.
"The first priority is to bring everyone to minimum salaries," Allyn-Gauthier said. "Then we will try to get people to the appropriate spot (on the salary chart). But we have to work within the budget to get there."
About 60% of the town's approximately 44 full-time and part-time employees fell below the minimum recommended salary levels. Preston town employees are not unionized. Town and School Finance Director Cindy Varracchio said the number of employees fluctuates, because part-time firefighter positions vary.
Varracchio said the town will have to look at how to phase in all the salary adjustments in upcoming budgets. The consultants also recommended revisiting the salary range chart every two years based on market conditions.
Allyn-Gauthier said creating the wage study was a top priority, especially during difficult times finding staff. Positions deemed especially hard to fill include finance director, assessor and building official. For the study, Randi Frank surveyed salaries in Griswold, Lebanon, Ledyard, North Stonington, Norwich, Putnam, Salem, Thompson, Willington and Woodstock.
While many of the surveyed towns are similar in size or government structure to Preston, Allyn-Gauthier said the much larger Norwich city government was added because it is next door to Preston and because Preston competes in the same labor pool for key positions.