today is uh July 16 the time is 7:03 p.m. this meeting is being held remotely in accordance with the governor of Massachusetts March 12th 2020 order suspending certain provisions of the open meeting law General Law chapter 30A section 20 on March 29 2023 Governor Hy signed a supplemental 2023 budget allowing remote and hybrid meeting options for public bodies through March 31 2025 this meeting is being recorded okay thank you everyone I'm happy to report we do have a quorum present there are three members uh present Gary Carrero krie COA and myself Cindy Brown the chair uh so why don't we get um uh get right to it um tell you what Flip Flip of the coin um John I'm going to deal with the with your uh position uh first I think this will go uh fairly quickly um why don't you give us a little uh bit of explanation John about the position and why um um you you don't have to justify the position to us explain explain the position and how it how it works in with the other group okay sure so um as you might know you might not know I run the three local Peg channels in town three cable access channels in town and um my board for the last year or so has been asking me to improve the public part of it that's Channel 192 and um in order to do that with my schedule um I requested and I the fincom and town meeting approved some extra money to create a part-time position um under 19 hours and this person will help make videos create content for the channel um in the meantime they can also be a backup to Valerie at meetings um sometimes she does 18 to 22 meetings a month so this person would be a fill in at that position also but the majority of the job is helping me create uh content for the channel we have um a new server running the channel so I'm really psyched about uh getting a lot of Westport oriented programming out there and the more bodies the better to do this okay good so I saw on your request that you had a requested um rate of uh of 26 could I ask I meant to look this up and I did not uh what's Valerie's current rate do you know I don't know her rate I know the yearly figure allall Park um okay so you don't know what her hourly rate is I don't I just see her salary in the line it so is her so she does not get paid by the hour so her Sal when you say that she does anywhere from 18 to 22 meetings a month is she part-time full-time she's considered um full-time with I believe a Max of 35 okay so 35 hours so you know I can do the uh the simple the simple math so let me just see if I can come up if it's a 35h hour um what what is her annual salary this is all public information obviously okay she's in between uh 40 and 42 okay so I'm just going to call it 41 now uh Cindy John how how many um employees does the uh cable well I call it a cable Department have right are just Cindy I mean it's just um Valerie it's just Valerie and I and then we have um some of those contract laborers which are high school students and there's one other uh man in his 20s and they work during school season I'll see the kids more in the summer I haven't seen the kids do anything they go and get regular full-time jobs in the summer and uh same thing with Tyler he's the uh 20-y old he's in his 20s um same thing with him he has full-time job and um I'll see him he works less than 10 times a year probably I would say yeah so you're you're covering a lot of meetings I mean both between Valerie and yourself you're covering in addition to Val's uh 18 to 22 whatever that comes out to there's a few school committee meetings every month there's all the events at school I do get help with the kids on on a lot of the events but we do all the basketball games boys and girls so um this position at pass would be a big help so do you plan on putting on more programs or do you plan on like is there a request or is there a demand for more coverage that you can't get to now or yeah well a little bit of both like I said the cable Advisory board has been asking me to do more um we've already done um if you've seen the hey Westport show that's like a Westport magazine show we're doing uh We've also been in talks with the police department and they're going to be giving us some content uh we have right now the summer concert series going on and different news stories throughout Town yeah yeah so yeah to answer your question um there's going to be more programming and that's that's going back to my root so I really like that sure yeah sure um so now B based on my very um simple math here it looks like uh perhaps Valerie's uh rate is uh we'll call it 2250 2252 so how would you how would you compare this position if at all to the one that uh Valerie currently do go this would be out creating more than she does it's a videographer in the field yeah okay and she still gets twice as many hours U just about as this position too so okay in addition in addition to benefits correct yeah now Cindy is this do you know I don't know if you know this but um or somebody knows is this part of will the compensation and uh study be pulling this in for review this position do you know I don't I don't know if this one was uh covered because it was um there wasn't enough consistent information that they could uh gather through different communities because communities handle this so much differently commun Community to community um I would have to go back and um and look at that and see whether or not that was included in the uh comp study and um my apologies to Tanya because I meant to send that to you and I forgot you so um I'm sorry that I didn't um but this position is paid out of the revenue that the town receives from uh the cable so this is not a yeah um a tax-based position it's paid by the residents of the town because it is um coming out of that feed but um yeah it's not it's not a tax-based uh position um yeah I mean I I support this I think that the cable access programming in the town is is pretty robust I'm I'm glad to hear that they're trying to make it even better you know and add maybe more coverage uh I know that it it helped tremendously during co uh if you're I mean obviously we can't forget what happened during Co because many of you know there were no on in you know inperson meetings it was all uh done virtually so they that they played a big role in that and so you know now with all these meetings still being able to be virtual uh you know I can see how the the workload has gotten even more in a sense where you know it's not like it was back in the day we you know we were there in person even though we had good coverage I think that um it's a vital asset to the town Public public right so re you know really our our our role in this by and large is determining the fair fair rate of of compensation this is a non non-union position um is Valerie's position a non-union position as well is she part of any Union she's she a contract no she's not a she's a town employee um I do not know the answer to that I would say no I don't think she I don't think she's part of any of the uh V there are like four different unions in town hall but yeah believe she is part I don't believe that she is part of any of them so um so it's the issue really of uh of the salary I know that you've requested a salary of uh of 26 um I'm I'm going to suggest that this position be filled at a at a level at 24 can you fill this position at 24 that's what I will tell the people who have applied that it's worth that it's what it what what it has to be do we have any do we have any do we have any comparables from other communities or because this is such a unique um hours like the 19 hours I don't um I can ask around um I did a quick search and it came up 15 to 30 depending on what it does I know position is she's going to be on air or he right and that significantly increased the wage so if that helps right I right the job description did specifically indicate that it would be an onair um onair position some of it some of that yes right right not so right not so so I gu Cindy do we have a couple of candidates is that what we say we're hearing uh I have I have two candidates yes okay do you think that they would um that you could secure one of those candidates at 24 I don't know okay I I would yeah I would recommend that we give a range I would say anywhere between 24 25 uh and if it means a dollar more I mean they're not they're not benefit eligible they're only 19 hours a a 19 hour position so right I I don't see the extra dollar being an issue um you know I would say that we may leave it open to let the committee decide uh when they go to hire or if John's doing the hiring that we leave it open either 24 or 25 maybe the dollar is going to not make a difference maybe it make a big difference to the candidate you know if we don't want to lose somebody if we have something in the queue for a dollar you know all right so I was going to say yeah dollars 80 bucks a month right 20 40 60 80 and and it's not general fund Revenue so right and the money been approved so it is there Gary if you're willing to make a motion on that yeah I I I would make the motion that we um we we uh have it as a range either 24 to $25 an hour anyway could be 2450 anyway between that range and we let the um the hiring process you know vet itself we have a candidate and we see how it goes from there so my recommendation is24 to $25 an hour not to exceed 19 hours correct correct yeah that would be my motion Cindy okay I'll second okay we have a motion second any other additional discussion regarding that position I do have a question um okay yes go ahead what if they want the 26 are we really GNA well he can come back I mean to us a me need you you have to understand I mean this creates issues for departments all over the town I mean right so you know 20 25 has kind of been our cap on a lot of you know particularly uh below uh part-time uh below full-time positions it really has been our cap you know we've got another board waiting to speak with us after this I mean that's kind of the current range it creates a lot more problems um that becomes a a trend it it opens up the door for for we can have these meetings once a week if you want right now Cindy is there is there a step in I mean is there a step proc like is there do they start off at a step one then go to a step two and a step three is that how does that work uh we haven't adop adopted a policy like that particularly for part-time so we don't we don't have uh ranges like that they would be subject to the annual um C living increases each year U they would they would benefit from those each year as well yeah okay well I might be issue C certainly certainly if a department head feels that uh you know if one of these people that that's hired is doing an exceptional job and they want to come in and upgrade the um perhaps upgrade the job description and upgrade the position we can certainly hear that uh at a future date but why don't we start at this range of 24 to 25 yeah and and if the compensation study says something different maybe I mean obviously we may have to make adjustments or those yeah okay okay okay so we have the motion in the second uh any other Carrie any other questions no I'm good you sure okay uh all right so uh given this is a video call remote call I'm gonna take a roll call vote uh Gary yes Harry COA yes Cindy Brown I so unanimous so uh John I'm sorry you've had to um wait so long to get this taken care of but um you know that's the that's the issue with small to government right got no apologies at all no apologies needed thank you all very much thank you John you're welcome to stay if you like but I can't imagine why you would get some sleep thank you right good night everybody night night uh my apology certainly do go to Tanya and the Board of Health um and Matt you have been waiting uh a few months for this position uh we we waited for the um compensation study to um to come out and in fact uh and I and I'm G to make myself a note right here right now I'm telling you to send you that to send you the the study uh it did show that um I'll try to pull it out here it's hard while I'm on this call for me to pull it out the compensation study did show that we were a little shy on the um compensation for the Animal control officer it was a little bit difficult to determine um because it was hard to know whether some of these other communities they had them as annual salaries and it was hard to know whether they were at 35 or $40 an hour um so you mean 35 to 40 hours a week I'm sorry 35 to 40 hours a week I'm sorry uh so it's hard to tell which um which method that they were doing but certainly we were we were coming in a little bit light on what the the compensation is what is the current compensation of the full-time um Animal control officer uh $234 okay all right so what are the compensation so the compensation study um and I'm trying to pull this up um let me see I I have it up you have it up all right so do you have where the um Animal control officer is if the salary yes uh 515 to 68 13 yeah so that's you know it was such a broad range so if we use wait Cindy are we talking so Matt just said 23 is the current $23 and change right Matt yeah yeah $234 and then the compensation study is saying what uh it's an annualized salary so that's what we're g to try to break it down per hour so Carrie you said that it was 5 what 51500 515 68013 all 683 I'm gonna go I'm gonna use 40 how many hour how many hours do they work Mt 40 yeah uh Nick Works 40 hours okay so I'm gonna go 40 51500 divided by 52 equal that divided by 40 yeah so the low range is 2475 and Carri you said the high range was what 68013 68 I'll just use yeah at the current rate at the current rate at $23 an hour it's 47840 yeah we're kind of low so you know at minimum um you know I I feel that 2475 is the lowest range on any of these so I feel that um now I got to bring my screen back so I feel that we need to bring um bring the current Animal control officer up a little bit now does your your budget have room for that to bring your current uh ACO up toh 25 yes so um can I U Can I give you my suggestions absolutely yeah so what we were thinking was that we wanted to bring a part-time uh the reason why we're here is we wanted to have you guys authorize a part-time Animal control officer at 20 hours a week at $25 an hour uh the job description would be exactly the same as the full-time Animal Control off same duties what we want to do for the full-time Animal control officer is bring his rate to $25.25 you know it' be fair to bring them above somebody just starting off right that's pretty much all that we can afford in our budget for FY 25 okay so I had a few so I had a few questions about the differences between the two so I I was trying to Envision you know the the typical day for the full-time person that works Monday through Friday 40 hours a week versus we'll call the weekend person and would you say though that the that the full-time person has additional duties when it comes to paperwork citations I mean do they end up filling out you know more additional paperwork are having to follow up on more things than say the than the weekend person would so let me say that Nick is 40 hours a week but because he's been by himself for so long he works a lot of extra hours gets paid out of the overtime line when he goes over 40 hours right he was working uh Monday through Friday on call every Monday through Friday and on call every other weekend recently he asked me to scale it back on the Monday through Friday on calls so now he's only on call Monday Thursday Friday and every other weekend he's not on call on Tuesdays and Wednesdays um in terms of the paperwork and the workload well I think it would be um it would be uh I guess they would both have uh both both part-time and full-time would have reports citations followups on call duties it's just that the 20 hour a week person will have less of it because the 40 hour a week is here 40 hours week right so you so you can't Envision where if you know we'll just say the weekend guy I'll call him Joe Joe fills out um you know issues some citations over the weekend and does the paperwork for it and somebody doesn't um you know do whatever it is the corrective action needed to be taken is it up to the is it up to the regular person to follow up with that or would Joe have to follow up with that as well I mean does he have to own that he doesn't have to own it so the part of the way that I got the schedule laid out for the second person is they're going to be some about an hour worth of overlap when one reports for Duty and the other one's just going off duty that way if anything needs to be hand handed off to the person coming on duty it can continue on and follow through with whatever the issue is um so we set it up so nothing gets left until the other guy comes back on shift if it can't wait that long now you've seen Matt you seeing a uh you must be seeing an increase of volume because from what I'm hearing in other uh departments from other cities and towns there's an increase in the deer population tremendously having to be now being processed uh so I can imagine that the workload has gotten to be more on the last two years one to two years just on that aspect thatone everything else absolutely uh you know we've had dead deers just about every day this week and you the highway department has to get involved with that because they they are on they get a stien for picking up the deers off the town roads um and there's a lot of that going on right now we have a lot of increased rabies um uh uh positive rabies tests around town from different you know whether it be uh fox or um raccoon so this just it's picked up quite a bit yeah and along with that is all this you know all the pro you know you got to dispose of it properly you gotta it's not just you know yeah we we actually if it's like a a suspected rabies animal we have to you know it get gets euthanized and taken over to the Humane Society on darmouth and gets prepped and sent off for testing um and that costs us you know some money but we do belong to the raban task force out of the cape and if they're able to we have a freezer over the uh Town Hall garage we'll put the animal in there and if they can make it up they'll get it and do it for free where do you dispose of dead deer the highway department will either bury him I believe or they'll bring him down to the transfer station good good to know so theend the recommendation 255 you said an hour or 25 25 25 25 yeah so do you do you feel that that's a sufficient enough gap between the two I definitely do not think it's sufficient but I'm just kind of got my budget in my head here um and if we go over that which I think we you know I would like to but I don't we would just we would fall short in our fy2 budget so um so if you br how about if you I mean can you bring the weekend person on say it at 24 which would allow you some room on the 2525 I mean you know just to manage your budget do you feel that that the full-time guy feels that there's enough a seniority gap between he and the weekend or should there be one I know I think Tanya wants to answer this one um Matt has done a lot of research around you know the going rate and as you as you ident ified even using the 51,000 at 40 hours a week which probably it's not it's probably that range is so wide because the low end is working 35 hours and the high end is working the you know 40 hours so we're already at a disadvantage with $25 an hour to try to recruit the second candidate we've tried before you know at our prior rate um you know it's a lot of work to try and recruit and get somebody um so so we really we were originally knocking around trying to you know pay 26 or 27 which is really more the market rate because M Matt has done a like Carrie did for the um the other position sort of a an informal survey around you know even at 25 it's going to be low um so we the you know the benefit to Nick is that we are able to reduce some of the pressure on him um he is getting going to get a you know a two plus dollar an hour raise um yeah which um you know I'm I I think he'll be happy with um it's not ideal but we don't have ideal budgets in this town um so we're we're trying to balance you know on the balance beam between the restrictions of our budget and we're very appreciative that the finance committee um supported increased funding for animal control um uh on the one hand but on the other hand we've got to um you know try to make the best possible mix of um rates and um hours to try to attract someone so um that's the best idea we came up with we certainly felt like we we would have liked to go higher but then we wouldn't have had enough money to raise Nick up enough and I said we cannot in any case hire a part-time person more at more at a higher hourly rate than Nick so we had to scale back our plan um to at least accomplish that so um you know I I I understand that we ideally should have a bigger spread but because this is a you know a significant pay increase for him he's got some relief on on being on call because you know Animal Control problems happened 247 and um you know we haven't police have had to backup because we you can't do that on one person um so this will be better situation all the way around and I think he'll be okay not ideal but okay does he get a higher rate for going out after hours he does not he he the only rate increase he gets if he he works over 40 he gets time and a half oh okay there's no stiping or anything for him going out like after seven or after uh no there is not yeah you know it's interesting because um do we have do we have a uh any candidates for the pot time for 25 oh we don't there's nobody in the queue well we haven't even put it out there this is the first step is to get it by the Personnel Board and then it has to go by the select board and so until we get those two levels of approval we can't even post it Oh I thought that I thought you had you said say had a candidate had a oh this what you're talking about the full-time position yeah yeah they already have someone working with fulltime yeah I I was talking about we tried to hire a part-time person a couple of years ago um didn't work out you know we've tried several attempts to hire um before our budget got reduced um but unsuccessfully because the rates were just too low yeah right yeah because you know this is not like an ideal position say you know for some you know retired guy because there's a lot of physical labor involved I mean this isn't this isn't you know one of those positions that you go oh well you know it's a part-time job maybe there'd be someone who's retired and whatnot that may enjoy picking up some extra hours this is a very demand physically demanding job uh and with the hours and whatnot it it's not uh it's not easy to uh have the ideal candidate that's willing to work weekends for $25 an hour you know very difficult to fill a parttime position right um you know it's like great congratulations we gave you a bunch of money now try to find somebody at the the at the salary that we could that you could afford to pay so um I mean I get it I mean will this would would Nick still have the opportunity to still get some overtime in from time to time okay yeah yeah so I don't have the budget in front of us like the health department budget but so Matt there's no room in to go any higher than that at all I think we if we did we wouldn't have any money for overtime and we need to have a reserve need to have a little it's bottom is it bottom line budget or do they do they charge per the like the line item for salary that's not bottom line it's not like let's say there's $2,000 left somewhere else in the health department budget they can't charge that to salaries can they okay no not until the end of not until the end of the year they could move it around U at the end of the year because um refresh my memory what did what did the finance committee what did we give you 15,000 25,000 I think it was 28,000 yeah okay all right okay um well I certainly don't have any any you know problem with that both Gary and I are on the finance committee so we certainly supported the uh you know the addition of that um of that position because I mean you know it to be fair you know it's we do have a lot of wildlife as you said around town and we really do need that uh that second position and it's difficult to find someone for uh for that rate uh for any job let alone one that's as demanding as this so um yeah I'll Entertain You know you know what's interesting you know what's interesting Cindy is that we've had two two departments in front of us tonight that have done their own research and have seen and now we're trying to we're comparing that to a good solid comp study and we're seeing just on two departments how low the town is and paying the employees just in those two department so it's G to this is going to be interesting once we once this becomes public and once it becomes well it's probably already public but once the the department start to uh uh reconcile that among amongst what they're actually pay the employees you're going to see a in my opinion oh you with without a doubt I mean uh you know this is gonna be an eye opener for a lot of people you know yeah yeah um we will um I will send the um the study along to you T you so you can uh take a look for some of the other uh spots as well uh but I think that this is just the beginning you know the person board only handles those things that are uh non-union but I you can bet the Town Administrator is going to have his hands full uh over the next year with the uh various unions um you know and it and it's and it's a problem with the various unions that you have I mean you just take and this is totally off subject here but you know you take the issue in the cemetery Department right now with the unfortunate passing of Steve Su Steve soua so unexpectedly it's very diff difficult you know for for the highway department even to help out as much as they could or to even take over the cemetery department or the department you know or the Board of Health to be more involved with either that part of the transfer station employees you know to have transfer station cemetery and Highway Department be able to work together but that's three different unions and it creates a big problem for you know cross stepping over to each other's territory so it's um it's a problem that this Personnel Board does not have to deal with so thankfully um so I'll entertain a make a well T you have your hand up I was just gonna say you have affirmed though for us that I know when you presented about the wage study um that you know most of the Town employees were certainly at the low end but there were a couple of that stood out as below low and this is one of them so um right um so I appreciate your support for bringing us into the low end of the range at least um and uh hope you know we we can uh get that support from the select Port as well um so I just wanted to say thank you well we have to start somewhere right I'll make a motion if um so now we're making a motion part time position correct Matt to be at 25 uh 25 20 hours a week at $25 an hour now is the 20 hours a week I'm just gonna ask a question here is the 20 hour does it have to stay below 20 does it have to stay at 19 or can it be 20 or lower I believe it's 20 or lower to um so it's benefit so it's not benefiting so just just make sure you check with the Town Administrator on whether or not it can go to exactly to2 uh if it has to stay 20 yeah I'll double check with him on that I'm not exactly sure about that but I'll double check okay yeah I thought it was I always thought it was 19 but I'll make the motion either way 25 actually you know what I think you might be right I think it's 20 hours a week is benefited and some some departments hire at 19 and three qus to stay underneath that right right right so as long as you stay under the radar screen with the uh benefits uh so we have a motion at second this is for the part-time person at $25 an hour you're you're gonna have to work your magic with the Town Administrator uh to get the other position increased because we don't oversee your full-time uh your full-time guy so the Animal control officer welcome isn't the animal controls isn't any part of the Union it's not no oh it's not okay okay okay so so the motion then needs to be twofold that it's um 2525 for the animal full-time Animal control officer and $25 for an hour before the part-time um officer well I I'll make I'll make the first motion and then Carrie I think I already second it yes okay um and and that was on the 25 25 Gary is that correct yes okay so the there's a motion on the floor with a second to have the salary be set at 2525 for the full-time Animal control officer any other discussion hearing none I'll take a roll call uh Gary yes car yes and I so we have a unanimous vote on that uh now moving to the part-time uh person at $25 per hour can do we have a a motion for that I'll make the motion I'll second okay so uh motion and the second to have the compensation rate for the part-time Animal control officer with a um hourly not to um not to exceed 19 and 3/4 hours per week um at $25 per hour even um any the other discussion Matt you raised your hand yes um so I have a question if we run into if we run into difficulties hiring somebody at without benefits because benefits is a you know to get sick time to get vacation time to get personal days is a big attraction for somebody to take a a job in in most in a lot of cases if we run into a situation where we're just not getting anybody attracting anybody would we come back to this board to uh ask to increase the hours for the part time well I guess from from 19 and three quarters to 20 now let me ask something Cindy uh do you know if um do does anybody know if they don't even acrw vacation time they they don't even not part time not part-time really no no benefits at all if bet if you're under 20 you get zero benefit I thought that that I thought that maybe maybe it's different in other communities but I thought that it wasn't pension eligible but they still ACR at least sick time no and at least vacation no no no that's interesting so now um I guess my question uh back at you Matt uh since you're since you're very familiar in developing the budget how do you have to account for uh vacation and sick time in your budget if so if you have someone that just has a annual salary you don't have to bake in additional funding for uh sick time or vacation correct that's correct it's already built in okay okay so I guess it that's subject to your budget um you know if you go over budget at the at the end of the year I mean we can withdraw the motion limiting the number of hours uh and just set the rate um do a line item transfer the worst case line we're we're good at 20 we're good at 20 hours we have enough in the budget to support $25 an hour at 20 hours a week right and that which would give benefits correct right uh I I guess I would oh you do you do have enough the budget for that okay I guess I would run it by the Town Administrator if it's going to you know if it's gonna I don't know if that then does become pension eligible whether or not that triggers something additional for the town he would just have it's it's a very small amount of money I I get that um it would fall out in the assessment but how much could that be not going to be a lot of money it can't be a lot of money right you you know for for given the number of hours um you know these are very difficult times to hire people this is not a glamorous job this is not a position that um people can um capitalize on and build uh be a Resume Builder for I mean you know this is just a very difficult job for someone to do uh we're very thankful that there are people out there that are willing to uh to do that because nine nine out of 10 people would want to have any part of it so um so why don't we G Gary you kind of broke up from the beginning I said I said why don't we stop at least with this and then if there's an issue maybe we can tweak it yeah we don't we don't I don't know if we need to set the hours I guess we do whether it's part-time or not um you know if you find that the position is is regularly going over if you only can hire someone with um with some benefits attached uh once again you know as I explained in the earlier meeting it's difficult sometimes that we set precedents you know with 20 hours and well people that have been kept under that radar screen will say well gee you know couldn't I work an hour more yeah week so I could get some benefits so the rule the rules for the retirement system are 19 and a half hour hours not to exceed 19 and half hours but it's on an average yearly basis so if some weeks they go over like another if they go over four hours one week for example and they they're under like so many hours the next week it's the average of the of the entire year when it's reported to the retirement system so you know do you have any 20 20 hours might trigger might trigger pensionable eligible then then we got to explain to the employee oh by the way we're taking out deductions for a pension so go ahead that might might that might get a little dicey go ahead Matt so generally when somebody's not benefited in their part-time without benefits they pay into the orra system yeah and once they become if they become part-time with Benefits I do believe that then they stop they can pay into the pension system right do you have any other part-time employees uh no oh uh through the grant we have a yes oh through the grant we have somebody that works up to 15 hours a week and they get no benefits okay uh I'm trying to think of I'm trying to think of scenarios where we've got some other departments that have part-time employees that have being that are being kept under 20 because of the benefit issue uh you know I'm just concerned High yeah it's not so much even the pension issue it's the you know acrel of of sick time acrel of vacation which of course is is is certainly a a uh you know a benefit that most employees should have uh given that they're not receiving you know very many hours and if they need to get some additional time um how about how about we leave the I mean if if there's an issue Matt can you come back to us and and let us know okay we got to make it 20 hours or or whatever the situation as we can even if it's going to go up a dollar more an hour to be attractable attractive to people I mean I mean it is what it is we the whole point of doing this is to be able to hire somebody you know yeah and again if we're nickel and diming 50 cents here 20 cents there we're just we're not providing the service that the residents require so my opinion is you know if it if it means that we have to come back and tweak this then we have to come back and tweak it um it is almost easier to increase the the rate um and but keep the hours under 20 um rather than have it go above 20 um and be eligible for benefits but you know I don't have a hard I I don't I don't feel that this is hard and fast I mean if you if if you know if you can work that out with umh even with the town administrators to as to what whether or not that's going to cause some additional problems I mean I don't think it will um if you have the you know if it's in the budget for you it doesn't really cost you anything additional to to give them a a part-time uh benefits I mean I I I personally don't have a problem with it I just don't know what the ripple effect of that is yeah I don't either I think it's just like Matt says it makes it more attractive to want to work for the town yeah yeah yeah um see what you can do man oh you're on mute go ahead Tanya oh go ahead Tanya sorry I didn't see your hand up now you're on mute T you okay push the right button um we're tying it this now with it's it's a little tricky to maneuver because you know we if we said you say for instance well go up to 26 an hour to recruit somebody without benefits but mat but Nick is only going to be getting 2525 but with Benefits it's it's harder to um explain but um right you know um I guess I mean I guess I guess this is sensitive more than it more than it is anything else I mean is it really up to us Gary I mean you've been on the personel board a lot longer than I have is it really up to us to determine whether or not this position is part-time or not part-time I mean we're setting the rate we're approving the you know the the job description I'm not sure it's really up to us to determine whether it should be part-time or above part-time if they have the budget for it they have the budget for it yeah exactly I think if I think we approve a rate and if I mean again we can approve a range if and and if the if Matt as the department head says okay you know we can't offer $20 $25 an hour we need to go up a little bit more you know and even if the B and listen I'm on the finance committee I'll be the last person to say this but we don't want to lose the opportunity to hire somebody okay over over 50 cents it to me that does not make sense because again we we're not providing the service that we should be providing and and if you annualize that it's peanuts I mean really think about it you know so I think that we leave it up to the department to say what do they feel practice and then maybe confirm with Jim what is the trigger that makes them pension eligible and and so on and so forth but I think only the only thing we can do here is approve the rate we're going to yeah we're just going to approve the rate uh T you go ahead uh um I was just going to say if you just approve the rate without specifying the number of hours we'll work that out accordingly um and then uh I what I hear you saying is if the rates you approve the 25 and 2525 for the full-time are don't work for high hiring we can come back and go up 25 or 50 cents maybe absolutely easily so we we know that so we could potentially offer that to somebody if that's what it took to get them and come back and just get it sort of rubber stamp from you you yeah I agree and I assure you you won't I assure you you won't wait two months for the answer I promise you I promise you thank you and sometimes that's what it takes now is get the candidate and then work out the I mean it's kind kind of backwards from what it was but you know it's just the way the market is right just uh Matt you had something Tanya beat me by one second with her hand and she said everything I was gonna say I will just I will just add that um we'll work it out with the Town Administrator and um but to me just based on prior trying to hire somebody uh we're going to need to go with benef you know a benefited position so we'll work that out with them but appreciate the the rate approval of the rates okay yeah if you need to come back you come back so I believe that we voted on the uh 2525 for the um full-time Animal control officer and there was a motion that we will amend it not including the hours uh but that the rate for the part-time Animal control officer will be set at $25 per hour as of right now is that correct is that with that yes okay so I'll just do a a roll call on that because I don't think we voted on that one uh Gary yes Gary yes and Cindy yes so and unanimous on that so I'm sorry it took so long for you guys to get to this uh Point um in in being able to do it so hopefully can find some candidates out there and um uh good luck because it's a it's a very important position to the town i' I've had to call whether it be for a nuisance animal or a dead animal uh it's certainly enough certainly want somebody to pick up the phone at the other end so um it's it's very important appreciate you guys keeping this on your radar and certainly appreciate your support thank you okay thank you have a great night you too keep cool thank you good night you're good night um okay so one of the uh the only other item uh and and and Gary you should have received and if not I will send it again since I have to send one to Tanya we do have a copy of the study now and um the reason why I apologize to the Board of Health is that we had to wait until the report was delivered more or less to the select board and they received it and and kind of received it officially in order for it to be made public so then I can send it to various departments so now that it's been made uh public if you if you can't put your hands on it I will I will send you another copy just so you'll have a recent um copy you I go through it from time to time I mean there are are a couple of positions that stand out uh you know one of one of the first ones is is certainly Our Own Town Administrator um is certainly well underpaid um uh compared now you know you have to look at various talent but he you know he doesn't have an assistant um he's uh you know he does all of the stuff on his own so so there are are a couple of positions one of the other things that I wanted to talk about that is included in the study I'm going off here a little bit Cy can I can I ask you a question first US yeah uh so right now we got the study from the the firm and now it's been presented to the select board yeah and it hasn't gone anywhere right that's where it's it has it stopped so I didn't watch the meeting with the select accepting it but what what was the outcome did they say they were going to follow up on it nothing nothing nothing I mean so I think it will really fall into the hands of the Town Administrator and the dep department heads once they've had their hands on it to you know make a case for why in their budgets I mean I think the finance committee next year may see some you know significant uh requests to have some of their salaries adjusted and whether it's something that you know we have to factor in a lot of these positions you know some of them may be Union positions because the study included not just nonunion but Union position so did it include job descriptions it did not include job descriptions because we didn't have enough money to oh okay to do that yeah the only comment I have to make about um uh about the process is you know we spent all this money to have a document not just to sit on a shelf not to just use as a oneoff you know okay they come to us or they come to whatever this needs to be a do document that's adopted globally among you know throughout the town and that the bard of Selectmen one way or another need to come to the realization that you know that realization that they um they need they have to either accept this accept parts of it you know they cannot just use this as okay yeah we did a study and you know let's leave it up to each department to make the determination whether or not we should raise people's hourly rates or salaries this needs to be an executive decision you know and I hope that it's not just one meeting like I said and they they got a document and now it's going to go a year and now we've got data that's old and stale you know I I I don't know if we follow up with them or the finance committee follows up with them or somebody follows up with them and says what's the status well I think we certainly can make that that request I mean now like I said many those positions our Union positions that really don't come within our purview but I mean I certainly think that you know we we keep we keep the pressure on the Town Administrator to make sure when it's you know when he sends his budget memo out that he should include a copy of that study uh because it is only fair I mean it's you know it's only right that that all of the department heads have the opportunity to digest the study I mean for years you know so you know yeah I I agree with you I think that you know it's got to be a it's a public document people should you know chew chew on it and look at it not to say that needs to happen but eventually you know as everything else documents get old and data gets stale and we don't want to have spend x amount of dollars to have a document that we're just going to stare out you know sit on a shelf somewhere right now Carrie uh it seems like did you spend some more time with this I mean have you looked at this any more closely to see like what other positions maybe had stuck out I I meant to get a hard copy of it so I can can do highlighting my printer is my my printer is um is broken so I I wanted a hard copy because I wanted to be able to Circle and highlight different positions did you come up with any that you thought really kind of stuck out um I only glanced at this here and there and nothing that you haven't already mentioned right yeah the Animal control officer was certainly one that uh that did stick out I mean I'm sure they're all be glaring I mean let's face it you know the last time this was done was how long ago I and and it probably wasn't as thorough formed it but I think what we don't do is pick and choose the pop department or positions we let the process fall through and and and make make it aware make people aware that listen this is a issue amongst every Department in town that it's you know people are underpaid there just no other way to put it you yes I mean some some department heads um some particularly the department heads seem to be uh by and large fairly well compensated um not surprisingly the uh police department seem to be um you know in in the above average range I'm not surprised because they just went to binding arbitration so uh it was kind of silly that they even included that police and fire got a little bit weird because of the incentives and it's hard to compare based on the survey answers that were that came back whether or not they were including incentives or not including incentives because you know you can take a base salary of 70,000 and get to over 100,000 pretty quickly when you start adding on you know degrees and clothing allowances and this that and the other I mean it all start did they do the schools no they did not do the schools no no they did not um and I'm willing to bet I mean based on from what I've been told that our schools are also fairly light I mean I think that um I think our teachers in general get paid on the lower end compared to other communities uh which is not surprising I mean um that doesn't surprise me either yeah yeah my point is I just hope that it it doesn't just become something that it was a know a box we checked off I hope it's a document that we act on and that we can use to you know recruit people and make Westport as competitive every as any other community right right um well I will certainly put it on my radar screen to um uh to go through this with a much more refined tooth comb I had me too a a wedding in the family so I've been kind of busy my free time has been uh chewed up in the last two months so um can you send it to me again I don't know if I don't find I can't find it yeah I will I will be happy to send it to you and um uh and you can take uh you can take look at it okay yeah maybe there's a maybe we maybe there's some kind of working group that gets formed or something that you know somebody that can you know I don't know yeah because I agree with you I mean we it it's a shame to spend you know $35,000 on this and then just put it on the Shelf because then what you know what what did it accomplish it accomplished nothing if you know if 80% of the of our positions are in line then fine then say so but if there are ones that St out then we need to make sure that um that we deal with those uh and and and address those issue so um uh we will uh have it uh first and foremost on the agenda the next time we meet we don't have a particular date but the next time we meet uh I will plan to have my copy with the yellow highlights because I really do not have one um a hard copy of it now so you said we said we had one opening right cind now are we reaching out to who do we reach out to to try to fill that position is it the to city um the board of Select uh yeah they can you know they can uh you know say in their meetings that that slot is open they'll put it on the website that we have an opening in the Personnel um Personnel Board and we'll see if we get any interested um parties because yeah you know Nancy uh like I said does have a new position she's I I can't remember exactly the position but it's a a fairly uh highlevel Human Resources position for Children's Hospital in Boston or Bri something like that so she's going to Boston like three times a week now um which certainly doesn't leave much room for our little meeting so um um I thought that was going to be able to make it tonight but um anyway um so we'll see how how much longer Nancy will be able to continue to um keep up with the meeting as well but um that's about all I have did we have minutes we had minutes oh um uh Jess did did you send out U minutes did we have minutes that we were going to share I did not look at the agenda I'm sorry did you have minutes that that we were supposed to approve April 3rd April 3rd that's right that's right I you know what and I even I'm glad you reminded me Carrie because I even went back and looked at those minutes so um uh Carrie can you give me a motion to approve those minutes I'll give you a motion to approve the minutes from what was the date I'm sorry I might have to stain April 3 for April 3rd 2024 oh so you Gary you said you're G to abstain because you were at the meeting I believe so I don't think I was at the meeting that's fine so we can just wait on the minutes uh we don't have a well you You' got you've got a majority don't you if wait a minute it only be Carrie and I voting on it so yeah um that's fine we can they can wait they can wait um all right so the other thing also um I'm gonna have Jess spend a little bit of time uh perhaps over the summer and she can um put in some hours as well in looking at our web page on the website although it just occurred to me the town is upgrading their website so they've gotten the grant to uh get a whole redesign uh and so maybe we'll wait for that we'll wait for that uh but uh Jess if you could also keep it on your um oh she okay so she's not there anymore um so I'll make sure that Jess keeps track of that because our minutes don't always seem to we don't have all of our positions on there anyway we're gonna we're g to Jazz up our section of the website a little bit better with our bylaws and making sure we have the correct bylaws on there I think one time I looked at it and they were from 2016 or something so uh we got to spend a little bit of time um oh yeah so she just texted me she lost her connection uh at home so that's not surprising uh so I guess I will entertain a motion to journalist anyone had anything else they wanted to discuss Carrie how was the the planning board meeting got called because there was over capacity it did yeah I've got some video of it people were everywhere we were trying to set up another TV in another section but wow that's a big meeting for them it was yeah uh I you know I'll tell you I know this meeting is being recorded but I would say this publicly anyway if there's any board that I would want to be a part of the planning board because they they never seem to get it you know no one ever seems to be happy with there's always somebody not happy with whatever decision they make so it's um it's a that's a tough job uh so you had a motion to adjourn um second okay second um Carrie uh I'll let roll call Vote Yes Carrie yes Cindy Brown yes um and that is a wrap folks it is now so for the purposes up per minutes it is 808