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09/29/2016 12:01 AMWhen I came into office in November 2015, the town was in the process of completing a Job Reclassification Study to determine where our employees’ salaries stood in comparison to similar towns in Connecticut. The purpose of the study was to gain some understanding of where we stood compared to other towns so that we could make adjustments as necessary, in order to be sure that we retain good people who might be underpaid, and establish where pay levels might be higher than average, so we could let those positions normalize over time.
The reason I bring this up is that I don’t think the citizens of Madison have a clear picture of how many town jobs there are or if that number is growing or not, and the purpose of this letter every other week is to open up Town Hall to let you understand what is going on. We had a question at the Board of Selectmen meeting on Sept. 12, about three items on the agenda relating to the hiring of new people. The question was, “We always see items relating to people being hired, but we don’t know if it is a new hire, or just a replacement. Could you make note of that on the agenda item?” The point was well taken. In this case, all three were replacements for positions that had been vacated, but to the audience, it looked like three more people on the payroll.
Another item on the agenda that day was for Beach & Rec to expend funds for two pieces of maintenance equipment. In conjunction with another purchase made a few weeks ago, Beach & Rec, the department responsible for field and ground maintenance, has added equipment that will increase the ability of one person to impact a larger area per hour.
I can tell you that one of my priorities is to gauge and improve productivity wherever possible. I have been working with our Human Resources Department and all department heads to review how we do things and look for better, more cost-effective ways. The town has maintained a policy of increasing salaries on an annual basis by no more than three percent. Year over year, from Sept. 1, 2015 to Sept. 1, 2016, the increase has been 3.3 percent, including the effects of the Job Reclassification project. We will continue to look at ways to increase productivity to try to further minimize the impact on the town of cost of living increases.