By Ellie Fellers,Special to the Sun Journal

NEW GLOUCESTER – A pay plan covering 26 municipal jobs will be used only as a tool to guide town officials granting pay raises, New Gloucester selectmen agreed Monday.

Town Manager Rosemary Kulow brought the plan to the board outlining three job classification categories: general, supervisory and managerial. Managerial posts include the code enforcement officer, assessors’ agent, librarian, town planner public works director, fire chief and town manager. Those jobs span a pay grade from $20,000 to $70,000 annually.

Supervisory staff wages span 30 steps from $9 per hour to $23.50 per hour. Those jobs include public works crew leader, public works foreman, transfer station supervisor, buildings and grounds keeper, deputy clerk/registrar of voters/tax collector.

Board Chairman Steve Libby said he opposes a pay plan for specific positions based on a person in that position.

“This would make it difficult for the manager,” he said. “There are certain employees who perform a certain amount of work and then go home and others have a large amount of work and go the extra mile to get it done.”

Libby added, “I don’t want to base it on what other towns are doing.”

Kulow said the pay plan would be a guide and not a guarantee for employees. Merit and cost-of-living increases would be used to determine each annual raise for workers.

The board voted 5-0 to endorse the plan.

Public works Foreman Ted Shane, who is acting director, will send out bid specifications to purchase a dump/plow truck cab and chassis, selectmen agreed.

A 54,000-pound truck, cab and chassis designed to mount a dump body with ice and snow removal equipment is sought.

And, selectmen directed Shane to get a detailed life-expectancy report on the grader brakes before any work is approved. The 1992 Dresser grader may need brake system replacement, but first selectmen want a conditions report.

A sand and gravel contract was awarded to Emerson Excavation of Auburn.

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