POLAND — Selectpersons on Tuesday awarded Pratt & Sons of Minot a contract to extend the sewer line on Route 26 and construct a pump station.
Wright-Pierce, the Topsham engineering firm for the project, recommended the contractor over two others.
Voters approved a $4.8 million bond at the August 2020 town meeting to extend the sewer line. It will run northward from Top Gun across the causeway to Cyndi’s Dockside restaurant.
Pratt & Sons submitted a bid of $2.77 million, which was 27% less than the estimated project cost of $3.8 million.
St. Laurent & Son Excavation of Lewiston bid $3.59 million while Gordon Contracting of Sangerville bid $3.69 million.
Wright-Pierce Senior Project Manager Robert Williamson assured the board that Pratt & Sons will follow the job specifications as defined by Wright-Pierce.
The board asked why there was such a disparity in the bids, but Williamson could not give them an explain. He said Pratt & Sons has to follow the material and job qualifications Wright-Pierce stipulated for the project.
In other business, Betsy Oulton from H R Maine Consulting presented the results of a wage study for all the town employees. The board contracted the firm to learn where the town stands compared to area communities.
Oulton’s comparisons included pay scales from Auburn, Casco, Lisbon, Mechanic Falls, Raymond, Sabattus and Turner. She said a disparity between Poland and those communities stems from three things: the town not providing an annual cost-of-living increase in wages, some town officials doing more than what the job entails, and the need to compete equitably.
Jim Porter, chairperson of the Budget Committee, said the difference in wages between what the consulting firm is advising and what the town is actually paying is $206,000, an 18% increase.
Budget Committee member Walter Gallagher asked why Gray, New Gloucester and Oxford weren’t included in the comparison, as opposed to Auburn, which he thought skewed the figures.
Oulton said other municipalities addressed wage equity in one budget year instead of spreading increases over a longer period.
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