KENT, Conn.—At its Tuesday, Sept. 1, meeting, the Parks and Recreation Commission mulled over ways to satisfy its desire to adequately compensate its young workers while conforming to demands by the Board of Selectmen that it not raise wages mid-year.
The workers are often high school students who are hired at or slightly above minimum wage. The commission has twice endorsed mid-year raises for these young people who help administer programs such as the After School Program and Camp Kent. Commissioners contend they have the authority to raise wages if they remain within the total amount budgeted for salaries in any given year. This appears to conform with the opinion of Town Counsel Randy DiBella.
But the selectmen insist that they are the legislative body that sets salaries and are disturbed by the mid-year adjustments. After conferring with First Selectman Eric Epstein, Parks and Recreation Chair Rufus de Rham reported to his commission last week that the selectmen want a budgetary figure established at the beginning of the fiscal year that will cover the entire year.
“If we have a worker after school, they want us to say, ‘Here’s your salary and here’s what will happen when the minimum wage changes,’” de Rham said. “Whatever we do, we have to set it ahead.”
“But that is what we tried to do last year,” said member Heidi Wilson, “and we weren’t allowed.” The selectmen cut $5,000 from the commission’s salary line last year.
Parks and Recreation Director Matt Frasher said that budgeting to include minimum wage increases is difficult because the municipal budget is prepared in the early winter and sent to a May public hearing and town meeting vote. The municipal budget is approved while the state is still developing its figures for minimum wage increases. The increases usually become effective Jan. 1, halfway through the fiscal year.
“That timeline is so much farther ahead than ours it is difficult to predict,” he said.
Adding to the problem is the commission’s desire to reward the young workers for experience and longevity. Frasher proposed two options, first setting a minimum wage threshold, a mid-point and a high level so there would be room for adjustment. The second option would be to ask the selectmen to alter the wages to accommodate the “trend of January 1 minimum wage increases.”
Member Heidi Wilson noted that there is “tremendous support from families” coming into the commission’s programs and said she would like to have wages that encouraged the young workers. “Even if we change it and give everyone a 2.8 percent increase, it’s not that big of an increase when you are at minimum wage,” she said. “If we say we want our entry-level employees to earn $2 above minimum wage, will they [the selectmen] honor that?”
She recommended a move away from hourly salaries to a stipend for different positions. Her suggestion that the stipends be established for the programs’ assistant directors and directors was expended by Frasher, who said it is not uncommon for camp staff to have stipends. He said young workers like the predictability of knowing how much they will earn from their seasonal jobs.
Frasher said he would follow up with Town Treasurer Barbara Herbst and the commission will return to the discussion next month. “We have some months to decide,” said de Rham, “but I would like to get it together before we do the budget.”
In other business, the commission discussed holding an open forum where townspeople would be invited to comment on programs currently offered, proposed project and what they would like to see Parks and Recreation tackle.
