The Temple Select Board approved a $4 an hour wage increase for Highway Department employees on Nov. 5, and set a new pay scale for the Police Department, which could take effect pending the approval of the budget at Town Meeting.
“We looked at [the wages for] all equivalent sized surrounding towns in the area, and discovered that we were really low,” Selectman Bill Ezell said. “This is something we have discussed off and on for… close to a year.”
The Highway Department had previously told the board that they couldn’t find any candidates to fill an open position at the rates they were offering, and a recent hire lasted two weeks before leaving for a town with better pay.
Ezell said the Select Board developed a new pay scale for the Police Department at a meeting on Thursday night. He said that Temple town employees have never had a pay scale, where employees could expect incremental pay increases based on experience and tenure. “It’s been, forever, fairly ad hoc,” he said. Under the pay scales the Select Board developed, Ezell said there will be “some discretionary process” determining wage increases for Highway and Police Department employees, “but at least employees will know what they could potentially receive in the future.”
Although the Highway Department is still recruiting for a new full-time employee, Ezell said they won’t advertise the updated pay rates until the wage increases go before the town with the budget. The budget that goes before the town this spring will have the wage increases for both highway and police departments, Ezell said. If it passes, the wages for the Police Department will be increased retroactively from last week’s meeting, and the Highway Department will continue with the rates set in November.
The new rates for the Road Agent are $28/hour, up from $24, and wages for the second employee, a laborer and driver, are $24, up from $20. The wages for the third full-time employee and part-timers, once hired, will be $22 an hour. Ezell said the new wages were “comparable” with those of surrounding towns, and took effect immediately since the Highway Department came in under budget this year, largely because they couldn’t fill budgeted staff positions.
Currently, full-time officers for the Temple-Greenville Police Department earn $22 per hour, and part-time officers earn $21 per hour. The Police Chief is salaried, currently at $78,437 per year. Ezell said the department also was under budget this year due to labor shortages, and is currently operating with one Police Chief and two full-time officers, rather than three full-time officers and a number of part-timers.
“The town has to understand that this is really a pretty serious issue, one faced by a lot of small towns in New Hampshire,” Ezell said. “Drivers with CDLs are in very high demand, and we small towns just can’t match the kind of rates they could get by going to Manchester, or Nashua, or freight or trucking companies.” He said that State Troopers have recently reported problems with recruiting and retaining officers.
Temple also has a paid part-time Board Assistant and a part-time bookkeeper. Ezell said the Board increased the hourly rates for those positions over a year ago.