DERBY – Members of the city’s Board of Aldermen & Alderwomen voted unanimously Jan. 9 to increase the salary of the tax collector to $78,500.
That’s an increase of about $7,266.
The salary increase comes from the suggestion of Derby Finance Director Brian Hall, who said the raise is needed to both lure a candidate the city is eyeing and, short of that, to widen the pool of candidates.
Members of the board approved the salary increase at their meeting on Jan. 9. Alderwoman Sarah Widomski wanted to hold off so that a subcommittee could look at salary data from the Connecticut Conference of Municipalities.
However, the board was under the gun, because Derby’s tax collector resigned without notice on Friday, Jan. 3. The employee had only been hired in March 2024. The assistant tax collector gave her two weeks notice, but is taking accumulated time off as the job ends.
That left Hall unexpectedly manning the desk in the tax office for most of last week instead of doing his job as finance director. He was assisted by a part-time employee who primarily works for the city’s Water Pollution Control Authority.
Hall said January is a busy time in the tax office with people paying bills. At the same time, Hall is supposed to be concentrating on putting together a proposed budget for next fiscal year, and working with an outside firm to complete the annual city audit. A temporary worker was added to the office toward the end of last week.
Those factors caused the board to go ahead and approve the new, $78,500 salary.
Hall said the tax collector’s salary had not increased in three years and said the average salary for the position in Connecticut is about $77,400.
Hall also said the tax collector has picked up additional responsibilities in the last two years. He said there has been a consolidation of the tax office and the clerk for the WPCA. The previous system was inefficient, Hall said, because the tax collector staff could only do city tax collecting work, while the WPCA clerk only handled WPCA collections.
That left a system where one office would be bombarded with work at certain times of the year while the other office had nothing to do.
Hall said now the tax office and the WPCA are being trained so the employees know each other’s system, such as how to send bills and take payment.