Would you take a job for $35,000 a year, if you weren’t sure it would be around after November?
How about for $75,000?
Members of the Board of Alderman think they might be able to attract a qualified candidate for the mayor’s administrative assistant for the higher pay. So the board voted 7 – 1 Thursday to more than double the starting pay for the position, which is being vacated by Sandy Nesteriak when she retires this month.
The job is appointed by the mayor, so there is no guarantee it will be around after election time. And aldermen worried that the $35,000 salary outlined in a 1990 ordinance wouldn’t attract the kind of candidate they say the city needs.
“We want to get the best possible person in that job that we can,” said Alderman Stanley Kudej. “And you’re not going to get it for menial wages. You’ve got to pay good money for good people.”
Alderman John “Jack” Finn was the lone vote against the change, urging the board to wait until the new term to approve any increase. He was also concerned that the amendment as presented to the board Thursday was not the same one that was in front of them at the public hearing.
“Interesting. Interesting,” board President John Anglace said after Finn suggested the wait. “Meanwhile we’re faced with the problem of hiring somebody at $35,000 and as Alderman (John) Papa said, who is going to give up their job and work for the City of Shelton for $35,000 until November with no commit beyond that?”
The ordinance also allowed for the administrative assistant to receive benefits, something that wasn’t outlined in the previous ordinance.
Nesteriak is retiring after more than 17 years in the position. She was appointed when Mayor Mark Lauretti first took office.
Fire and Emergency Management Pay
Meanwhile, stipends for the workers in the Office of Emergency Management and the fire department were also approved Thursday.
The emergency management stipends were debated at a public hearing on the matter. The stipend for the OEM director is $15,000, the same as the fire chief – something that upset some people because of the difference in size of the two departments. The OEM director oversees a department of three, while the fire department has about 250 volunteers. (Read the story here.)
On Thursday, Finn was again the lone vote against the OEM stipends. Finn said he thinks the position should be a paid one, but suggested $15,000 for a part-time position might be too much. Instead, Finn proposed an amendment to pay $5,000 for the OEM director. The amendment failed.
Half of the salary is reimbursed by the state, Alderman John Papa said, and the position is more involved than in the past because of federal requirements for preparedness.
Alderman Eric McPherson said the pay was “overdue,” because the city has been building its emergency management office since the 1990s, and started with a budget of only $5,000.
“We have to remember these are hard economic times and a lot of individuals in Shelton are losing their jobs,” Finn said.
