The Wellesley Select Board, now with a lineup that includes newly elected Kenny Largess, spent the largest chunk of its March 11 gathering prepping for Annual Town Meeting, though also recognized firefighter promotions and discussed an upcoming open house for the renovated Town Hall building (see Wellesley Media recording of the meeting for all the action).

Town Meeting prep: HR & finance

The Select Board voted to support a couple of Human Resources Board-sponsored Town Meeting articles related to a comprehensive update to the town’s decades-old job classification and compensation plan. As HR Board Chair Tony Bent said during an earlier discussion with the Select Board on this topic, the changes are designed to make “Wellesley an employer of choice for people, and acknowledging that it has not been as easy as we’d like to hire high quality people, and sometimes when we do hire they don’t stay as long as we would all want.” The HR Board gets a steady stream of requests to hire people at higher salaries than the current plan would allow. Turnover is expensive for the town, and Wellesley’s 13% turnover rate in 2024 was comparably high.

Article 4 is to amend the classification plan and Article 5 is to amend the salary plan, and they were both unanimously approved by the Select Board.

The town has been discussing the need for a study of the current classification and compensation system for years, and was able to do it recently thanks to securing a $50K grant. Among the goals was to make sure the town is competitive with other municipalities, ensure salaries are equitable across the town (so say that long-timers aren’t paid way lower than newcomers hired during more competitive times), and be able to hire great candidates and keep them here. As Executive Director Meghan Jop has said, people who work for municipalities essentially agree to make less than they could in the private sector in exchange for getting a desirable pension (well, and the rewarding work).

The Select Board has been supportive of overdue changes to the classification and compensation plan, though members have asked questions about how much the upgrades will cost the town looking out, whether lifting compensation ahead of union negotiations could lead to even higher salaries, and whether the town might want to give itself more flexibility to hire at a lower starting point. Jop and HR Director Dolores Hamilton explained that the HR Board and town budgets could in fact handle the increases, including one-time pay adjustments for non-union employees based on length of service.

“No employees will be harmed with this study in the long run. Everyone will have more room to grow than they do right now,” Hamilton said (with the exception of one employee who with cost-of-living adjustments will hit the top of the new salary range).

Select Board Chair Colette Aufranc said she feels “it’s really critical for staff morale to make these adjustments and move forward in a strong and positive way.”

Board member Tom Ulfelder said the changes are important for employee retention given the cost of losing people and onboarding new ones. Though he did echo concerns raised by Largess about how this could all play out come union negotiation time. “What we need to avoid is just constantly ratcheting up the pay. And we need to send a message to the unions in negotiation that this isn’t an opportunity to stay ahead to the extent that you were before we did the study,” he said, referencing both the town and school budgets. Ulfelder added that he has no interest in an override and that he’s “interested in managing our budget in a way that meets our needs as a community.”

The Board also approved Article 8, which is the big one, the proposed omnibus budget, which totals $224,493,903, per the town-wide financial plan. The Board has been working on this budget for months, having met with other departments, which were given individual guidelines for increases. Along with this, the Board approved the town-wide financial plan, which will be presented to Town Meeting in Article 2.

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Welcome back to Town Hall

Town Hall reopened right before the end of the year after having been closed for renovations. But the Select Board wants to have an official grand opening during Wellesley’s Wonderful Weekend on May 17 (2-4pm) to celebrate the gussied up 1880s structure where lots of the town’s work gets done.

This will give Wellesley a chance to recognize those from the Permanent Building Committee, Facilities Management, Select Board and other departments who worked so hard on this project.

Among the lures will be self-guided tours and maybe treats like Town Hall cookies and lapel pins. Speeches and a ribbon cutting ceremony will be kept mercifully short. A video, music, and more will likely be part of the celebration

Also during the Select Board meeting:

A handful of citizen speakers shared concerns about proposed budget cuts that would affect school mental health staff. A campaign to get the town to rethink this move has been seen as well at School Committee and Advisory meetings. While the Board does not engage in dialogue with citizens during this portion of the meeting, per the meeting rules, members did discuss later on the issue of addressing mental health needs in a broader way through numerous departments, not just the public school system (the Health Department, Police Department, Youth Commission, and other departments play a role in providing services).
The Board approved a Common Victualler License related to a change of ownership of Deluxe Pizza. We had the scoop on the ownership change last month.
Firefighters showed up in force at Great Hall for the swearing in of Assistant Fire Chief Charles DiGiandomenico and promotions for deputy chief (14-year veteran Ian McMakin) and lieutenant (18-year veteran Matt Tedeschi). Congrats to them.