WILLIAMSBURG – The Select Board signed off on accepting two $20,000 state grants at its meeting Thursday – one for a wage classification plan and another for an economic development assessment.
“The state has agreed to fund both of those best practices at $20,000 each,” Town Administrator Nick Caccamo said.
A wage classification study would look at all of the town’s positions, conduct interviews, compare them with positions elsewhere in the area and produce a wage classification plan that sets up a scale for how the town funds those positions.
“It just assesses the employees,” Caccamo said. “What their market value is.”
The study would apply to municipal and not school employees. The scale would compensate employees based on factors like level of service and experience. However, the study and plan that it produces would not be binding.
“It’s just a study,” Caccamo said. “What you choose to do with it afterwards is totally your prerogative.”
Meanwhile, Caccamo noted that economic development in the economic development assessment would be looking at the quality of life in the community, and not just jobs and growth.
“They’re very detailed and they’re kind of wonky,” Caccamo said of such assessments.
In an interview, he said that the assessment would look into the demographics of the town in detail, as well as things like tax rates, access to clean water and utilities, and geography.
In graduate school, Caccamo helped to prepare an economic development assessment for the town of Orange. He noted that any recommendations for improving economic development would be advisory, and the town would not have to adopt them.
The Select Board voted 3-0 to accept both grants.
Caccamo will be going to the Collins Center at the University of Massachusetts Boston to get a scope of work for the wage classification study and to the Donahue Institute at the University of Massachusetts Amherst for a scope of work for the economic development assessment.
Bera Dunau can be reached at bdunau@gazettenet.com.