By Dawn De Busk

Staff Writer

CASCO — The people who work for the Town of Casco might in the middle range when it comes to salaries for similar positions around the state.

On the other side of the coin, town employees have good health insurance packages and other benefits compared to what other municipalities are offering. 

The Compensation & Benefit Survey Report was completed in December 2021.

On Jan. 4, the Casco Board of Selectmen had a chance to hear the town manager’s summary and to discuss the document, which the board received last month.

“It is skewed toward the low end. Based on the survey, the majority of our staff are underpaid,” Casco Town Manager Anthony Ward said. “When you look at the benefits, the town is on point with a lot of it. Some things we can use some improvements on — according to the survey.”

After presenting a summary of the report, he commented about moving toward paying Casco staff what other towns provide as a wage. 

“To get our staff to the market value, there will be a cost,” Ward said.

However, he believed that the town could shop around for health insurance and get more coverage for less money. 

KMA Human Resources Consulting is the company that was contracted to provide the analysis. The municipalities which responded to questions about pay and benefit packages were: Bridgton, Harrison, Lyman, Naples, New Gloucester, North Berwick, North Yarmouth, Poland, Raymond, Sebago and Standish.

Ward stressed that all the pay-benefit comparisons were dealing with the public sector, i.e., town and city government. There were no private sector jobs included in the survey, he said.

The comparison was done by percentiles. In other words, if the town fell into the 25th percentile, that means that 75 percent of other towns pay more or provide greater benefits.

As far as pay rates by position or job title, some of Casco staff fell into the 50th percentile.  

When it came to retirement, Casco did not match employee’s investment as much as other towns. 

“The vast majority of the communities were in the Maine State Retirement plan,” Ward said. “Right now, we contribute 3 percent. We are on the low end of contribution toward retirement.”

However, Casco had a decent health care plan, Ward said. The town covers about 80 percent of the premium for an employee’s family members: children and spouse.

“Coverage of individual employees, we were at 80 percent,” he said. “We could minimize the cost for town, but increase the benefits for our employees. With retirement, there is cost. With health insurance, we might find a better product for our employees at a lower cost.” 

He told the board members as they reviewed the document, it is a philosophical viewpoint of paying employees the going rate, but keeping residents’ taxes low. 

“It is a philosophy of what you want your town employees to be paid at,” he said. 

It was suggested — as a starting point — to bring the pay up to the 50 percentile for those employees being paid less than that. 

Vice Chairman Bob MacDonald like the idea of giving employees options: a better retirement plan orinsurance plan.

“Ones with families will want more on the insurance,” he said. 

Ward said that was do-able. 

“At the board’s direction, I’ve been very open with staff [about this process]. Here is what is going to happen. The company is going to provide the cost analysis,” he said.