Director presents information, statistics on town employees
BY MARY LANCASTER INDEPENDENT WRITER
The town's Human Resources director Pat Perris, who began her job last December, is taking an in-depth look at the salaries and living costs for municipal workers as well as where training and employment conditions are satisfactory or need improvement.

"Our employees are our most costly and important asset," she said. "We are there to serve the taxpayers and they have the right to know how the dollars are working."

It is no surprise that housing is a major component in recruiting and retaining qualified town employees, both because of its scarcity and expense on the island. To address that issue, Perris is making comparisons with other similarly sized towns to examine how the local pay ranges match with what is paid workers on the mainland. She is also working on a study to determine whether Nantucket's high cost of living should become incorporated within salaries, what positions could be filled successfully with commuting employees and how to improve the town's housing sources network for incoming workers and established workers who may lose their present housing.

According to her statistics, the average age of an island town employee is 43 and the estimated average salary for all but school and Wannacomet Water Company employees is $36,000. The total compensation including master medical insurance and time off with pay is estimated at $56,300. The school system and water company have separate enterprise funds from which payments are taken.

Perris is also examining how the number of workers' compensation claims can be reduced. In FY07 there were 44 incidents reported. Though most were not so serious as to prevent workers from remaining in their jobs, Perris said, "That's too many people getting hurt." It is her intent to make a closer review of how employees can be better trained and whether they are being as protected from injury on the job as possible. The annual incident rate for the town comes out at 14 compared to 4.6 in private industry as reported by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Perris wants to initiate occupational readiness exams to determine whether employees are suitable for their positions, particularly if their work is strenuous in nature.

"It protects them and it protects the town," she said.

Further, Perris intends to distribute surveys to all town employees to discern whether they are satisfied or unsatisfied in their work.

"It all goes back to creating the proper work environment," she said. "I need feedback. Sometimes it stinks, but

that's okay." I