Preston ― Dating back to her first fall of campaigning in 2019, First Selectwoman Sandra Allyn-Gauthier has been talking about the need for an extensive study of town job descriptions, workloads and pay scales.

Now, eight months into her second term as the town’s top elected officer, and with the help of federal American Rescue Plan Act grant money, a comprehensive study of 33 town job categories and interviews of some of the town’s nearly 50 employees is underway.

The goal is to ensure town positions have job description that match the duties and that pay is equitable within the town and competitive with similar positions in surrounding towns, Allyn-Gauthier said.

Preston has partnered with the town of Brooklyn in Windham County to hire Randi Frank Consulting LLC to study job descriptions, create a ranking system based on each position’s skills and responsibilities and an analysis of competitive pay levels. The study will have a range of recommended salaries for each position, Allyn-Gauthier said.

Preston town employees are not unionized.

The firm also will compare Preston’s job descriptions, responsibilities and salaries to similar positions in several surrounding towns, smaller, of similar size and even much larger than Preston. Allyn-Gauthier specifically asked that Norwich be included in the comparison, because Preston often finds itself competing with its larger neighbor for hard-to-fill positions, including currently an assistant building official.

Along with Norwich, the firm will compare job descriptions and pay levels in Brooklyn, Lebanon, Woodstock, Putnam, Willington, Thompson, North Stonington, Salem, Griswold and Ledyard.

“We’ve been talking about this for a while,” Allyn-Gauthier said. “When I first got here, I wanted to talk about job descriptions, because a lot of times you do things that aren’t on your job description.”

She said the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted the plan, as the town was forced to shift to remote work for some positions and cut back on other services. Concerns that the pandemic would cut into town tax revenues also led to curtailing new expenditures.

Then, the town was awarded $1.1 million in American Rescue Plan Act dollars. The Board of Selectmen approved allocating up to $15,000 for the comprehensive job study, which ended up costing $14,700.

Brooklyn First Selectman Austin Tanner said his town had done an in-depth employment study several years ago and was discussing an update with Randi Frank. The consultant told him about Preston’s plans and suggested the two towns partner on the project to reduce costs. Brooklyn, which has unionized employees, will do many of its job descriptions in-house, reducing the cost further for the town, Tanner said.

Tanner said the town did a salary study several years ago and set up pay scales comparable with other towns. But now, with most Brooklyn employees at the top salary steps, their pay might not be rising enough to keep pace with competitive positions, Tanner said.

The Preston study will take about 15 to 17 weeks, depending on how quickly the consultants obtain comparative information from the surrounding towns, Allyn-Gauthier said.

“It’s nice to finally be moving on something we have wanted to do for a while,” Allyn-Gauthier said.

c.bessette@theday.com