Public Works likely to experience continued staff shortage, director says

LACONIA — Public Works Director Wes Anderson expects a continued recruiting and retention challenge in 2024-25, largely due to higher wages paid by companies within the private sector, councilors learned at a budget hearing last week.

Councilors and Mayor Andrew Hosmer emphasized what the city may lack in terms of money up front they make up for in the long-term by offering excellent retirement and medical benefits with which private companies cannot typically compete. 

Anderson agreed retirement and medical benefits should help to recruit new employees, but in his experience, potential employees place the most value on wages paid up front. 

Public works is currently short four drivers. Anderson explained that even though the department will pay for commercial driver license training for new employees, it isn’t enough to attract them. Some private companies pay CDL drivers at or above $30 an hour starting out. It costs the city about $5,500 to train a new CDL driver.

“As it sits right now, the main problem that we have is we weren’t competitive. With the proposed increases for the next fiscal year, we’re getting closer, but we’re not there,” Anderson said. “For our laborer without a CDL we’re going up to $20.20 an hour starting. That puts us in comparison to where Busby Construction is paying for labor without much experience.”

An increase in pay for new laborers with a CDL will bring the starting wage up to $21.05 an hour.

“I’m not even going to consider that one, doesn’t even get us close,” Anderson said of the wage increase, compared to private companies.

“The next one is a driver with CDL, that puts us in the $21.81 range to start with, that's still too low.”

Anderson said private companies need to pay in the mid-to-high $20-an-hour range to hire a CDL driver with some level of experience, which may be more attractive to potential employees compared to working for the city. He noted paying for a new employee to obtain a CDL is proving an attractive benefit, but when attempting to hire experienced drivers the rate of pay is generally too low.

“What we’re seeing here is that we’re short employees because we are not where we need to be on compensation,” Hosmer said. “So we are going to be passing a budget here soon, but what you’re going to be allocated for salaries and wages, you’re just going to remain short because you’re not competitive. ... So what is it you need from the city in order to staff all of these positions?”

Anderson said in order to hire CDL drivers, the department needs to offer a starting wage in the neighborhood of $25 an hour or more and to develop a program to attract employees with regards to winter plowing. Some private companies offer monetary incentives to drivers in order to remain on call during winter months, and other municipalities offer hourly wage increases during that period.

Hosmer noted that wages ebb and flow in the private sector with the economy, and the city has a distinct advantage over private industry in job security, retirement and competitive benefits for the longterm.

“The idea of being at least competitive on an hourly wage is one thing, but it seems to me our advantage is we don’t lay off, we have state retirement and our benefits package therefore stays in place for a longer period of time,” Hosmer said.

Ward 6 Councilor Tony Felch said it would be helpful to see a comparison between the compensation offered to public works employees in Laconia and those offered in other towns and cities in the Lakes Region. Ward 1 Councilor Bruce Cheney noted many of the potential employees of the public works department are young and may weigh the starting wage more heavily than long-term benefits.

“Pay is the critical issue,” Cheney said.

“Once you get them in the door, the benefits you were talking about, we can sell that. But first we have to get them in the door, and if they won’t even look because they can make $30 an hour working for one of these outfits, and you’re absolutely right. A year from now these outfits will be saying ‘the best we can do is $20 an hour, $25 an hour,’ because there’s no work.”