ORANGE — The town clerk has formally asked for a pay increase but Selectboard members say there seem to be few avenues available to grant the request.

Nancy Blackmer, who has been town clerk since January 2000, sent an email to Selectboard Chair Tom Smith on Sept. 11 to express she believes her $66,512 annual salary is inadequate for the experience she brings to the table. She said she feels she should be at the top wage step, making $36.59 per hour for a total of $76,312 a year.

“It’s not going to help me as far as my retirement, but it’s just a matter of principle,” she said after Vice Chair Pat Lussier read her email aloud at last week’s meeting. “I’ve been told numerous times that, ‘We’ll bring you up to what you should be when times get better’ … and I realize that times haven’t gotten better, but others have gotten [their salaries] brought up.”

In her email, Blackmer explained that following a wage study in town, her experience put her in the middle of a certain wage range. But, she said, other employees with an equal amount of experience were placed at the top of that range. She mentioned she has never received a salary increase for any of the responsibilities that have been added to her position over the years. She said she sorts Town Hall’s mail every morning and there have been enormous changes to the state’s Open Meeting Law since she started. This is in addition to running elections, applying for grants, handling public records requests and conducting the various other duties of a town clerk.

Selectboard member Jane Peirce said she is a little confused about the timing of Blackmer’s request and she feels strongly that the wage study should be followed. Once the study was completed, a plan was established to determine the correct level of pay within the grade range for each employee and a schedule for reaching that level.

“This feels like we’re jumping off the railroad tracks again, to me,” Peirce said.

Blackmer said she asked for a salary increase during the budget process earlier this year “and it was turned down because we had to cut everybody’s budgets.” She was referring to the difficult situation Orange found itself in after $338,000 in fraudulent invoices were paid in the summer of 2023. The matter is being investigated by the Orange Police Department, the Northwestern District Attorney’s Office and the FBI, which assigned an agent to the case.

“I decided I just have to go fight for myself,” Blackmer said. “I haven’t done it for … 24½ years, and I’m going to fight now.”

Peirce responded by saying the Selecboard has always tried to be fair to all municipal employees.

“We said we had an intention to make adjustments going forward. We still do,” Peirce said. “We have an obligation to consider adjustments, particularly when the job increases from what is described in the job description that set the rate.”

Blackmer, who mentioned she plans to retire on June 30, 2025, said it is ironic that she is essentially making less money because she has been on the job so long, as other department head positions’ salaries were increased to attract new applicants after employees left to make more money in other communities.

“I have chosen to stay here for 24½ years,” she said. “If I had left 10 years ago, 15 years ago, this position would be paying a lot more than it is now, because you would have never got anybody to stay for that dollar amount.”

Selectboard Clerk Andrew Smith acknowledged that salary increases were necessary to make Orange’s municipal jobs more attractive to qualified candidates. When he asked about pay increases for the town clerk position, Blackmer said there have been mostly only 2% cost-of-living adjustments. She said town clerks of comparable towns make $70,000 to $80,000.

Lussier said she wishes this issue had been discussed more during budget season.

“I think that Nancy is underpaid. For the wealth of information that we rely on, it’s going to be very hard to replace someone with the years of experience and knowledge that Nancy has,” she said. “I feel like we’re kind of between a rock and a hard place now.”

Selectboard member Julie Davis agreed that Blackmer is underpaid.

“I think that we need to be very careful about respecting the years that folks have given to us and subsidized our budget by not being paid what they deserve,” she said.

Andrew Smith told Blackmer the town is blessed to have her.

Selectboard Chair Tom Smith asked Town Administrator Matt Fortier if there is enough wiggle room in free cash to provide Blackmer with any additional compensation for the time being. Fortier said he wished to recuse himself because his wife is the assistant town clerk, but he answered Smith’s question by saying the salaries of elected officials are set at Annual Town Meeting through a specific article in conjunction with the omnibus budget. He said a “mid-year course correction” could take place at a Special Town Meeting, through two warrant articles — one to adjust elected officers’ salaries and one to move money from elsewhere in the budget.

Andrew Smith said he would support holding a Special Town Meeting for that purpose. Peirce, however, said she would not.

“We cannot cherry-pick in this way. It’s not good management practice to do this,” she said. “If we increase any salaries, we need to do it thoughtfully and with analysis across the board so that we’re fair to everyone.”

Peirce also told Blackmer how much she values her.

“This has got nothing to do with how much we love you,” Peirce said. “This is a process question and this is not the time or place in the annual cycle where we should be doing this. We should have already done it. We didn’t already do it. We should do it going forward.”

Reach Domenic Poli at: dpoli@recorder.com or 413-930-4120.