Edgartown is moving forward with a plan to reclassify town employees and adjust salary levels despite a critical reception from those on the town payroll.

At a meeting last week attended by town selectmen, the personnel board voted to move forward with a new eight-step pay scale for town employees that will bring Edgartown in line with other towns.

Town officials will now review the plan to determine its financial impact on the budget. If everything is completed and approved in time the proposal could come before a special town meeting this fall.

The new plan is the results of a compensation and classification study done by Edward J. Collins Jr. Center for Public Management at the University of Massachusetts at Boston. The last study was done in 2001.

“The study revealed that from a compensation standpoint the town was out of market in a lot of areas,” human resources coordinator Kim Lucas told the Gazette. “That’s the ultimate goal of the study, to bring it to market range.”

But the process has raised concern among town employees, including several who have turned out at public meetings to criticize the plan. Concerns were raised again last week during a discussion that focused on classification for specific town employees, how the process unfolded, and whether Edgartown employees would be paid comparably to employees in other Island towns.

If approved reclassification would likely take effect on July 1, 2018.

Town administrator Pamela Dolby said she and others continue to have concerns about how some town employees are classified, and whether the consultant who worked on the study understood the town and what town employees do. In one instance, she said, Karen Fuller, who is responsible for licensing, is classified two grades below the selectmen’s assistant.

“It just doesn’t make any sense,” Mrs. Dolby said. “I didn’t just hear it from my people. A number of employees didn’t feel that they were really listened to.”

Mrs. Dolby said she felt the process was done hastily and grievances should be heard again. She added that she was concerned about how the town would afford the salary increases.

Town clerk Wanda Williams said none of the assistants working on the first floor of town hall would receive increases.

“We’re talking about five positions out of 100, right?” personnel board member Paul Moreau said.

Other employees said they had concerns that Edgartown classifications still did not line up with other towns. “Nobody’s going to come to Edgartown because it’s least competitive,” town accountant Kimberly Kane said.

Personnel board members said they had looked over the recommendations, discussed concerns over several meetings, and felt confident in the consultant’s recommendations, which had been reevaluated. They also said comparisons to other towns are difficult because of differences in town government structure.

“It might not be the answers that people in the current positions were hoping for,” chairman Suzanne Cioffi said. “I think to move forward for the employees to have an implementation of this . . . I mean nobody is losing money. Everybody is gaining money and will continue to grow and gain money.”

Personnel board members emphasized that no existing employees will receive pay cuts. In a gesture of good will, the board had voted to make sure everyone will receive raises of at least 50 cent per hour. The financial evaluation will determine whether that goes forward.

“We’re pretty confident”, Mr. Moreau said. “The whole study we felt was pretty spot on from where we’re sitting.”

“We’re talking about the integrity of a whole plan that’s been reviewed,” personnel board member Diane Durawa said. Some positions were moved up in the pay scale “because it was discovered they were not what they would have been. It’s a whole plan.”

Ms. Durawa also noted that personnel board members, who are friends or acquaintances with town employees, should not make the ultimate decisions about how much people are paid. She said the town should either move forward and address specific concerns as they come up or scrap the whole thing, which she noted would postpone pay increases and reclassifications.

Selectman Arthur Smadbeck said he felt there was consensus to move forward with the existing plan with the caveat that any disagreements with the proposal will be addressed.

“It probably makes the most sense . . . with a high degree of sensitivity to people that are going to be coming in, and develop a process for reevaluation where department heads might be in disagreement,” he said. “If it’s reevaluated and it comes out where it was before, okay.”