Getting It Done: Fair Pay and Pay Equity in Stockbridge

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The Problem

When I became Chair of the Stockbridge Select Board, Stockbridge's employees were falling behind. Over the prior three years, the combined inflation rate had run 16.7%. Union and non-union staff were averaging just 2% in annual pay increases. Police, highway workers, and town hall staff had each lost more than 10% of their purchasing power during that period — not because anyone decided to underpay them, but because the pay structure had no mechanism to keep pace with the real economy.

That was bad for our employees. It was also bad for the town. You cannot attract or retain good people when the real value of their compensation is quietly eroding year after year. The problem wasn't a lack of goodwill — it was a structural failure, and structural failures require structural fixes.

It's easy to talk about fair pay. Knowing what to do and taking action takes a lot of work. I set out to do that work.

The Immediate Fix: ARPA Bonuses

Upon assuming the Chair, the first step was an immediate one. Working within the constraints of the existing budget cycle, I proposed and implemented a plan to deploy ARPA (American Rescue Plan Act) funds as bonuses for town employees. The federal relief funds provided a one-time mechanism to give staff some ground back without waiting for the next contract negotiation or budget year.

This was a bridge — not a solution. The real work was building a system that would prevent the same erosion from happening again.

The Structural Fix: CPI-Indexed Contracts

I successfully championed getting the Consumer Price Index written into Stockbridge's union contracts as a minimum floor for annual increases. Inflation is not a surprise — it is a measured, publicly available number. There was no good reason for municipal employees to absorb the full cost of it while the cost of everything else in their lives went up.

Advocating for CPI indexing through contract negotiations took time and persistence. But it was achieved. Never again will Stockbridge's union employees lose so much purchasing power over such a short period simply because the town's pay structure failed to account for the real economy.

I also worked with the Town Administrator to ensure that non-union town hall staff received the same formula in the annual budget. Parity between union and non-union employees on this point was not automatic — it required a separate, deliberate effort to apply the same logic consistently.

Closing the Pay Equity Gap

Separate from the inflation problem was a pay equity problem. The discrepancy between compensation in male-dominated union roles and predominantly female non-union positions was a long-standing issue in Stockbridge — one that had gone unaddressed for years. Through sustained advocacy on the Select Board, that gap was closed. Positions with equivalent levels of responsibility were brought to equivalent pay.

Beyond base pay, parity in bonuses and incentives for continued education and professional development was also established — recognizing that all employees' contributions to the community deserve equal recognition regardless of which side of the union/non-union line they happen to fall on.

Why This Matters Beyond Stockbridge

Fair compensation and community affordability are directly linked. Teachers, firefighters, police officers, nurses, and town hall staff cannot serve a community they cannot afford to live in. Every Berkshire town faces a version of this challenge: how do you retain and attract capable public servants as the current generation ages out, when housing costs are rising and real wages are not keeping pace?

The answer is not charity. It is structure. CPI-indexed contracts, consistent application of the same formula across union and non-union staff, and a genuine commitment to pay equity are the kinds of structural decisions that compound over time — for the employees who stay, and for the towns that keep them.

The Math of Compounding — and Why It Changes Lives

The difference between a CPI-indexed contract and a flat raise doesn't look dramatic in any single year. But compounded over a career, it is transformative — and that's the point.

Consider a concrete comparison. A neighboring town recently voted a 2% pay raise for its employees. Stockbridge's CPI-linked formula is currently producing an increase of approximately 4.2% — 0.5% base plus 3.7% CPI. That 2.2 percentage point gap seems modest. But compounding is not addition. At 2% annually, a $50,000 salary becomes roughly $74,000 after 20 years. At 4.2% annually, that same starting salary becomes roughly $114,000. The Stockbridge employee ends up earning more than 53% above their counterpart — not because of a single generous contract, but because of a structural formula applied consistently over time.

Fifty-three percent. That is the difference between renting and owning. Between staying and leaving. Between a public servant who can put down roots in the community they serve and one who commutes from somewhere else or eventually moves on entirely.

In communities increasingly dominated by wealthy second-home owners and high-end development — and this is not just a Berkshires problem, it is a statewide and national one — the only way a police officer, a highway worker, or a town hall clerk can afford to live where they work is if their compensation actually keeps pace with the economy that surrounds them. CPI indexing is how you make that possible.

Every Massachusetts municipality faces this challenge. The essential workers who keep towns functioning — who plow the roads, staff the police station, answer the phones at Town Hall — are being priced out wherever housing costs are rising faster than public sector wages. When that happens, the character of a community changes, services degrade, and institutional knowledge walks out the door.

Getting CPI indexing into Stockbridge's contracts was a fight worth having. The compounding math is why — and why every municipality in the Commonwealth should be having the same conversation.