At Thursday night's meeting, Northampton County Council voted 7-0 (Ken Kraft and Tom Giovanni were absent) to increase the salaries of 26 nursing supervisors at Gracedale. The wage increases will go to 9 full-time, 8 part-time and 9 per-diem nursing supervisors. This was recommended in an outside performance audit of Gracedale nursing home back in 2023 and was recommended repeatedly by Council members over the past two years to attract and retain the county workforce and reduce reliance on outside agency nurses.
Unfortunately, the Council Clerk failed to attach supporting documents to the agenda and thus it is impossible to tell you the exact amount of these increases. The paygrade is set with room for these career service employees to get step increases as they go through annual reviews. According to Executive Tara Zrinski, the wage starts at about $52 an hour. She indicated that previous administrations have been reluctant to give step increases and noted that long-time employees would get the same pay as people who are recently hired.
Council member Jason Boulette noted that his reading of Career Service Regulations and the Employee Policy Manual led him to believe that every career service employee who gets a positive evaluation should get a step increase. "Listen, I just got here," said Zrinski. She noted she could only state the past history, and said the budget does limit what can be done.
Currently, only two of these positions are actually filled by county employees. The rest are vacant.
Council member Dave Holland asked about other front-line nursing positions and was told that this is just the beginning of the salary review process.
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