Pay for youth employees in Brookline may soon go down, if a warrant article headed to Town Meeting next week passes.
The article, proposed by Recreation Department Director Lisa Paradis and Human Resources Director Sandra DeBow, would exempt more entry-level workers from getting Brookline’s “living wage” of roughly $13 an hour, and would seek to only pay them the state minimum wage, currently $9 an hour.
This change, if passed, would only affect about 30 employees in the Recreation Department, and would save the town about $40,000. Paradis argued that the savings would help the department sustain programming, as well as keep fees down.
Currently, all employees who are exempt from the Brookline living wage — including junior library pages, golf course rangers, committee appointees, students on work-study and some grant-funded positions — are paid $1 more than the state minimum wage, or $10, a regulation that is written into the town’s bylaws. But the petitioners argue that the state’s minimum wage, which will increase to $11 by 2017, is already one of the highest in the country.
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