Nantucket Planning Director Leslie Snell's Contract Renewed By NP&EDC

The Nantucket Planning and Economic Development Commission (NP&EDC) renewed Planning Director Leslie Snell’s contract on Monday after a lengthy executive session, handing her another term atop Nantucket’s planning department.

Snell’s contract has not yet been released to the public, and few details are available, but Snell and NP&EDC chair Abby De Molina told the Current that Snell would not be receiving a raise. The Current has requested a copy of the contract from both the town and the NP&EDC.

Snell’s new contract was approved unanimously by the members of the island’s regional planning agency who were in attendance on Monday, as was a new contract for her deputy, Megan Trudel. De Molina offered a brief summary of the executive session discussion before the NP&EDC voted on the contracts. In the summary, De Molina said that the NP&EDC had discussed updating Snell’s job description and ensuring a formalized, independent review of her performance.

Snell's gross compensation in 2025 was $194,000, according to the town report.

The lack of a raise in the new contract is notable. In advance of Monday’s meeting, the Current obtained emails from town officials objecting to a 4 percent pay increase Snell received last year, which the NP&EDC framed as a cost-of-living adjustment.

“The bottom line is that she [Snell] is receiving the compensation that we are offering other [Department Heads] one year in advance (and in this case, a retroactive year) and $3k more than we are offering others in that same classification,” Human Resources Director Amanda Perry wrote in an email. “I believe the numbers show that the additional 4% [cost of living adjustment] she has requested is not warranted, as she already received this increase when she negotiated her salary for Director on 7/1/23.”

Emails from Perry and Town Manager Libby Gibson show that town officials ultimately refused to sign Snell’s personnel action form after the increase was approved.

In an email obtained by the Current, Gibson explained this decision by saying that when adjustments “are put forward and are inconsistent with Town personnel policies, it has been our practice to advise the agency of the inconsistency, and not sign them so as not to indicate any approval, but to process them.”

Perry and other town officials have not returned requests for comment from the Current.

De Molina told the Current that the decision not to give Snell a raise this year was in part an effort to “better align with the town pay bands.”

The town’s concerns about the raise seem to center on its retroactive nature and the fact that it passed through multiple fiscal years.

“I don't think an increase that crosses multiple fiscal years can be approved now,” Perry wrote in an email from February of 2025. “The retroactive compensation increases need to cease; we do not have this practice with other Town employees.”

Former town of Nantucket Finance Director Brian Turbitt also suggested that it might not be possible to approve a raise that crossed fiscal years.

Snell told the Current that “it seems obvious that if any salary increase approved by the Commission was somehow illegal, it would not be finalized and paid by the Town.”

As representatives of the town have not returned requests for comment, it remains unclear whether Gibson or other town officials will sign Snell’s new contract.