The Select Board Got A Big Raise At Town Meeting. Will It Incentivize New Candidates?

Nantucket’s Select Board just got a raise.

Town Meeting voted 903-238 on Monday to increase the Select Board’s pay from $4,500 to $14,500, a bump of 222 percent. The vote has flown largely under the radar, overshadowed by the major capital spending items that were debated and ultimately approved immediately after, but it represents a significant change in how Nantucket’s top executive board is compensated.

While a small figure next to some of the capital items voters approved, the pay increase outstrips almost anything in the region, making Nantucket’s Select Board one of the highest-paid Select Boards in the state—maybe even the highest.

“To my knowledge, it is the most a Select Board member will ever be paid, probably in history,” Select Board member Tom Dixon said.

The goal of the change is to make running for Select Board more accessible, according to island resident Mary Longacre, who proposed the change as an amendment to Article 7 at Town Meeting. Serving on the Select Board is equivalent to a second job, demanding long hours, significant commitment, and intense public scrutiny. Historically, the low compensation has made it difficult for some would-be candidates to justify dropping their existing second or third jobs, or even afford childcare for the duration of the Board’s at times lengthy meetings.

“Hopefully [the increase] is enough for someone to give up their third job, or hire child care in order to have time to enter public service,” said Longacre. She added that she hoped the amendment to the existing pay structure would “expand the opportunity for the community to achieve robust representation on the Select Board.”

Select Board member Tom Dixon said that he believes it may help to achieve that.

“What I see this as is a positive step to supplement the time commitment that we all put in,” Dixon said. “What I think it does do is it opens up a little more leeway for people who are maybe on the fence.”

The amendment also raised the pay of the Select Board chair from $6,000 to $16,000.

The change comes as Nantucket faces one of the most sparsely contested Select Board races in recent history. Only two names - Jill Vieth and Cliff Williams - are on the ballot for two seats, with a third, former Select Board member Bob DeCosta, running as a write-in candidate. Three other candidates pulled papers, but they all dropped out.

The time commitment could play a role. While the most visible part of the Nantucket Select Board’s job is its weekly Wednesday meetings, the Board also spends long hours in executive session, meets once a month to handle licensing and petition requests, and often holds special meetings on specific topics that require more detailed attention. There’s also the background reading necessary to prepare for those meetings, which sometimes includes agenda packets that are hundreds of pages long.

“At the moment we have three declared candidates for two open Select Board seats, but there were three other candidates that pulled papers and subsequently decided their schedules and obligations could not be made to fit with a desire to serve on the Select Board,” Longacre said. “That motivated me to propose a significant change to the Select Board stipend in the hope that future candidates would feel able to balance family care, work obligations and financial needs with the increasing amount of time and devotion that navigating complex issues, contracts, and meetings for both the Select Board and the other committees on which they serve demands.”

Select Board members also serve in designated Select Board seats on a number of other boards and commissions, some of which, like the Board of Health, demand long hours themselves. Additionally, the Select Board serves as Nantucket’s County Commission, its Regional Transit Authority Commission, Fire and Police Commission, Public Works Board Commission, and Sewer Commission.

It’s difficult to verify the pay of every Select Board in the state, but Nantucket is certainly paying more than most comparable towns. For example, Edgartown pays its Select Board members $4,500, Provincetown pays $6,000, and Tewksbury pays $5,000. Even larger towns with Town Council forms of government don’t always pay their representatives as much as Nantucket. Framingham pays its city councillors $5,000, and Amherst pays $10,000. Many Select Boards aren’t compensated at all.

There are, of course, places that pay their Town Councilors as much or more than Nantucket now pays Select Board members. Taunton pays Town Councilors a little over $16,600, and on the high end of the spectrum, Boston pays $125,000.

The move is particularly notable as Nantucket continues to walk a narrow line to keep its budget balanced.

Dixon thinks that Nantucket’s vote could set off a chain reaction, with other towns following suit.

“I absolutely think that, [us] being the first on this and the vote being pretty overwhelming, that other towns, other Select Board members, will see this and be like, hey...our Select Board members put as much time in as Nantucket,” Dixon said. “Nantucket is not the only place that's struggling with candidates.”

Dixon said the Select Board was unaware of Longacre’s plan until right before Town Meeting. It is unusual for a private citizen to make such a motion.

“I had kind of an initial thought when I heard Mary [Longacre] was going to do the amendment that it should probably go through the Select Board process, and we should have a debate,” Dixon said. “When it got to the floor, it was like, well, maybe this is just the way it's happening.”

In the past, the Select Board has discussed raising the board’s compensation, and a $1,000 increase was approved in 2024, but concerns about the optics of asking voters to raise their own pay may have played a role in keeping such efforts more narrow.