BHN institutes $12 minimum wageDate: 8/5/2016 SPRINGFIELD – Behavioral Health Network (BHN) announced it has instituted a $12 per hour minimum wage for employees serving in its four-county service area in Western Massachusetts, where the agency provides comprehensive, community based behavioral and mental health, addiction recovery and intellectual disabilities services and programs.
The wage increase will raise the pay of a substantial portion of BHN’s 1,800-member workforce who serve Hampden, Hampshire, Franklin and Berkshire Counties.
Although BHN has received minimal rate increases to support raises of staff salaries, the BHN Board of Directors and senior leadership team have enacted this policy in recognition of “the hard work of our staff including our entry-level staff,” according to Kathy Wilson, BHN’s President and CEO.
Wilson said, “As pleased as we are to establish this new minimum wage across the agency, we are committed to finding ways to further enhance salaries at BHN to support the important community work of our employees.”
While the minimum wage in Massachusetts for most workers is $10 per hour, and increasing to $11 per hour by Jan. 1, 2017, BHN is setting a higher standard, according to Wilson. “No full-time worker at BHN will earn less than $25,000 per year” under the new wage scale, according to Wilson.
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