SKOWHEGAN — Selectmen have agreed to a three-year contract for Town Manager John Doucette Jr. that includes pay raises and an extra week of vacation.

Board Chairwoman Joy Mase said Doucette also was given a three-percent raise from his base salary of $63,000, for six months, retroactive to Jan. 1, to make up for a raise that was “mistakenly overlooked” during the budget process last year.

“When we did his evaluation last year, his raise was omitted by mistake in the budget,” Mase said Wednesday. “We assumed that the calculations for his pay raise were included with the numbers that we were given, but they weren’t.

“We agreed to do a six-month contract — January to June — and look at it again before budget season; that’s why we did it in January.”

The raise amounts to a two percent cost of living adjustment and a one percent merit raise, Mase said. The 5-0 vote of the board came upon completion of Doucette’s annual evaluation. Doucette’s salary for the six-month period is $64,890.

Doucette, 60, also will receive another three-percent raise for the coming year, effective July 1, as part of the new contract. His salary for the coming year will be $66,837.

The Board of Selectmen and Doucette also will have the opportunity to reconsider Doucette’s salary each year at evaluation time, according to Mase. The new contract also gives Doucette a fourth week of vacation.

Doucette said Wednesday that in 2011 all non-union employees were supposed to get a three percent increase. He said the confusion came with the wording of his contract, which stated that his salary was locked in at $63,000 and could not been changed in time for passage of the annual budget.

The board’s move to give him an extended six-month contract aimed to fix that, he said.

Doucette, who had been town manager in Norridgewock for five years, was hired for the job in Skowhegan in July 2008. The contract was for one year.

In 2009, a new contract — without a pay raise — was adopted for three years, ending in June of this year with the close of the fiscal year. Doucette’s new three-year contract begins July 1.

Doug Harlow — 612-2367

dharlow@centralmaine.com