Mallory Herrmann
citydesk@lstribune.net

The city will have a new pay and classification plan for city employees effective Jan. 26, 2019.

“This council’s been working on this since day one, back in April,” Mayor Bill Baird said.

The updates have been in the works for months, with city staff creating two committees to develop the new plan. The first committee included management employees tasked with creating a new pay classification system for the city’s core general positions. The second committee had at least one individual from every department to ensure a comprehensive plan.

In addition to a cost-of-living raise and ensuring salaries are within market rates, the new plan adjusts the salary bands across all job families.

The transition team ultimately had three recommendations: provide a 5 percent cost-of-living adjustment for all core general staff; use remaining funds to ensure all employees are at the minimum salary of their new band; use additional remaining funds to provide a longevity increase based on tenure.

The average increase for all core general jobs is 10.5 percent. Some job families had average increases as high as 14.92 percent, indicating that they were far behind the market rate for the positions. All core general staff will get at least a 5 percent increase. Employees hired after Nov. 11, 2018, won’t see these increases as their salaries already reflect the new rates.

A job offer has been extended to a new compensation and benefit analyst, who will oversee ongoing maintenance of the compensation plan. A third committee will also be created to support ongoing employee engagement.

The updates to the plan were requested after a previous study was largely perceived as having errors and being based on inaccurate or incomplete data. Clean data and new market tools were used to prepare the new plan. Employees were given an opportunity to review their position’s new band and provide feedback before the plan was finalized.

The council voted unanimously to approve the plan and amend the budget accordingly. Councilmembers Phyllis Edson and Diane Forte were absent from the Dec. 4 session.