City employees’ average base pay is below that of other markets in the region, and the city has 27 job titles that can be eliminated with the jobs being reclassified, a compensation and classification study of the city found.
The Dallas office of the Waters Consulting Group executed the study on behalf of the city, and on Monday morning, Senior Consultant Meacham Pool presented Waters’ findings to city staff.
With the study, Emporia is aiming to update its compensation and job classification guidelines. Waters conducted the study by determining Emporia’s internal equity — how the city’s job wages measure up against each other — and external equity, which measures how job wages here compare with those of other nearby markets. The outside markets are known as “benchmark organizations.”
“We hammered those down, got good data, combined that with the internal equity, and you have what you see today, is a good finished product on the pay plan,” Pool said.
The results included both a summary and a proposed pay schedule that divides the city’s jobs into four pay structures, which have jobs slotted into 26 “grades.” Each grade, named with a three-digit number, displays salary guidelines for the positions classified under it.
The study’s benchmark organizations consisted of 10 Kansas cities, including Lawrence, Manhattan, Hays, Lenexa and Overland Park; Bartlesville, Okla.; and also Lyon County, Emporia State University and Newman Regional Health.
With respect to those organizations, the study found that Emporia pays incumbent average base salaries approximately 10.5 percent below market value, with an average midpoint salary 11.5 percent below market.
Pool said the varying sizes of those benchmark organizations made it more difficult to compare their job wages against those of Emporia, but Waters Consulting Group sought to make “accurate matches” for comparison.
“Obviously, we didn’t pick Kansas City or we didn’t pick Tulsa or something like that, or Wichita, because it’s just not a good match compared to the size and scope of service that the city of Emporia’s doing,” Pool said.
The city employees themselves lent a hand to determining Emporia’s internal equity — department heads, such as Police Chief Gary Smith and Facilities Manager Ed Rathke, distributed job questionnaires to their employees. The questionnaires, and the study itself, had nothing to do with evaluating job performance; the purpose of the questionnaires was to have employees describe exactly what their job duties are. Waters then used that information to help determine the value of the position, rather than the employee.
The study found that the city could whittle the number of examined job titles from 126 to 99 because of what City Manager Matt Zimmerman called “title inflation.” He said that over the years, some positions were created for an employee to move up to because of increased skills and experience, or were simply created because the city didn’t have that position.
An example, Zimmerman said, was the job inflation in the number of secretary positions the city had, which were created at different times and had different wage ranges. He said the city needed a logical model to slot similar jobs together.
“As we get slotting, we’re gonna say, ‘OK, you’re a secretary, or you’re a maintenance worker I, or you’re a street foreman, or you’re a whatever, and this is gonna be your salary range, and based on the pay plan, this is what your salary’s going to be,’” he said.
The city will use the pay plan submitted by Waters to pass its own compensation and classification program. Implementation of the pay plan, Pool told the commission, would be a collaboration between the city and Waters consultants.
Until the city’s official pay plan is written, though, city employees won’t know what their new salaries will be.
“You can’t judge, from what we’re talking about doing, exactly what X Employee is going to make,” Zimmerman said, “because we haven’t written the pay plan, first of all, so we don’t know how we’re going to slot people.
“Obviously, you can make certain deductions that if your position is a (Grade) 202, and this is the salary range for 202, then you have some sense of what your salary range is going to be and how that compares to your current salary.”
The commission planned to look at the study’s job classifications in more depth at its March 12 work session.
Kansan (anonymous) says...
Are you kidding me? Comparing Emporia with Lawrence, Lenexa, and Overland Park....I'd like to see how Emporia's private sectors' wages compare with those cities. I think in the last census, Lyon County was 5th from the bottom in household income in the state and less than half of what Johnson County's household income was that year. Please do not raise our taxes and follow through with this study's recommendation. Please give us a good reason to stay and want to live in this town. Please give other people a good reason to want to come to this town. I'm tired of hearing the reason to live here is because the people here are nice. Well you know what, there are a lot of nice people living in the midwest and many towns can say the same thing about its citizens. It is already hard enough for the citizen working in private industry to survive in this town!
March 4, 2008 at 8:09 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
ozland (anonymous) says...
Kan-you have it right!
Yeah, Emporia has become a town that sticks it to the people. That should be the motto.
I wonder why the Gazette doesn't take a survey-asking all of us what we think and who we do or do not trust in local government?
March 5, 2008 at 8:43 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
77flint (anonymous) says...
Where does it say to raise taxes?
March 5, 2008 at 8:44 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
create (anonymous) says...
It doesn't actually say taxes will be raised, but reading an article like this leads one to wait for the second shoe to drop.
March 5, 2008 at 9:21 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
netloafer (anonymous) says...
Unless they have a printing press that can be subbed out to print money down at city hall a tax increase will probably be needed. When all shakes out from Tyson there will be shortfall in real estate tax revenues, sales tax revenue, etc. That means an increase in the mill levy to get the money required for pay raises of up to 10%.
March 5, 2008 at 2:18 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
77flint (anonymous) says...
Don't you think that they will redistribute the current pay evenly among those who actually do the job. I think that they realize with the way things are economically they should not raise taxes. try not to be so negative.
March 5, 2008 at 5:13 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
admireed (anonymous) says...
Before we move to fast on this, let us also survey the private wages in Emporia. Are they 10-11% below similar cities? Higher, lower or what?.
March 5, 2008 at 6:58 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
CAFEmporia (anonymous) says...
Admireed is correct that local government wage scales and plans should take into consideration the local non-public marketplace.
Certainly, we want our city employees to be paid well. We also need to ensure that doing so stays within the means of the public to support the program without undo taxation.
This is not a good time to be making such decisions. Not only is the economic structure of the city and county changing as a result of Tyson's downsizing, the nation is facing a recession which could have long lasting consequences. The state is also facing serious budget problems which may result in tax increases. Changing wage structures can wait a few months or a year to allow us to better understand the other highly dynamic forces at play right now.
March 5, 2008 at 10:14 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )