Jefferson City's planned salary study is moving forward with recommendations expected to be ready for the City Council in no more than 18 weeks.
Last month, the City Council approved a contract with Kansas-based Austin Peters Group Inc. to perform a comprehensive classification and compensation study on city positions for just under $39,000. On Tuesday, representatives from Austin Peters led a short public input session at City Hall, which was followed by a similar presentation to the City Council at a work session on the issue.
The firm is to provide an "in-depth review of the city's classification and compensation plan and will provide new information to determine whether the organization's pay structure is appropriate or may need adjustments, including adjusted or new pay ranges, new job classes, mergers of existing classes or the re-titling of classes, review of compression, a review of all job descriptions and a review of the city's benefit plan including special pays."
The firm is about four weeks into the estimated 22-week process and has already been gathering input from city employees. The goal of Tuesday's sessions were to incorporate any public input, of which there was very little, and council direction to ensure the firm's final recommendations align with the council's goals.
"It really is a partnership," said Rebecca Crowder, founder and president of the Austin Peters Group. "Everyone is a part of the process."
Crowder and Elizabeth Tatarko, vice president of the Austin Peters Group, both emphasized as a capital city, Jefferson City is unique as its population fluctuates throughout the day with visitors and commuters.
"You're not just the population that we put on the board," Crowder said, referring to a chart listing Jefferson City's population as 43,169.
Crowder said the firm would look at communities larger than Jefferson City for comparison data because of the "broad daytime population" of the city. For example, Tatarko said the city's public safety departments really serve a population of closer to 80,000 because of the influx of visitors.
Crowder outlined the process moving forward, noting the firm will look at competitive pay structure, pay grades, job descriptions and how best to implement and maintain any recommendations. Second Ward Councilman J. Rick Mihalevich said his concern will be how the recommendations affect current employees, especially if the council cannot afford to increase necessary ranges right away.
Fourth Ward Councilman Glen Costales said he would like to see the city in the top 5 to 7 percent in terms of pay range. Crowder said the final recommendations will present the council with options, as well as showing them where they are now in those terms.
"I'm just really anxious to see where we fall at on the scale," said 4th Ward Councilman Carlos Graham.
The city's last outside study of employee salaries, done in 2003, found employees were compensated below the average of other state organizations and gave four different plans to address the issue. At the beginning of 2004, city officials adopted the plan with the least financial impact, which still had a cost of more than $350,000 to implement.
City Administrator Steve Crowell said staff is still preparing the 2017 budget draft, but they will be putting aside a chunk of money to be used in implementing the recommendations in the 2017 fiscal year. Crowell said staff would work with the firm to come up with the best guess at how much should be put aside to allow the council to make changes before the Nov. 1 start of the 2017 fiscal year.