| Recommendation: |
Staff recommends the adoption of the attached resolution,
which provides for a 3% salary adjustment for all management classifications,
3.5% for confidential employee classifications, further adjustments to five
mid-management positions necessary to maintain adequate internal equity,
and revisions to the Management Resolution regarding administrative leave.
The elected City Recorder and Municipal Judge are covered by a provision
in the city charter, which links their salaries to the "…average salary
adjustment of the other supervisory employees and department heads…"
(Article III.3.). In this case the average salary adjustment and recommendation
to the city council is a 3.359% increase. |
| Fiscal Impact: |
Adequate funds are available in the 2004-2005 budget for
a 3% increase for all Management and Confidential classifications. The additional
.5% increase for confidential employees will result in an increased cost
of $1,685, which can be absorbed into the affected departmental budgets for
the eight confidential positions.
Additionally, this recommendation includes one week of Administrative Leave
may be granted to exempt management employees at the discretion of their
Department Head. The leave will be required to be taken as time off each
year therefore no additional cost will be generated beyond the increased
salary cost.
The six positions targeted for additional increase to prevent compression
issues will result in an additional cost of $9,816. These six positions
(Electric Operations Superintendent, Assistant Fire Chief/Fire Marshal,
Senior Planner, Building Official, Police Sergeant, and Finance Division
Manager) represent 10 employees from multiple departments and funds,
and we are confident the additional cost can be absorbed by each of the affected
departments by cutting back on expenditures in other areas. Compression issues
have been identified with Department Head salary ranges but we are not
recommending a change at this time. |
| Background: |
The city has entered into multi-year contracts with its five bargaining
units. Four of the five labor contracts call for a wage adjustment of 3%,
which was projected into the FY 04/05 budget. The IBEW Electric union increase
will be 2% based on their contractual agreement based upon the Consumer Price
Index (CPI). This is the final year in a three-year agreement in which they
have received 3%, and 3.2% respectively.
There are approximately 45 employees within the management, supervisory or
confidential classifications that are not represented by a union or association.
The increase for this group is set each July by recommendation of the City
Administrator to the City Council. A variety of factors go into this
recommendation, including the CPI, bargaining contract settlements, comparing
jurisdictions, labor market factors and internal equity and compression between
managers and the staff they are responsible for supervising.
In the past the city council has determined that it is important to maintain
reasonable salary differentials between organized employees and the
supervisory/management staff. Furthermore the council has
determined it is important that the city maintain a pay schedule that is
competitive and fiscally responsible. The proposed wage adjustment for non-union
employees does attempt to maintain adequate salary differentials between
organized employees and supervisory management. However, in order to work
within budget parameters there is still some overlap between salary ranges
after the proposed adjustment. Non-represented employees received a 2% salary
adjustment last year, and all other unions received adjustments of 3-5% for
the year, further diminishing the differential between these two groups.
The increase in the Consumer Price Index (CPI) has averaged 1.4% during the
last year (March to March), and spiked significantly in April 2004 to 2.1%
showing an upward trend.
The City conducted a salary survey for its non-represented employees using
the same comparators and methodology used for the police and fire unions
earlier this spring. Overall, the positions that we were able to find matches
for showed us to be at or close to the average in base wages. When looking
at total compensation, the City of Ashland did come out slightly above average
largely in part to the costing out of our overall benefit package. While
the survey did help us benchmark a few positions, it was evident that Ashland
provides a much higher level and variety of services to citizens than many
Oregon cities of equivalent population. Numerous positions had little or
no match among our comparators, revealing that the same compensation formula
used for union personnel does not produce a pure result when comparing management
staff where titles and duties vary significantly from organization to
organization.
The salary survey also included a survey on vacation accruals. Vacation is
difficult to compare because each jurisdiction has different longevity steps
at which the employee's accrual rate increases, and some cities use a Paid
Time Off (PTO) system that lumps all leave together and lets the employee
determine how it is used. The chart below shows a comparison of maximum accrual
rates of responding cities, revealing that Ashland is among the lowest by
comparison in its vacation offerings, and our employees have to work much
longer to earn vacation time than in other cities, which helps support the
recommendation of one week of Administrative Leave. A similar survey on
Administrative Leave revealed that a majority of the comparators below and
other Cities in our market area offer at least one week of Administrative
leave for exempt management employees in recognition of the extraordinary
time commitments required outside of regular work hours. |
