City officials have taken the first step to increase the pay of 11 city workers to the minimum level of a proposed new salary scale. Driving this plan is the city’s hope to be more competitive with other similar-sized municipalities in the hiring of employees.
The Columbus City Council on Tuesday unanimously voted to approve a salary ordinance that provides salary ranges for city positions using minimum, midpoint and maximum levels.
Columbus hired Total Reward Solutions, McCordsville, to evaluate the salaries of 428 full-time city employees that compared them to similar positions at other similarly sized cities across Indiana.
Salary studies had been done under previous administrations, but no evidence had been found of findings ever being implemented, city officials said.
The goal of the salary study was to make Columbus more competitive since it has struggled with recruitment and retention, said Mary Ferdon, executive director of administration and community development. The firm was paid more than $72,000 for its work to evaluate city workers’ pay.
Cassandra Faurote, president of Total Reward Solutions, told the council during its April meeting that she recommended increasing the salaries of employees who are under the minimum of their new pay range to that level as soon as fiscally possible.
Ferdon said on Tuesday that the city plans to move 11 employees to the new minimum level starting July 1. That remains contingent on the council passing the salary ordinance a second and final time during its June 5 meeting.
Moving the 11 employees to the minimum level will cost $9,946.95, using money already in each department’s budget.
The 11 individuals include one parks and recreation employee, two animal care services employees, four within the city’s engineering department, one in the city’s Human Rights Commission, two civilian police workers and one in aviation.
Ferdon also said establishing minimum, midpoint and maximum pay levels will also allow the city to advertise those ranges, which should help with recruitment efforts as well. Under the existing salary ordinance, minimum and maximum pay ranges are in place.
Police Chief Jon Rohde said his department has struggled with recruiting and retaining employees, noting that the total number of applicants and individuals who show up for initial testing has been trending downward since 2013.
Employees often leave the police department for better salaries and benefits being offered elsewhere, said Rohde, whose department is down four people.
“Recruitment is a crisis,” Rohde said. “It’s been frustrating.”
Ferdon said the city plans to begin phasing in performance-based increases to get employees to the midpoint level beginning in the 2019 budget year.
The city will focus on getting public safety workers to the midpoint over the next two years, Ferdon said. It will also work to get all other employees, including the mayor and clerk-treasurer, to that level over the next three years, she said.
City workers will be moved to the midpoint level based on their overall performance evaluations, she said. City council members will also move to the minimum level in 2020, according to a proposed plan by the city.
City Councilwoman Laurie Booher said after the meeting she thinks establishing the new pay ranges will be a benefit to Columbus, calling it a big step in the right direction.
Mayor Jim Lienhoop also said the move should help with recruitment and retention efforts.
“We have fallen behind a little bit with respect to competition,” Lienhoop said.
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Columbus City Council will have a final reading to adopt a new salary ordinance during its 6 p.m. meeting June 5.
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