Politics & Government

County Needs $5.7 Million to Address Salary Issues

A St. Charles County employee pay study shows a majority of workers are behind the market value in salaries. The study suggests a four-year plan to address salary compression.

It’s going to take $5.7 million over four years to solve , the St. Charles County Council learned during a Monday work session. Add in health benefits and the total becomes $7 million over four years.

“Our compression problem is widespread and complex,” said Linda Bell, assistant human resources director for the county. Compression occurs when more experienced employees are not making significantly more than less experienced employees.

Previously, gave an example of one deputy with 10 years experience who earns just $3,000 more than a new deputy.

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Director of Administration Chuck Gross said the problem is that employees not progressing along in their salary ranges.

Bell said simply giving raises to employees with a certain amount of experience would help, but some of those employees are already in acceptable or high salary ranges. She said the county should target those whose salaries are below the market range.

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The study broke down how much the four-year plan would cost and the average raise that the targeted employees would receive.

Year        Average raise  Cost 1st year  4.91%   $1.9 million 2nd year 3.82%      $1.5 million 3rd year    2.94%    $1.2 million 4th year   2.85% $1.1 million

Bell said the plan would take the county from 161 employees to 772 employees at the median of the market’s pay ranges. The plan does not address cost-of-living increases for all employees.

The study broke down percentages of employees that were far behind, behind, acceptable and high range compared to the median job market for those jobs.

Employees overall

  • Far behind – 19%
  • Behind – 41%
  • Acceptable – 37%
  • High range – 3%

County Executive Steve Ehlmann said, “It’s a high percentage of employees that are getting squeezed.”

A higher percentage of sheriff’s department employees are behind the market range than other county employees, but an even higher percentage of Family Court employees are behind the curve.

Sheriff’s Department

  • Far behind – 27%
  • Behind – 43%
  • Acceptable – 30%

Family Court

  • Far behind – 54%
  • Behind – 22%
  • Acceptable – 22%
  • High – 2%

“If we’d done this 10 years ago, we wouldn’t be in this mess,” Neer said. “I’m more optimistic about this than I have been in years because they’re seriously addressing the problem, not just giving it lip service.”

Finance Director Bob Schnur pointed out that the county had to get lower salaries up to minimum ranges first.

After a 2008 CBIZ pay study, county officials addressed the pay scale’s lower end and planned to address compression afterwards. However, the economic downturn brought budget cuts and no salary increases for two years.

Merit raises help

Bell told the council that the pay study validates the frustration with salaries expressed by employees for the past several months. She said that across-the-board or cost-of-living increases exacerbate the compression problem.

“Merit raises are what we need,” Bell said.

Ehlmann told the council, “This all became a problem because, No. 1, if you didn’t give across-the-board raises, the people at the top of the pay scale would not get anything. And a number of years ago, we had problems attracting people at the bottom (of the pay scale). That’s not an issue anymore.”

Council Chair Nancy Matheny, R-District 3, asked if the council could begin start by giving raises this June or July.

Gross said the county could consider a four-year, four-and-a-half-year, five-year or 10 year scenario to address compression.

After the meeting, Ehlmann said the county likely will have to see how revenue fares.

“If we could keep all the , we could do the raises right now,” he said. “We had someone take $1.6 million out of our pocket in TIF financing, and we had no say in it. That’s why we’re so far behind.”

Ehlmann noted the county paid more than $500,000 into the Deputy Sheriff Supplementation Fund, which goes to supplement county deputy salaries statewide. So far, in 2011, St. Charles County received $65,000 of that money back.

“That’s your socialism in Missouri,” Ehlmann said.


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