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City employees receive new salary structure
SARAH BLASKOVICH, Community Editor
For the past few weeks, some city employees have been grumbling about the pending salary changes for city of Carrollton employees. Now that most employees have received their individual letters and know how their salaries might change, the grumbling hasn’t subsided, said Kari Sylvis, who works in the finance department.
The city developed a completely new model for how it hires and pays city workers, which was unveiled in August. Sylvis said she’s been looking for a new job since then.
The new system is aimed at making the city’s hiring processes significantly less subjective, said Leonard Martin, city manager.
“It created tons of internal inequities,” he said.
The city’s pay scale is divided into four sections: employees who fall below the minimum average market range, those who are in the minimum-to-average market range, those who are in the average-to-maximum range and those who are above maximum.
On Oct. 19, employees below the average market value will be assigned to an appropriate pay scale and may see a raise.
“Our goal is to get people to this mid-point as quickly as we can afford to do,” said Erin Rinehart, director of workforce services.
Those above the average, or “mid-point” market value, will not see a salary decrease, but will be reevaluated for merit-based raises in January.
The confusion and concern around the entire process has made some employees skeptical, Sylvis said.
“Pay is an emotionally charged issue,” said Lisa Dicke, associate professor of public administration at the University of North Texas. “People are judged, and they have their own self worth. Anytime you’re looking at a pay structure, it’s really important to people.”
In the past, Carrollton used a “broadbanding” system, which classified jobs separately and created a “confusing” web of about 250 job titles for 500 workers, Martin said.
The new system simplifies how jobs are classified in the city. There are now 126 job titles for its 500 workers, and there are set salaries for each.
Within each “grade,” or job classification, there are six structured pay increases or “steps” that bring employees’ salaries to a specific level. The new plan attempts to streamline the salaries of city workers who do similar jobs, Martin said.
In October, 49 percent of employees will be placed in their appropriate “step,” which will bring their salaries closer to the average market salary. Each jump will be a 3.6 percent salary increase for employees below market value.
Once employees hit the average, raises will decrease to 1.8 to 2.6 percent each year. Those will only be awarded — beginning in January — if employees prove through “performance” that they deserve them.
One exception is the 28 people above the city’s designated maximum salary standard. Those employees account for 6 percent of the city staff and will not receive a raise unless the job market shifts. The city plans to adjust salaries to the market approximately every three years.
Sylvis, who works part-time and makes about $25,000 a year, said she will receive a 2.25 percent increase in January if she meets the required performance standards. She has worked for the city a little more than two years. She’d like to see a raise that at least accounts for the increases in the cost of living — which she suggests is about a 3 percent increase each year.
“If you’re telling someone they can no longer get raises, yet everything continues to go up in price, I think that’s wrong,” Sylvis said. “I can’t tell my mortgage company that I didn’t get a raise. I still have to pay the mortgage.”
The city is changing their strategy on how workers do their jobs. Rinehart said that it is unreasonable to expect most employees to remain with the city for 30 years or more. Thus, the city is now hoping to retain most employees for at least five or six years.
One effect of that, said UNT professor Abraham Benavides, is that there could be a loss of loyalty among city workers.
“There’s no incentive to stay 20 years,” Benavides said. “There’s going to be a higher turnover.”
But Martin said that some turnover is healthy, and that all organizations deal with employees leaving. The city’s goal is to develop people and train them to do their job well, he said.
“We need to be using taxpayers’ money wisely,” he said. “You need to pay what it takes. You can’t hire just rocket scientists, because who’s going to sweep the launch pad off?”
With that in mind, the new philosophy will also aim to hire more entry-level employees.
“Before, we’d stack up resumes. (We thought) the person with the best resume would do the best job. We would pay whatever it takes,” Martin said.
He said the city should not hire people who are over-qualified for positions, citing examples of people with master’s degrees in entry-level positions.
The result in hiring more entry-level workers will be a “negligible” amount of money saved in the $42 million budget for payroll, Martin said.
Benavides said he is concerned that if Carrollton focuses on hiring people at entry-level pay scales, the city may end up training employees who will promptly leave and get a more lucrative career with another area city.
“The city needs to be careful, because it doesn’t want to train everybody else’s employees,” he said.
In order to target some problem areas in the old hiring system, the city organized a compensation committee made up of city employees who did not manage a large group of employees, Martin said. The changes to the old system have been discussed for more than nine months, Rinehart said.
“I think it’s neat that they tried to get people throughout the organization,” Dicke said. “They’re the ones continuing to maintain integrity.”
When employees received their letters about salaries, Martin said that some employees, as he expected, were upset.
“Ten to 12 will be beside themselves,” he said. “Some will calm down relatively quickly. Some, even if they’ve been here for 20 years, will still say they’re leaving tomorrow.
“Some may leave, but that is their choice,” Martin said.
The potential pay increases for each job description are public record and are available for review. The chart shows 29 job groupings, the titles associated with each grouping and the seven potential salaries that each job description can have, based on performance. A copy of the pay plan is available at https://www.cityofcarrollton.com/government/Workforce%20Services/pay%20plans/Pay%20Structure%209-12-07.pdf.
Contact Community Editor Sarah Blaskovich at 972-628-4074 or SBlaskovich@acnpapers.com.
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