5.2. ERMUSR 08-13-2013 - Laserfiche WebLink

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The Wage and Benefits Committee met on July 15 to discuss the issue. Staff reviewed the existing pay plan as shown in Table 1. It was determined that the pay plan point for the Lineworker position, as well as a few others, did not take into consideration the required 4 year apprentice program. An analysis of the pay plan system found a few other position adjustments. These positions and their corresponding point adjustments are shown on Table 2. The Committee discussed the pros and cons of a pay plan structure that has a static relationship between pay grades and determined that market can be different for different positions. A pay plan structure with additional flexibility would allow for specific market corrections that may prevent one position from becoming out of line with our competitive employers. After review, the Committee found a pay plan with multiple groups an improved option to provide needed flexibility and fairness for the different positions. For ERMU with our size and type of positions, the Committee felt that the best fit was a pay plan with four groups: Office Employees, Field Employees, Lineworkers, and Management. These proposed groups with the corrected position points are shown in Tables 3 — 6. For reference, staff surveyed 7 metro utilities historically used for determining ERMU lineworker pay. The top was $40.66/hour and the low was $35.99/hour. ERMU is currently at $36.87/hour. The metro average is $38.52/hour. This data is shown on Table 7. With the correction in points to recognize the required apprentice program education, the Lineworker position would move up one pay grade in our current pay plan. The increase of pay grade is within cents of the current metro average. With the adjustment to points for education and the proposed four group pay plan there are four positions which would have an affected pay increase: Electric Superintendent, Foreperson, Lead Lineworker, and Lineworker. These changes are indicated on Table 8. Almost all of the 7 metro utilities used in the benchmarking are unionized, so it is easy to determine what their projected COLA would be. For reference, it is estimated to be a 2.55% COLA for 2014 and less than 3% for 2015 and 2016, well within line of the consumer price index. The financial impact to adopt the proposed pay plan revision would result in an approximate $20,000 additional expense for the remainder of 2013 if retroactive to August 1. These numbers are shown in Table 9. The adoption of the pay plan as proposed does not throw the current labor expense or employment ratios out of balance for the company. As indicated in Charts 1 —4, the implementation of the pay plan does not significantly alter the ration of labor dollars. In fact it is such a small part of the total company labor expense that it doesn't significantly change the proposed group's percent of labor dollars. ACTION REQUESTED: The Wage and Benefits Committee recommends that the Commission adopt, retroactive to August 1, 2013, the pay plan structure as proposed with the four separate groups for: Office Employees, Field Employees, Lineworkers, and Management. PIMEAEI AI Page 2 of 3 JNATURE Reliable Public POWERED Power Provider T o S E R V P