6. SR 04-25-1995 - Laserfiche WebLink

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of Item 6. River MEMORANDUM TO: Mayor & City Council FROM: Pat Klaers, City Administrator DATE: April 25, 1995 ~~ SUBJECT: Comparable Worth Attached for your review is a memo from the Comparable Worth Committee. This memo offers some comments and some concerns from the committee on the pay plan that was discussed by the City Council on 4/10/95. I concur with the comments and recommendations from the committee. I believe that a 24 year pay plan simply takes too long for an employee to reach the top. The pay plan offered for discussion by the Committee was believed to be consistent with the desires of the City Council to pay appropriate wages for the top management employees and for the city to attract and retain good, • quality workers. The proposed pay plan was modeled after the Sherburne County pay plan. • The proposed pay plan offers more than five steps so that employees can receive more than just a COLA after five years of employment. This was believed to be consistent with City Council goals. The 10 step plan was necessary to start employees at entry level market rates, pay employees appropriately when they are at the top of the range, and still be in compliance with State law. If the proposed 10/12 step pay plan remains competitive to similar communities, and if the City Council goals remain the same for the next few years, I don't believe that we would see any major changes in the city pay plan for a number of years. However, any Comparable Worth plan needs at least annual updates and adjustment and, in a growing City like Elk River, more than annual adjustments may be needed. A point that should not be forgotten is that the City Council does not have to change its existing pay plan. I believe that we can meet the state law requirements by simply placing our employees into the existing pay plan based on their point rankings. (If we want to pay closer to the metro average for our sized community, we could add 2 steps and have a 7 step plan.) The council should note that ever since our pay plan was adopted, we always had 13065 Orono Parkway • P.O. Box 490 • Elk River, MN 55330 • (612) 441-7420 • Fax: (612) 441-7425