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Elk River .. <br />Municipal Utilities <br />UTILITIES COMMISSION MEETING <br />TO: FROM: <br />ERMU Commission ERMU Wage & Benefits Committee <br />MEETING DATE: AGENDA ITEM NUMBER: <br />August 13, 2019 5.4 <br />SUBJECT: <br />Wage & Benefits Committee Update <br />ACTION REQUESTED: <br />Approve all action items as outlined to be effective August 13, 2019. <br />BACKGROUND: <br />At the November 2018 commission meeting, the commission directed the Wage & Benefit <br />Committee (W&BC) to benchmark the management pay group of the ERMU pay plan. The <br />intention of the initiative was to address salary compression issues with the Electric <br />Superintendent and the Assistant Electric Superintendent, and to review data to determine if <br />other inequities existed within the manager pay group. In addition to the Electric <br />Superintendent and the Assistant Electric Superintendent, this group includes eight other <br />management positions. <br />In March 2019, the utilities entered into an agreement with Current Compass, a consulting firm <br />from the Twin Cities area, to perform the benchmarking. Mark Fritsch of Current Compass <br />presented the report to the commission at the July commission meeting. The commission did <br />not agree with the benchmarking philosophy used. The commission expressed consensus that <br />the identified inequities should be addressed, but it was noted that they believed that the <br />benchmarking was not "apples to apples" and that the differentials would be at a smaller <br />magnitude. The commission considered the information in the report and directed the <br />committee to develop a plan to address pay inequities in the identified manager positions. <br />Additionally, the commission directed the committee to develop a plan to address organization <br />reporting structure consistent with the discussion and consistent with some of the <br />recommendations in the report. <br />DISCUSSION: <br />The commission gave the committee direction to further analyze the inequities for the <br />following positions: General Manager, Electric Superintendent, Technical Services <br />Superintendent, Finance & Office Manager, and the Assistant Electric Superintendent. The <br />Current Compass report noted that the Technical Services Superintendent position was being <br />benchmarked against positions requiring a four-year engineering degree. The position at ERMU <br />does not require the engineering degree. The committee determined that the inequity in the <br />Page 1 of 4 <br />103 <br />