CC_Minutes_2023_0417 - Laserfiche WebLink

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Regular City Council Meeting Monday,April 17,2023 Page 8 Councilmember Etten asked how much decision making the Council will have in this or will the decisions be made by staff regarding where positions should be in the pay range. He also asked if the Council was being asked to decide on the small range where the City wants to target for the overall picture and most of the rest of this is good to know about but the Council will not be making those decisions. Mayor Roe asked what the timeframe would be that the council is supposed to take into account . Ms. Olson stated when the Council thinks about the big/small picture of what staff is looking for is competitiveness, position in the market, that type of thing. She noted the City's compensation system is one structure so when it is said that the City wants to be one hundred percent of the average, that is where the consultants come in and show the Council and staff what it will look like for those positions. Ms. Davis explained the City has been doing a good job maintaining its existing study and structure for a long time but the market is more volatile than it has been in a while. Everyone is talking about recession and how can the City adjust more frequently than the City has historically, and she thought that is an important thing to consider. She noted Abdo is having a lot of cities say they are doing the study today and are going to monitor COLA's in their comparable group but are going to anticipate that they are going to need a full market study, not a full compensation study but just a more detailed survey, more frequently as the City moves forward so that we can really guide,based on the Council's philosophy about where the City wants to be in the market. Mayor Roe asked if the better policy guidance is to say the City wants to be plus or minus something around average as an organization. He wanted to make sure what the Council does is meaningful. Mr. Trudgeon thought the Council needed to deal with what was before them now and then have more frequent conversations about the market. He noted that when the City did the last wage adjustment in 2013, the City was at about 95.4 percent and the study called for a 4.6 percent increase. In the end, a 3.26 percent was approved which got them a little past 98 percent at that time, ten years ago. He would suspect the City is lower than that now. He did not know,but the study will tell them the results when it comes back to the Council. He thought the Council needed to focus on the here and now and what needed to be done today, relatively speaking, and adjust to get to a spot where the City is competitive and not at a disadvantage. He did not know what that number was but if the Council wanted it to be average, that would be one hundred percent and then in the future the Council would have to look at what the market is doing. He did think the City had something that needed to be solved today,relatively speaking, so the City is at least competitive in today's world, not disregarding the future, but he thought the City had a lot of catch up to do.