TO: HONORABLE MAYOR AND FROM: Mayor Matt Mahan
CITY COUNCIL Councilmember Dev Davis
Councilmember Pam Foley
SUBJECT: SEE BELOW DATE: September 22, 2023
Approved Date 09/22/2023
SUBJECT: Amendment to the City’s Pay Plan for the Director of Retirement Services and Chief Executive Officer, Assistant Director and Chief Investment Officer, Senior Investment Officer, and Investment Officer Classifications
RECOMMENDATION
1. Defer item for 90 days to allow for the following analysis to be brought forward at the same time:
A. Direct City staff to ensure that the 6% General Wage Increase these classifications received for Fiscal Year 2023-2024, was properly accounted for in the recommendation to increase the range of these classifications, prior to the implementation of any wage increase. In addition, ensure that the 5% non-pensionable pay was also included in the analysis.
B. Direct City staff to bring forward an option to bring these classifications to market average consistent with other special salary adjustments.
C. Direct City staff to conduct analysis of these increases in comparison to the salaries of other similar key City positions, including Council Appointees.
D. Direct the City Attorney to bring forward in closed session options related to other benefit and retirement issues that affect retention of management employees.
BACKGROUND
We appreciate the work of the Police & Fire Retirement Board and Federated Retirement Board to ensure that the staff in the Office of Retirement Services are properly and competitively compensated.
CITY COUNCIL AGENDA: 09/26/2023
ITEM: 3.6
Recently, the City Council approved a 6% total general wage increase for 2023. This general wage increase should be accounted for when evaluating the compensation range. It is unclear if the 6% was accounted for in the salary survey. In addition, these classifications receive a 5% non-pensionable pay which should also be included in any salary analysis and staff should verify that both of these were accounted for in the analysis.
In addition, when special salary adjustments are made for classifications with recruitment and retention issues, the City typically adjusts the salary ranges to the market average. The recommendation to go to 75% of market is inconsistent with how this is handled for the rest of the organization and therefore, we request that when this is brought back it includes an option to set the salary ranges at market average.
The Office of Retirement Services is one office/department of many throughout the City. While a salary adjustment is potentially necessary for employees of the Office of Retirement Services, we can’t approve this without the context of understanding these salary ranges as compared to similarly situated type positions throughout the organization. Consideration should be given to risk to the organization, complexity of the work and staff supervised. As this is a Council Appointee office, this should include analysis regarding other Council Appointees.
In addition, there may be other benefit and retirement issues affecting the recruitment and retention of our management employees and the City Attorney is directed to bring forward options to address these in closed session as options would be subject to the meet and confer process.
While the authors of this memorandum support reasonable salary range increases to classifications within the Office of Retirement Services based on peer salary ranges, such compensation changes should be evaluated within the context of the entire City organization and should be handled consistently with how they are handled for other City employees.