[0:14] um
[0:28] yes
[1:26] okay we will bring to order the special
meeting of the city council of nisswa
[1:31] for thursday april 15th
thank you all for coming the reason for
[1:36] the meeting tonight
is the 2021 compensation study the
[1:40] results
[Music]
[1:42] that we received from ann i'm not going
to attempt the last name
[1:47] from baker tilly first
item memo from jenny that she sent out
[1:53] do you want to go over that jenny or
what
[1:56] no good evening um city council i think
if you want to
[2:00] start off with ann and her presentation
that works
[2:03] so we will turn it over to ann
and i will put her powerpoint up here
[2:13] and we've got it up on the screen and if
you just want to go through the slides i
[2:17] will
[Music]
[2:19] i will forward them when you're which
one when you're ready
[2:24] okay sounds good um good evening uh
mayor members of the city council um
[2:29] thanks for uh inviting me to this
presentation this evening
[2:33] to talk about the compensation study
that
[2:36] speaker tilly has conducted for the city
of nisswa
[2:41] most of the things in this presentation
are also in the report
[2:45] that has been shared with you as well
so this will be a pretty brief
[2:50] presentation um
at any time uh feel free to ask any
[2:54] questions that you might have about
any of of the components for this so
[2:59] jenny if you want to flip ahead to the
objectives slide yep
[3:05] okay great so the objectives that were
identified by the city for doing this
[3:11] study
we did a comprehensive study for the
[3:14] city back in 2016
and that was a full scope study where we
[3:20] reviewed job descriptions we developed a
new
[3:24] job evaluation system to review internal
equity
[3:28] of all positions within the city we
conducted a very comprehensive
[3:33] wage and benefit survey at that time
to determine where the city was relative
[3:39] to market
and then used that internal
[3:43] relationships and the market data and
developed
[3:46] new compensation plans for for the city
at that time
[3:50] and then also developed implementation
options so what
[3:53] impact the study recommendations would
have
[3:57] on individual employees so it's been a
period of time since that last study was
[4:02] conducted
uh industry standards uh call for
[4:07] comprehensive studies about every five
to seven years
[4:11] so you're right at that five year mark
and over the last several years the
[4:15] market has been rapidly changing
so it really is a good time to
[4:21] you know take a look at where your
salaries were so
[4:24] what the city identified was doing a
review and a evaluation of the
[4:29] the current classification and
compensation system
[4:32] and a goal of that was to determine what
is the current relationship
[4:37] of the city's wage ranges to the market
you know over the last several years the
[4:43] the city has been
updating your compensation structure
[4:47] you have been making adjustments for
employee wages within that structure
[4:52] but where you know were they keeping up
with your market comparables that were
[4:57] identified in the last study
and then looking at evaluating internal
[5:02] rankings of positions
as necessary so if we were to identify
[5:07] any positions that needed review
as far as any changes that had occurred
[5:14] since the last time the position was
looked at
[5:17] whether there were any red flags as to
where the position lined up relative to
[5:21] market
did we need to look at review and we
[5:24] really you know only had a couple of
positions that really have
[5:28] undergone changes um and some underwent
changes while we were going through the
[5:32] process of the study
and those changes are reflected in
[5:38] an updated evaluation and then
looking at you know looking at updating
[5:45] the the compensation system and strategy
for the city
[5:48] we have not completed that process yet
because we're
[5:52] we want to get some direction and some
thoughts from
[5:55] the city council as to how you would
like to use the information we're
[6:00] bringing to you this evening
for making any adjustments to the
[6:04] compensation program
for the city and then based on that
[6:09] feedback
if there are changes that are made to
[6:12] that compensation system
we will then also develop those
[6:16] implementation
options and strategies for making any of
[6:21] those changes
so next slide please jenny
[6:28] so the meth the methodology that we used
for this study
[6:33] i had some conversations with
your with your city administrator to
[6:38] talk about some of the issues and
concerns
[6:41] that the city had for moving forward
with this study
[6:46] we had discussions about the the survey
group
[6:49] and did we should we keep the same group
of organizations that was included in
[6:54] the last study or did we look at making
any changes
[6:57] um so just some of that background
information as we forged ahead
[7:02] with collecting information we then
obtained market salary information which
[7:08] we're
bringing to you for review this evening
[7:12] and then of course the next steps then
would be updating the compensation plan
[7:18] if necessary based on the feedback from
the members of the city council
[7:23] reviewing that assignment of positions
within that compensation plan so do
[7:29] any of those positions need to move from
where they are currently assigned
[7:34] based on changes in positions based on
current market conditions for those
[7:39] positions
and then again that development of
[7:42] implementation options if necessary
[7:47] next slide please jenny okay
so um on this next slide and these are
[7:53] also included in the
the study summary that you have been
[7:57] provided and
uh with conversations with with jenny we
[8:02] we determined
that we would use the same cities that
[8:06] were used during the last study
because that was something that had been
[8:10] accepted by the city council
at that time as organizations that were
[8:15] deemed comparable to the city of nisswa
and we when we look at organizations
[8:21] that are
comparable we use several different
[8:23] factors
to make those determinations and those
[8:28] factors
include size of the organization
[8:33] and not just population but service area
it looks at geographic locations so who
[8:40] are your neighbors
it looks at organizational structure so
[8:44] who's providing the same level and types
of services that you are
[8:49] we look at demographic information you
know such as you know the city of nisswa
[8:54] you know in the summer you get a large
influx
[8:58] of tourists that come through uh your
city
[9:01] um and so that makes you a little bit
unique in comparison to other cities
[9:06] uh and then also competition for
employees so there were a lot of
[9:10] different factors that that went into
selection of these
[9:14] organizations uh we did uh we were able
to obtain
[9:18] information from the majority of
of these cities which is great but when
[9:24] we
look at the market survey data you'll
[9:27] see that
we don't have that large number of
[9:30] responses for every position because not
every position will be a direct
[9:35] match in the other organizations
plus you have liquor operations
[9:42] and a bar restaurant and that's
something that is fairly unique that we
[9:47] don't find in a lot of other
organizations so they will have fewer
[9:51] responses for those types of positions
[9:56] next slide please jenny
[10:00] all right in our salary survey and
there's
[10:04] summary of this information
in the the study summary that that i've
[10:10] provided you
and then i know in your packet city
[10:14] administrator has
provided some variations of the
[10:18] comparisons
based on the different groups of
[10:21] positions that you have within the city
but in that salary survey we included 24
[10:27] positions
so we started out with with all
[10:30] positions to see what kind of
information we could collect on those
[10:34] positions
in the final analysis we used 16
[10:40] we eliminated some of those from the
analysis just because of
[10:44] lack of responses so for some of those
positions we didn't get any
[10:49] information or one or two responses
and we made a determination that
[10:54] anything with less than seven responses
we weren't going to use because it
[10:58] wasn't enough
information to draw conclusions about
[11:02] the market rate
for that position so when we looked at
[11:07] at the wages what we compared is salary
ranges
[11:11] so we looked at your starting pay your
mid pay
[11:14] and the top pay that was available for
each position
[11:19] and when we looked at those on average
your salary ranges are
[11:24] below market so when we included those
16 positions
[11:28] your starting salaries are just over 6
below market and your midpoint and
[11:34] maximum salaries are just under
7 below market and that's on average you
[11:40] do have some positions that
are more consistent and comparable to
[11:45] market
and others that are further away from
[11:48] market
and then we did a look at um you know
[11:52] comparing
those wages excluding the police officer
[11:58] and the sergeant position
because those are two positions that are
[12:03] fairly significantly below market
averages so we wanted to see
[12:07] you know what impact that had on the
overall picture of the
[12:11] of the rest of the positions and so you
know these are a little bit closer to
[12:16] the market
so excluding those two positions your
[12:19] minimum salaries are a little under five
percent below market
[12:24] midpoint salaries just under six and
your maximum salaries are six percent
[12:29] below average and again that complete
data is in your pack and it's also
[12:35] uh in appendix one of the summary report
[12:42] so next slide please
okay and then this is just a refresher
[12:49] as a part of the compensation plan
we use job evaluation to determine
[12:56] along with market as to where positions
fit within
[13:00] the compensation structure that you
currently have in existence
[13:04] and any modifications to that that we
may move forward with
[13:09] a job evaluation just as a refresher or
for those of you who weren't on the city
[13:13] council when we did the last study
job evaluation is a requirement
[13:19] of the state of minnesota under their
local government pay equity act
[13:24] but is also a very common compensation
practice
[13:28] in both public and private sector
industries
[13:31] worldwide and it's the tool that
organizations use
[13:35] to make sure that positions are lined up
appropriately
[13:40] uh with other positions within the
organization
[13:43] so that you have equitable compensation
amongst positions that have
[13:48] similar levels of job responsibilities
similar levels of job requirements
[13:54] so what we used was the safe job
evaluation system
[13:58] which is a very comprehensive job
evaluation system
[14:02] there are nine job factors that go into
that evaluation system
[14:06] which gives us the ability to compare
seemingly very different
[14:10] jobs to one another within the
organization so it allows us to evaluate
[14:16] you know a liquor store clerk to a
bartender to a police officer
[14:21] to somebody in planning to your city
administrator
[14:24] so it gives us that ability and so it's
a very comprehensive system
[14:29] and i can go into more detail of that if
you you would like
[14:36] when we go over the report
next slide so pay philosophy and we
[14:44] discussed this back in the 2016
study of pay philosophy for the city of
[14:49] nisswa
and what the goal was was to provide
[14:54] fair and equitable compensation to all
positions and employees within the city
[15:01] across all of the different service
areas which the city provides
[15:06] balancing the external market with
internal equity
[15:09] so making sure that we were establishing
a competitive
[15:14] compensation program but also making
sure that positions were consistent with
[15:18] one another within the organization
having a competitive pay structure but
[15:24] also taking into consideration what the
city has
[15:27] available for financial resources not
only
[15:30] for implementing a system but also
for sustaining and maintaining that
[15:36] system moving forward
and then making sure it's understandable
[15:40] for all stakeholders
employees supervisors administrators
[15:45] the elected officials and also uh the
citizens of
[15:49] of the city as well
[15:53] next slide please okay so as far as
recommendations um we don't have
[16:00] specific recommendations for
for the council tonight we want to get
[16:04] some direction and
feel for how the city council would like
[16:08] to move forward with this information
but what we would recommend is
[16:12] considering adjustments
to your overall pay plan so it is more
[16:17] competitive
and consistent with the organizations
[16:21] that have been selected by the city
as your market comparison group
[16:27] based on the factors that i discussed a
little bit earlier
[16:30] and then also consider maybe some
additional adjustments
[16:35] or splitting out the police officer and
police sergeant positions
[16:40] based on the the large difference that
there is between their current salary
[16:45] ranges
and the market data and you'll see that
[16:48] in in the survey summary that we have
provided to you
[16:56] so next slide
and then system administration and the
[17:01] city has been doing this but just to
kind of reiterate
[17:04] um moving forward based on
the recommendations and the decisions
[17:11] that the city
council makes for moving forward just
[17:15] making sure that there's ongoing
support for administration of the system
[17:20] moving forward to assist you in
maintaining that relationship to market
[17:26] assist you in maintaining internal
equity for all positions
[17:31] so that looks at base adjustments
adjusting pay ranges adjusting the wages
[17:36] for individual employees
and then we always throw in you know
[17:42] making sure that there's a
performance component for employee
[17:46] movement within the range so
moving from step to step based on
[17:50] satisfactory performance
[17:55] and then next slide
so looking at the goal
[18:02] of this project and and of the city's
compensation
[18:06] program that was established back in
2016
[18:10] of providing fair and equitable
compensation to employees
[18:14] and it is a very competitive these days
and changing labor market
[18:20] especially in certain areas
public safety technical positions
[18:27] you know we're finding basically across
the board
[18:30] in in public sector organizations it's
getting more and more difficult to
[18:35] recruit employees
into those types of positions there's
[18:39] fewer qualified workers going into some
of those areas that we find in local
[18:43] government
and again internal equity and market
[18:48] competitiveness
being fiscally responsible with public
[18:52] resources because we all know that it's
the taxpayers that provide the funding
[18:57] to pay
city salaries for the services that they
[19:00] are provided by
the city of nisswa and then consistent
[19:05] administration of pay policies and
procedures
[19:08] across all city departments
[19:14] and at that we can it'll open it up for
questions or jump into the report
[19:18] and look at some of the specific survey
information
[19:23] however you would like to proceed
[19:29] does anyone have a question for anne at
this time
[19:32] yeah don go ahead
and just a general question about
[19:39] five years ago we we did a very thorough
study
[19:43] as you have noted and we made
corrections at that point of
[19:47] in the neighborhood of about fifty
thousand dollars
[19:50] in round numbers since that time we've
had people
[19:55] go through different steps we've had
cost of living increases and etc
[20:02] over the last five years
now we do the study that's just come out
[20:08] and we find instead of 50 000 behind
we're
[20:12] over a hundred thousand behind
what are we doing wrong
[20:19] well it's not that you're doing anything
wrong it's just that the market has been
[20:23] changing
that rapidly over the last few years
[20:27] uh just because of the difficulty of
being able to hire and retain
[20:34] employees especially in certain types of
positions
[20:38] that it's just kind of that snowball
effect of
[20:42] you know this organization has trouble
so they
[20:45] increase their wages and then the
neighbor
[20:49] then says well you're stealing my
employees so now i need to
[20:53] increase my wage schedule and it just it
filters kind of
[20:57] through the area and it's not just you
that you know there's all sorts of
[21:02] organizations that have
they've adopted pay plans they have been
[21:06] maintaining those pay plans
and they're still finding that that
[21:11] they're falling behind market they're
having difficulty recruiting
[21:15] qualified employees in positions and
it's
[21:18] you know it's difficulty recruiting it's
the current market
[21:22] and it is the lack of available workers
in a lot of areas in public sector
[21:31] and does it include do you um include
like insurance and
[21:36] that sort of compensation in the study
we did we did not do a total
[21:41] compensation review
[21:46] and do most of the cities do the
supervisors are they salaried or hourly
[21:52] um i would have to go back to the
specific data
[21:56] but most supervisors
um if they're true supervisors
[22:02] depart department heads most of those
are
[22:06] salaried employees okay so we're
comparing against salaried employees
[22:12] correct okay thank you for the for the
most for the most part
[22:16] and and it can it can vary there are
some organizations that are
[22:20] smaller in size that that even though
those employees
[22:25] qualify as being salaried
they will still provide them overtime
[22:31] just to ensure that the employees that
they supervise
[22:35] are not making more than the supervisors
are
[22:41] and if i can i'm just going to piggyback
off don's question because he stole
[22:45] mine but this might be part
this might be for the next part of the
[22:51] study if so just
let me know but we adjusted like don
[22:55] said for cost of living every year
um and and we're farther behind we
[23:02] we wanted to stay in the middle of this
of the steps or not the steps but the
[23:08] pay ranges we wanted to we we shot for
staying in the middle that's what we
[23:12] took on the last time we had a low
option a middle option and a high option
[23:16] we took the middle option
how do we keep track of the market then
[23:21] on the is it something we have to do
yearly then because or do you just have
[23:26] to
go cost of living plus
[23:30] a little more or well
there are a lot of organizations that
[23:36] that
do a check-in annually and
[23:40] what that check-in usually entails is
you've got you've established your
[23:46] market group and so what it entails is
reaching out to those
[23:50] and just saying okay for 2022
what adjustments are you making to your
[23:57] pay scale
and what adjustments are you making to
[24:00] individual employees
then you can look at what those
[24:05] organizations are doing and you can say
well we were planning on
[24:09] two percent but it looks like our survey
group is
[24:12] is going two and a half percent
then you get that idea of okay
[24:19] we should be doing two and a half
percent is it within our financial
[24:22] resources to do the two and a half
percent
[24:25] uh if not how close can we get to that
so you don't
[24:29] keep falling um behind market
so that's a way to kind of keep in touch
[24:36] with with what
is going on so you're not going you know
[24:40] way above
and you're not lagging behind
[24:47] yeah um i was wondering about the the
data
[24:50] um when you ask for salary
are we asking where do you get that data
[24:58] from are you asking the people
directly or is there like a general
[25:04] information it's a common it's a
combination of factors of getting it
[25:08] um in general and also using
information from the the league of
[25:14] minnesota city survey
um so some of the organizations are very
[25:21] good about keeping that data up to date
some of them don't respond to it at all
[25:28] so we you know made contacts for pay
plans from other organizations
[25:33] we used league data when it was
available so we aren't pestering
[25:37] organizations
if we don't need to so it's a variety of
[25:41] factors with which we get
the information so when
[25:47] you say a city administrator for example
are the job descriptions from one city
[25:53] administrator to another city
administrator the same or different or
[25:57] are they unified basically they're
fairly consistent
[26:01] you know there's going to be a little
bit of difference because
[26:04] every community is unique but
most city administrator positions are
[26:10] going to be fairly consistent
is that because of the league of
[26:14] minnesota cities they helped to define
what a city administrator is or is that
[26:20] everything the the league doesn't but
there is
[26:24] you know legislation that talks about
you know if you're this type of city
[26:29] you know you have these responsibilities
and if you're this type of city you have
[26:32] these
um but you know the league does provide
[26:36] assistance
and they do show you know kind of what
[26:39] is a summary of a
of a city administrator for example
[26:46] and i noticed in one other thing in the
survey results that you gave
[26:50] you mention in there for comparison
purposes that industry standards say
[26:54] that a relationship to the market is
within
[26:57] plus or minus five percent if it's
within that range then it's
[27:01] basically comparable to the market it's
it's industry standards say plus or
[27:07] minus five percent
is considered um comparable to the
[27:11] market
uh unless uh an organization deems
[27:15] a different type of relationship for
example i've worked for communities
[27:21] before where
based on what their market group is
[27:26] for example a small
city on the fringe of the twin cities
[27:33] metro area
which might be next door to a lakeville
[27:38] or an eagan or those types of things
their market is a little bit different
[27:44] just because
of where that is so they may say
[27:48] that because this is our market area
uh we're going to be at 90 percent of
[27:55] market because obviously we can't pay
what a lakeville or an eagan is
[28:02] compensating their
their employees i've had other
[28:06] organizations
um and this is a this is a
[28:12] metro community that because their
philosophy
[28:17] is we want to be able to hire and retain
the best of the best that their pay
[28:23] philosophy
is to be at the 75th percentile of the
[28:27] market so they want to be significantly
above so the five percent is a guideline
[28:34] for your comparison most
organizations that we do work for want
[28:40] to be
pretty close to average if
[28:45] their market group is a group that's
fairly consistent with
[28:48] their community
[28:53] thank you
[29:01] and you mentioned i i believe that
you're just comparing salaries
[29:05] in this study we did in this study we
just did salaries
[29:10] okay we did a very comprehensive
we did a very comprehensive review of
[29:16] fringe benefits when we did
the last study so we just looked at
[29:22] doing
just comparing the wages because we did
[29:25] that comprehensive review
um you know within the last five years
[29:31] and benefits
are not they don't change greatly
[29:35] from year to year so that was going to
be my
[29:40] point that you're just with salary it
doesn't include benefits
[29:44] which can be another what 20 25
of the salary it can be but
[29:51] in in most public sector organizations
benefits when we do that
[29:58] in-depth review there's not a great
discrepancy between
[30:03] the benefits as a whole
between communities you might find you
[30:09] know this organization
gives a little bit more vacation
[30:14] um this one gives a different holiday
this one might pick up a little bit
[30:20] bigger percentage of insurance
however insurance has gotten extremely
[30:26] difficult to compare
just because there are so many different
[30:30] plans and
options that are out there
[30:35] but there's not a huge difference in
public sector
[30:40] across different cities for benefits
that are offered
[30:52] one question i had and then we i'll let
you get on with what you're doing
[30:56] um when you mentioned the thing the one
part about
[31:00] in your presentation about um
performance and i noticed on the reading
[31:07] this there was some mentions about
performance at different places
[31:11] mainly uh it would have been in the
compensation philosophy portion of your
[31:16] um does that pay for performance
or is that different than performance
[31:24] that is different than performance pay
for performance is usually
[31:28] a a separate type of payment that is
either
[31:32] outside of the the regular pay plan
or it's an organization that
[31:40] designs an open range system
rather than a step system so
[31:46] employees can get different types of
increases based on their level of
[31:52] performance
in performance in this aspect
[31:57] is really looking at okay
for employees to move through the pay
[32:03] range
from step to step they should be
[32:07] performing at a satisfactory
increase a satisfactory level to receive
[32:14] a step increase within the organization
[32:20] thank you you're welcome
[32:32] i have no more questions does anyone
else have a question
[32:35] i'm just wondering uh we've had some
employees
[32:39] over the past several years leave
i just wonder how many of those that did
[32:44] leave was it because of
a better salary someplace else or other
[32:49] reasons
practically how many have we lost
[32:53] because of salary
any idea that's hard to say
[33:01] i also wonder if we've ever done
exit interviews of course the employee
[33:07] has to agree to want to do an exit
interview
[33:09] but you know we started doing that over
the past
[33:12] couple years okay of the ones that have
exited has it been paid
[33:18] not off the top of my head but that's i
haven't i mean i'd have to go back and
[33:22] look
i think it's just opera i mean it's
[33:24] opportunity whatever they might have had
you know which is
[33:27] obviously then pay is a part of that
correct but it's not just
[33:31] the only you know it's the professional
growth excuse me professional growth
[33:36] opportunity that kind of thing and i
know we've lost one employee because of
[33:40] personal stuff he just worked better for
him to be elsewhere
[33:44] so that's fine i mean you can't do
anything with that
[33:51] did you want ant it's not it's not
always about it's not always about
[33:55] it's not always about the level of pay
um
[33:58] you know typically when you're looking
at your pay plan it's something that you
[34:02] want to design that gives you
a starting wage that allows you to
[34:06] recruit employees as they have vacancies
and then a top pay that is you know
[34:12] within competitive within your area but
there's all sorts of reasons that
[34:16] employees leave
[34:25] um i i'm sure ann could um you know walk
us through any of the spreadsheets if
[34:29] you have specific questions it seems
like the council has a general feel for
[34:35] the information that was provided i'll
just note that
[34:39] i provided you some other options as far
as looking at the data from different
[34:43] perspectives
as we have enterprise funds potentially
[34:47] you'd want to look at those separately
from the general fund
[34:51] as she mentioned uh we we pulled out the
the teamsters group
[34:55] to look at that separately so i i
believe there are six
[34:59] options certainly there's other ways to
look at it as well
[35:02] but i provided that just for your
information and kind of
[35:06] seeing things from a few different
perspectives um
[35:09] i also um asked anna question um
that might be helpful as far as um
[35:16] consistency um at the
at the different levels as far as we're
[35:23] consistent
at least in where we've landed with
[35:27] respect to market which
i think in a way is positive whereas you
[35:31] could you could see
potentially where maybe our low salaries
[35:36] are
really out of whack differently than our
[35:39] high salaries and then you have kind of
another
[35:41] layer of issues i'll say where their
starting salaries could you know what if
[35:46] those were 10
above markets but then you get to the
[35:49] high point and we're six percent below
so you'd have to make other adjustments
[35:53] there as well
um so it's it seemed like when i saw
[35:57] that i said well that's a
positive that we're consistent in that
[36:01] way
so that we're not looking at i think
[36:04] structurally
major changes it's just how do we adjust
[36:09] the the number itself does that make
sense
[36:13] hopefully i explained that well enough
and but that just that was something
[36:17] yeah yeah no that's that's that's great
and that you're exactly right
[36:21] it's consistent because sometimes we'll
go into organizations and we do find
[36:27] that you know maybe their starting
salaries are
[36:30] are significantly below and their top
salaries are more competitive and
[36:35] and vice versa but you're just
consistent across your pay
[36:40] plan so rather than you know looking at
restructuring the paid plan
[36:45] you know it really is a matter of do you
want to make any adjustments to be
[36:50] closer to the market and then it's just
an all across the board adjustment you
[36:56] know the only exception
is is and this is we're seeing this
[37:01] all across the country is is the public
safety positions
[37:06] um just because it has gotten
increasingly
[37:10] difficult to find qualified employees to
fill those positions
[37:15] and there are organizations you know
that will
[37:18] steal any good employee that they can
from their next door neighbor
[37:24] just to to fill a vacancy if it's a good
employee
[37:28] so that's not anything that was a
surprise to me
[37:32] as we looked at this because i see it in
every state where i do these studies
[37:38] so what that's essentially saying is is
our play our play our pay plan is
[37:45] working
the way we have it set up it's just
[37:49] adjusting to market essentially
[37:53] correct correct
[37:56] yeah because those when i started
looking at public safety those were the
[38:01] that was the biggest area that jumped
out to me
[38:04] and i don't want to lose
the officers that we have you know
[38:12] they're doing a good job in my opinion
and and i would hate to see them go
[38:17] i'm not saying they would but
but that was the biggest concern for me
[38:23] after looking at everything
[38:31] yeah and and it's not that unusual
to have those public safety positions
[38:38] sometimes pulled out into a separate pay
plan
[38:42] just because their structures are
sometimes different and where they align
[38:46] with market is sometimes different so
it's not that unusual
[38:50] to to do that right but i mean if
if i look at nisswa um
[38:57] you know in the winter time you're
dealing with 2 000 residents
[39:02] but then in the in the uh peak season
you're dealing with large city
[39:08] populations and i you know so
i mean yeah that
[39:13] that was just my big concern at that one
so
[39:16] yeah i mean because you have to exactly
yeah because public safety they you know
[39:22] they have to know how to
react to that 2000 population and then
[39:27] all of a sudden boom here you go with
you know a large city population
[39:33] yeah and that makes nisswa you know
fairly unique
[39:37] you know there are other organizations
there are other cities that are
[39:40] similarly situated
but there's many many of them that don't
[39:45] have to deal with that issue you know
it's pretty consistent year-round as to
[39:49] the issues that they deal with
and it's not just your if not just your
[39:54] public safety you know
you think about what happens in your bar
[39:58] in your liquor store
and and in other areas as well
[40:03] correct cyan if i'm
you know taking what i've read in the
[40:08] memos and things that i've yet we got
from you
[40:11] so let's just i'm just gonna pull one
out
[40:14] and it's nine it's a position that's
nine point seven two percent
[40:18] under there's another one that's um
twenty percent and another
[40:23] 979 for example five percent
plus or minus is considered
[40:31] um okay for lack of a better word
nine five five percent of the of my
[40:37] comparables if i'm within five percent
i'm within the ballpark of where i
[40:43] should be
so let i'm gonna fix this so let's say
[40:47] that
okay i bring them up for i just bring
[40:50] them up to that
five or say four percent within four
[40:53] percent
is that a mistake for on our part to do
[40:57] that to just bring everybody
close to the five percent say what
[41:01] mistake am i making
and what am i setting myself up for
[41:07] are we going to be right back here again
next year type thing
[41:11] you you could be um just because it
brings it just to the five percent
[41:18] and you're going to have some
organizations that are going to say we
[41:21] want to be
at average okay for example i did a
[41:26] i did this similar project
for another city uh last last fall
[41:32] and they were looking at implementing on
the first of the year
[41:37] and they were about the same
about the same relationship that you are
[41:43] to market
and what they did is they adjusted
[41:49] their pay scale by four
percent for a market adjustment and then
[41:54] they
adjusted it another 2.5
[41:58] for a cost of living adjustment so for
2021 they did a
[42:03] 6.5 adjustment in their pay plan to get
them closer to market
[42:10] so that was going to bring them on
average
[42:14] um about
one and a half percent within about one
[42:19] and a half percent of market average
okay and they did that across the board
[42:27] they did they did you know the one thing
in minnesota with pay equity
[42:33] um to to to save for this position i'm
going to adjust it four percent and for
[42:39] this position i'm going to adjust it
six percent and for this position i'm
[42:43] going to adjust it two percent
um then you face the very
[42:49] real probability that you will not
maintain compliance with pay equity and
[42:57] then if you
are out of compliance with pay equity
[43:00] then you need to make
adjustments to get into compliance and
[43:05] if you don't make those adjustments then
you face fines from the state
[43:10] i just done on monday night i just met
with
[43:13] another city's city council
to propose an update to their pay plan
[43:20] we had done
um developed a pay plan for them back in
[43:25] 2017
and the city council chose to
[43:30] not follow it in its entirety and made
adjustments based on
[43:37] you know performance of employees and
based on perceived market for certain
[43:43] positions
uh and they were found out of compliance
[43:48] by the state
and so now they're having to you know
[43:52] make adjustments and
increases to employee wages and
[43:56] revamp the pay plan so that they can
achieve compliance with pay equity
[44:01] so especially for a city of your size
i would strongly recommend that you
[44:09] don't do it position by position
adjustment
[44:14] otherwise we'll be back here again next
time you have to file up the equity
[44:17] report
[44:21] um also i noticed that um the data
the data that we used here you have in
[44:28] here
uh europe um did a market survey update
[44:31] to the winner of 2021. it's actually
2020 right
[44:37] so no 2021
in the winter of 2021
[44:46] yeah we collected the data this winter
yeah we started
[44:49] we started after the new council right
so it was 21
[44:52] january february winner yeah oh january
okay i see so then uh the data that has
[44:59] actually used does that include the
uh cost of the living increase that
[45:05] in our data that we gave yes
[45:10] the cost increases included yep
okay and then
[45:17] and all the data that we got from them
uh
[45:21] from the league the minnesota city
league um
[45:24] was also 221 or with the increase
some of it was 2021 some of it was 2020
[45:31] but we aged that data
okay so we're in compliance as we sit
[45:37] now this is
or not yes
[45:46] guess what we're in compliance i mean
we're in compliance now yes
[45:50] if we you would be in compliance with
pay equity based on your last pay equity
[45:55] report yes
so if if we chose not to do
[46:00] anything and and the market continues
that's where
[46:04] then we'll fall out of compliance and
not maybe
[46:08] uh compliance doesn't
compliance has nothing to do with
[46:13] markets
compliance is just looking at internal
[46:17] equity
the equity okay okay yeah that's looking
[46:20] at internal equity
so so yeah yep no that
[46:26] answers that question it's yeah i
just got confused on two for a second
[46:36] okay
[46:39] jennifer what do you need from us well
what are you looking for
[46:43] does the council have any more questions
first
[46:46] or we don't know yet no do we want to
open it up to employees
[46:50] so we at this point and um we wanted to
open it up to staff that's here
[46:54] to ask questions okay okay so if there's
any staff that has a question please
[47:00] come on up and ask you can ask anne um
directly or any of them you can ask me
[47:06] but
pass it on to jenny and anne anyway
[47:12] so if there's anyone that has a question
they want to ask about the study
[47:15] or what they have or anything at this
point
[47:21] nobody okay okay
[47:27] do you have anything you wanted to go
jenny um i don't have anything
[47:30] additional as far as information i think
now we're
[47:33] at that point of discussion where we
want to try to make a plan for how
[47:38] we will work through making decisions
getting more feedback you know you know
[47:43] any of those things so that's
that's kind of where we're i think we're
[47:47] at
well i mean here's the thing is
[47:52] you know there's
[47:56] hiring employees and training them is
expensive
[47:59] and it takes time okay and that
preferably
[48:04] you want to keep your employees and what
we've been doing the last few years it
[48:08] seems like
is every time somebody we have a good
[48:10] employee that's going to leave
we have to either quickly figure out how
[48:15] we're going to keep that person here
and we're scramble at the last minute
[48:20] thing versus
um you know it's and that may be
[48:24] inevitable that might be something we
end up having to do depending what the
[48:28] position
is i don't know but it seems to me
[48:31] that you know we wanted to stay in the
middle
[48:35] of and again we're in compliance
um but we want to stay in the middle and
[48:41] some of these some of the neighbors if
you will are spending more money on
[48:45] certain areas than we are and so
poof there goes your your employee that
[48:52] you just got done training in
um i do know that some of the employees
[48:57] have said you know they don't want to
leave
[49:00] i know people some have said that they
want to stay here because they like the
[49:03] area
they like being here let's face it it's
[49:06] better than the alternatives in some
areas
[49:08] at this point but you got to be able to
live here too
[49:14] so um you know we wanted to stay in the
middle
[49:19] and ross and don you were there so
correct me if i'm wrong with that but
[49:22] our goal was to kind of stay in the
middle of the pay scale so we're always
[49:26] in compliance
um but being in compliance doesn't seem
[49:31] to be our problem
[Laughter]
[49:33] and i it seems that it's just our name
is it just is that a fair thing to say
[49:38] our neighbors are just outspending us
that would be correct okay yeah but we
[49:44] still want to stay in
but we don't want to fall out of
[49:47] compliance and
have to play catch up with the neighbor
[49:51] all in the same year
so you know i mean i want one suggestion
[49:57] i would have is
um you know that
[50:02] maybe we moved from here to the
personnel committee and the personnel
[50:05] committee could
schedule times or the or we could have
[50:09] workshops with the employees
and figure out what the employees really
[50:14] want to have
is it money is it benefits is it
[50:18] um you know i mean how can we
you know within our financial means how
[50:25] can we
do things and take suggestions from the
[50:29] employees
as well i mean we can put all our heads
[50:33] together and figure out where we want to
go
[50:35] it would be easier on a personnel
committee level only because
[50:40] um there's two council members there so
we don't have to worry about quorum
[50:44] issues
and we can arrange things so it's that
[50:48] more convenient
for employees and if somebody else wants
[50:51] to sit in on those meetings
doesn't necessarily have to be myself
[50:56] if they want to take my place on the
personal committee at a meeting because
[51:00] they have questions
whatever but we could set
[51:05] some workshops up with employees that
would meet
[51:08] employee schedules so like date you know
some evenings afternoons whichever works
[51:13] the best that's just one suggestion
i had i don't know how you all feel
[51:17] about that
yeah i'd rather see that instead of
[51:20] saying okay we'll go to
this percentage and then in five years
[51:23] we're back to where we
right yeah well we can direct those
[51:28] questions
jenny and ann can sit down and look at
[51:31] them and
if it's like everything else that i used
[51:36] to do with the public works committee
they can't explain why my opinion or my
[51:39] idea is wrong
i think what we need to do is reaffirm
[51:44] that we want to stay in
roughly in the middle and basically from
[51:48] that point
take all your questions however you want
[51:52] to but that's the goal yeah
i kind of agree i think
[51:57] with what you're saying is that i think
we need to have
[52:00] as a council of general direction
and then see where that goes and i'm
[52:08] you know as i sit here tonight i just
got too many
[52:12] questions spinning in my head you know i
i just need need time to process things
[52:18] because it's a big decision
it's a big it's a big decision for our
[52:22] employees which obviously we want to
retain
[52:25] but it's also you know a big decision
for
[52:28] for our job is you know to be fiscally
responsible
[52:33] right but there's a
there's a difference between staying in
[52:39] the middle as we
to use that to stay in the middle so
[52:42] that we're in compliance
with the state is with conquer a
[52:48] comparable word
that's different than staying in the
[52:50] middle with our comparable cities
and i don't think that's what they're
[52:55] meaning itself but as far as state state
with
[52:58] compliance with the state we are in
compliance with the state correct
[53:01] so what we're really talking about is
do is being competitive with our
[53:08] neighbors and being competitive in the
market
[53:10] and staying there and it appears that if
i understand this the way that we're set
[53:14] up
our system will continue for probably
[53:17] for the most part to stay
in compliance but not not competitive
[53:21] but not competitive
right so because that's where i keep
[53:25] that's why i kind of asked them to
square my mind because i keep
[53:30] right well if the five percent is
one of the goals you can narrow that
[53:35] down to just make it three percent or
two and a half percent
[53:38] instead of five true but you can also
with employee input
[53:42] let's just say your employees are saying
well
[53:45] you know maybe it's you know can we get
a little
[53:48] can we bump up or work on this benefit
or that benefit
[53:52] and because of that you know i i mean
that's
[53:56] that's a question for them and they need
to
[53:59] you know as a group i would encourage
them to get together discuss it
[54:03] what are you thinking put it all down
and and meet with the
[54:06] that's why i say you know meet with the
jenny and personnel and
[54:11] then we can throw those questions at ann
and then she can do her magic and then
[54:15] come back with a plan that'll work for
us and it'll be good forever and ever
[54:19] and do cities ever look at their local
area
[54:23] and wages and economics within their
within their local area or is it we're
[54:28] always just strictly looking at other
governmental
[54:32] cities uh they do look within their
area the problem is is that there's a
[54:38] lot of positions
in local government that don't have
[54:42] comparisons in the private sector
[54:48] you know you would have some you know
you would have
[54:51] you know your bartenders liquor store
clerk
[54:57] somewhat your administrative support and
your maintenance but public safety
[55:03] city administrators it's it's pretty
tough because of the wide range of
[55:07] of things that they deal with um
whereas most private sector it's it's a
[55:13] single
category of things services that they're
[55:17] providing
so they do but it's usually a component
[55:21] of a larger study
just because they're not going to find
[55:26] many positions where you're going to
find a direct match
[55:31] terry you had a question
yeah come on up so we can
[55:42] mr mayor you ought um
[55:46] just said that uh maybe meeting with
employees asked them what they wanted to
[55:50] do
it's great that you wanna want employee
[55:54] input
but uh you didn't do a benefit study
[55:59] so therefore this is a pay discussion
and ask employees whether they want uh
[56:05] more pay versus better benefit
this doesn't change the pay issue no it
[56:11] doesn't
so you're gonna get
[56:16] let's just say there's 10 employees here
so you're going to get 10 different
[56:19] answers
on on that one
[56:23] you're not going to be able to come to
consensus so
[56:27] you need to take the benefit part out of
it
[56:30] since you didn't do the study so
you're just down to the pay issue
[56:38] and i think this just my thought haven't
asked anyone else
[56:44] the right road to go down would be the
personnel committee
[56:50] part of the page and then
back amongst the council and then make
[56:57] your decision
to bring it to the employees to get our
[57:01] feedback or whatever you decide that way
okay thank you appreciate it
[57:10] but i think in general we're all in
agreement that we want to be in the
[57:14] middle
and not only just for being compliance
[57:19] but also for the market
want to be in the middle of the market
[57:23] yep that's the way i would
be thinking as well
[57:27] so when jenny starts to look at the
budget for next year
[57:31] that's kind of the direction we should
point her to
[57:35] right yes i agree i think so
[57:42] no i think that's great feedback and um
i would just certainly say depending on
[57:46] if
you know if there's any formal
[57:48] conversations that we have with staff or
not
[57:51] i mean you can always provide feedback
anytime so as we go through this
[57:55] we'll start to incorporate that
direction into our budget
[58:00] and as we do that you know in the next
couple of months we'll be starting our
[58:02] budget process so we'll have time then
to see how that impacts
[58:07] with everything else and we have the
council goals initiative we're working
[58:10] on too
so that's a part of all of those things
[58:12] i think it will
bring everything together so i can i can
[58:16] definitely do that work with the
personnel committee
[58:19] and anne if we have questions and you
know again we'll just say that
[58:23] it's open if there's ever questions or
we need to talk about something more
[58:27] specifically
yeah because that's you know we do need
[58:31] to see how that impacts
the budget mr mayor i wonder if the
[58:36] personnel committee can also address the
uh concept of doing this
[58:42] an update study rather rather than
waiting five years
[58:46] doing it every two years come back with
a recommendation to the rest of us or
[58:52] some something like that do we keep it
keep fighters on it a little bit we
[58:58] should look at that so you're not making
larger jumps
[59:01] yeah that i don't think that that would
be a problem i think
[59:05] you know like ann suggested it would be
pretty simple to do if you do
[59:09] if you call around and keep it kind of
keep your finger on the pulse of the
[59:13] comparables
um and what questions aren't we asking
[59:18] that we should what are what things
aren't we consider
[59:21] actually you're you're asking very good
questions um
[59:25] for this um i think you know
asking about even though we didn't do a
[59:31] benefit study
um you know when we did do it
[59:36] you were fairly consistent with the
market
[59:40] but that doesn't mean you you can still
look at benefits
[59:44] you know sometimes employees will say
you know i wish the city was picking up
[59:49] a little bit more of my
health insurance premium and
[59:53] i would maybe forego a little bit of an
increase in wages if the city was doing
[59:58] that so even though
it wasn't included this time um it's
[1:00:03] still a conversation that
that the city council and the city staff
[1:00:08] can have
about what is important to them is it is
[1:00:12] it wages is it benefits is a combination
of the two
[1:00:17] and just getting that type of feedback
[1:00:21] thank you
[1:00:24] did you have anything else done no i
just think that
[1:00:27] we should send over a personnel
committee and you can
[1:00:30] digest it a little bit come back with
some
[1:00:33] more ideas and we can talk about a
little more okay
[1:00:37] everybody agree yeah yeah and if anyone
has questions they can always ask
[1:00:43] come in and sit down with jenny
employees have questions ask jenny
[1:00:46] um if you have suggestions
give them to get them get them to jenny
[1:00:52] and and and
you know nothing i mean put it all out
[1:00:57] there
let's see what it is what we end up with
[1:00:58] so that's the key
so and really time frame wise we're
[1:01:02] really looking
budget time so we i mean yeah we'll have
[1:01:07] to do
some meetings and sit down and discuss
[1:01:10] it the three of them
in the next you know well i think we
[1:01:14] should
next couple months it's coming up so
[1:01:16] yeah it's going to have to be it's not
going to be one meeting
[1:01:19] so okay yeah it happens faster than you
think
[1:01:23] is there anything else that any of the
employees any of the people in the
[1:01:26] audience here want to bring up
[1:01:30] go ahead brian
[1:01:34] i would just like to mention that i do
like the idea of value energy every two
[1:01:38] years because
five years ago the city wanted to make
[1:01:42] sure they were paying us fairly
and they they had a target of being in
[1:01:45] the middle and now we look five years
later
[1:01:48] and we're five to six percent behind
so if we did it every couple of years we
[1:01:53] wouldn't be coming in that situation
where all of a sudden the city has to we
[1:01:56] can adjust their budget the following
year
[1:01:58] at eighty to a hundred thousand dollars
if we did it every two years it would
[1:02:01] i think alleviate a lot of problems
thank you all right
[1:02:07] okay i don't see any further questions
or
[1:02:10] nobody how we can uh
entertain a motion to adjourn you have
[1:02:16] it
a second all in favor aye aye
[1:02:21] opposed you thanks ann
my pleasure and just contact me if any
[1:02:26] other questions arise
will do thank you have a great night all
[1:02:30] right thanks you too
[1:02:36] hey craig can you see if the guys can
hang in for a minute
[1:02:48] you