WAUSAU, Wis. (WSAU) — Wausau city council members spent Monday night getting a very thorough explanation of the pay plan that raised concerns from officials at the end of last year.
Wausau’s human resources director Myla Hite spent 90 minutes explaining her study of the pay plan and answering questions from the council. She says that the city council approved that plan in 2013 after a multi-year process to improve and update the city’s pay schedule from a simple step process based on longevity at their job to one that paid by performance.
Hite explained that the council turned over control of pay raises under that plan to former human resources director Michael Loy in December of 2013, around the same time as the budget for that plan was approved. “He was very specific in what he asked for and the authority he asked for and he talked about it. I know that there’s certain topics that I can talk about and I think I know when people know what I’m saying and they don’t necessarily. It’s a complex topic.” She also added that the department came in at or under budget for those pay raises. “What we actually spent for the pay for performance plan was $207,584, what was actually budgeted was $244,729.”
Official numbers on the plan show that city employees were slotted into the city’s pay schedule based on where they were compared to market average, and that those who were below that average were bumped up. It also showed that the base increase for employees was a 2 percent adjustment in salary before the pay-for-performance numbers were applied to their funding.
City council member Lisa Rasmussen says there should have been more communication about the process while raises were being handed out in January and July of 2014. “That person’s philosophy has to be in lock step with the council’s philosophy, or we have outcomes we didn’t expect, and I think that’s the place we’re at.”
Hite explained that her department will be reexamining the salaries and employee evaluations for staff again this year and adjusting the process. City council president Romey Wagner says they’re still working out how the new payment system will be implemented. “We anticipated two to three years to fine tune this program, this year there’s a pay freeze. Well, next year, will we have to adjust the base again? With an analysis or study, we’ll determine that.” He was happy to see that budgets were followed last year. “The budget was set, and actually the new pay-for-performance paid very similar to what is would have been if we’d left the step payment in. And it was within the budget, yes.”
Alderman Keene Winters says that the new plan will take a lot of fixing. “We’ve taken a step forward because the evaluation process is better, but we certainly are a long way from getting ourselves to pay for performance.” He says more effort must be made to ensure that the city remains sustainable in the future. “That’s water over the dam, we’re not taking back anybody’s raises. It’s not a sustainable raise plan, it raises compensation faster than the rate of inflation and we simply aren’t growing revenues at that point.”
No action on the payment plan is scheduled for either the finance or the full council meetings on Tuesday.
