City Council looks at employee pay scale study
February 8, 2012
By Administrator
New: Feb. 8, 10:38 a.m.
Sammamish employees – particularly new hires – are generally underpaid compared to their peers in neighboring cities.
That’s the verdict of a salary survey presented to the City Council at their annual retreat at Suncadia Resort Jan. 27.
Deputy City Manager Lyman Howard said in an interview the lagging salaries for new employees are by design. The city contracted with a consulting firm to look at employee wages in 2007 and elected to set up a system where new hires start at slightly below-market wages but see their pay steadily rise as they move up the “step” system – 4 percent raises that are awarded based on adequate job performance.
The council decided that employees who stick with the city should be rewarded with higher-than-average salaries at the highest end of the salary ladder. The council hoped the prospect of higher-than-average pay would help retain good employees and create some continuity in City Hall.
“Longevity plays a huge role in an organization like this,” Administrative Services Director Mike Sauerwein said of city government. “Having institutional knowledge is key.”
Prior to 2007, Sauerwein said the city was losing close to 20 percent of its employees a year – often due to the long commute to get to City Hall. Employees who lived in Seattle often went to Mercer Island or Shoreline. Sauerwein said the pay structure might have contributed to less employee turnover in recent years, though the tough economy likely played a large role as well.
But in many cases Sammamish’s “low on the bottom, high on the top” pay structure has not kept pace with wages in surrounding cities. The salary survey looked at wages in Auburn, Bothell, Edmonds, Issaquah, Kirkland, Mercer Island, Olympia, Redmond, Renton and Shoreline.
An entry-level city clerk in Sammamish starts at about $66,000, compared to a bit more than $75,000 in surrounding cities and maxes out at around $90,000, compared to an average of $94,500 in similar cities.
The situation is similar for senior planners, who handle land use and development applications. In Sammamish, they start out at a bit under $62,000 compared to an average of $70,000. They can top out at $84,500 compared to $85,700 at the average neighboring city.
Sammamish’s Public Works Director starts out at $104,500, significantly less than the $118,500 average in neighboring cities. They top out at $143,200, just under the $144,800 average in neighboring cities.
The outlier in the survey is Sammamish’s public works and parks maintenance workers, who start out at $47,500 – right around the average of $47,900. They also max out at $65,000, quite a bit above the $59,500 average.
Councilman Ramiro Valderrama, who during his campaign was vocal in his calls for slowing the growth of the city’s personnel costs, said he was more concerned with making sure year-to-year across-the-board wage increases are kept in check. City employees have traditionally had their wages tied to the city’s cost of living indicators – that led to a 3.2 percent wage increase in 2012, though it also meant a half of a percentage point pay cut in 2011.
Valderrama said the 3.2 percent cost of living increase was an “aberration” and not fair given the tough economic times taxpayers are in. He pointed to the example of unionized employees at the city of Redmond and Eastside Fire & Rescue, which both saw a 2 percent wage increase for 2012.
Valderrama said he hopes the city would consider moving to a more stable model for wage increases that would prevent “valleys and peaks” from year to year. He suggested negotiating a set amount and giving employees that or 80 percent of any increase in cost of living, whichever is smaller.
“Citizens aren’t getting a 3.2 percent raise.” Valderrama said. “Taxpayers aren’t going to care about the valleys during an economic downturn, but when the peaks come around they will.”
Though there was some variance between Sammamish’s pay and the regional average, Councilman Tom Vance said he was pleased to that the city was fairly close to the average. He noted that each city operates differently and the responsibilities of similar positions in each city don’t always line up.
Vance noted that Sammamish still has a relatively small staff for a city of 45,000 because it contracts out many projects instead of having full-time employees on hand to do them.
City analysis presented at the retreat shows that Sammamish has 1.5 full-time employees per 1,000 residents compared to an average of 4.9 for Issaquah, Redmond, Bellevue, Kirkland and Mercer Island.
“We contract out a lot of what we do,” Vance said. “So we end up with a professional core … of qualified, educated staff.”
Howard said that come budget time the council will also be looking at employee health benefits and how much of an employee’s medical costs should come out of pocket.
He said initial analysis by the city shows that Sammamish covers a bit more of their employees’ medical costs than other cities.
Howard said it’s a balancing act for the council, which must keep wages and benefits in check while ensuring that qualified employees don’t move to cushier jobs in neighboring cities.
“We want to be fair to our employees, but we also need to be fair to the taxpayers,” Howard said. “(The council) has to find that sweet spot.”
Reporter Caleb Heeringa can be reached at 392-6434. ext. 247, or cheeringa@isspress.com.
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