Town Council takes ‘leap of faith’ with employee compensation plan
Black Mountain adopts recommended salary and classification structure
Fred McCormick
The Valley Echo
January 17, 2023
David Hill, of the Piedmont Triangle Regional Council, presents recommendations from a pay and classification study to the Black Mountain Town Council. The council, on Jan. 9, voted 5-0 to approve the plan, which will bring a recurring cost of $360,000 to the town’s annual budget. Photo by Fred McCormick
The Black Mountain Town Council took a unanimous “leap of faith,” Jan. 9, with a 5-0 vote adopting a new employee compensation plan, intended to offer a fair wage while allowing the municipality to remain competitive in the hiring market.
The payment structure, which follows a Piedmont Triangle Regional Council study that began in August, is anticipated to add a recurring cost of approximately $360,000 to the annual operating budget.
Discussion of the recommended plan followed a lengthy presentation by David Hill, who compared Black Mountain to a hiring market of 14 competing municipalities in the area. The methodology utilized in the study included a 12-page position description questionnaire, completed by town employees, and interviews with department directors.
Hill, while presenting the workforce benchmark analysis conducted at the beginning of the study, classified a “mature workforce” as one with an average time of employment between eight to 10 years. Two-thirds of the employees in a mature workforce, he added, would occupy the middle-third of a standard deviation bell curve.
Eighty percent of Black Mountain’s 128 employees have worked for the Town under 10 years, according to the data, placing the average length of employment at 6.7 years.
“You do have some employees who have been with you a relatively long period of time,” Hill told the town council. “However, looking at the far left side of the screen, you see you have a relatively large number of new employees.”
A similar bell curve graph, produced from the study, displayed the current staff’s range of pay grade, from minimum to maximum compensation.
“You have probably two employees who have salaries above the midpoint,” Hill said. “When I say ‘midpoint,’ I’m talking about what is in salary administration, typically the market value of a position.”
Black Mountain, according to the data presented, had two employees above the midpoint, which represents the average pay of someone with eight to 10 years of experience, he continued.
“You have a relatively young workforce, a lot of relatively new employees, so you would expect to see their salaries on the far left side (of the graph),” Hill said.
The presentation compared two Black Mountain positions - Firefighter II and Public Services Technician I - with municipalities ranging from the City of Asheville and Buncombe County to the Towns of Waynesville and Weaverville. Hill included the minimum, midpoint, maximum and actual salaries for each local government with a corresponding position. The data also examined each example’s compa ratio, which compares the salary of employees to the current market rate.
The Firefighter II position in Black Mountain is currently assigned a pay grade of 10, which includes a minimum pay of $40,607 per year and a maximum of $60,885. The midpoint salary for the position, under the Town’s current structure, is an annual $50,746.
Hill’s recommendation to the town council was to increase the pay grade for the position to 11, bringing the minimum salary to $43,394 per year and the maximum to $65,090, raising the midpoint salary by approximately $3,500, annually.
The existing salary structure for Public Services Technician I, a pay grade 6 offering a minimum salary of $33,350 per year and a maximum of $50,065, was to increase it to a pay grade 7.
Hill proposed a compensation plan that assigns each position within the Town to a market supported pay grade, establishing each employee’s salary at the compa ratio they hold in their current pay grade.
“My recommended pay plan, for the most part, takes the current pay plan and smooths it out,” he said. “It’s returning your ranges to an exact 50%, meaning the maximum salary will be exactly 50% greater than the minimum. And, each of your pay grades will be exactly 5% greater than the one below it.”
Implementing the recommendation, as presented, required the town council to approve immediate funding of $150,000 for the current budget year. The structure will require the town fund an additional $360,000 per year, beginning in the 2023-24 fiscal year.
“Government is no better than the people you have working for it,” Mayor Mike Sobol said. “So, what we need to do is to keep the people we have working for us. I’m still a little apprehensive about how to go ahead and make these adjustments.”
Sobol acknowledged the decision would rest with the board.
“My feeling is that we need to do something, but is the urgency today?” he continued. “I’m just not comfortable with how to go about adjusting and getting these ranges on the paper. That’s what has me concerned.”
The mayor asked council members to recommend possible plans for the implementation of the new salary structure.
Councilmember Pam King responded that the town council identified top priorities in a budget workshop last March.
“I know I came away from that really committed to this,” she said. “I’m committed to doing right by our employees, and it became even more evident in recent economic times, because of recruitment and retention issues that every organization in the country is having.”
Paying employees a fair wage, King added, was a “moral issue.”
“This whole conversation was council-driven, since the council brought it up last spring. I’ve never had a staff member come to me and complain,” she continued. “The numbers are big, there’s no way around that. It’s going to be a challenge, as the mayor just said, figuring out how to implement this.”
King, however, advocated for its approval.
“I think we have to go forward with this,” she said.
Councilmember Doug Hay agreed with King, adding the new structure would address employee morale and allow the town to better address vacancies.
“One thing that was helpful for me to remember earlier today was a breakdown, or a department overview of where these funds are going,” Hay said. “I thought it was interesting that the fire department will receive the biggest increase with this, then public services and then the police department. I think it’s important to see that these are the people picking up our trash, or keeping us safe, and it’s important to treat them properly, and hire the most qualified candidates.”
Vice Mayor Archie Pertiller, Jr. expressed similar opinions regarding the proposal.
“It’s difficult to maintain qualified personnel, if you’re not paying them a fair wage,” he said. “I would hate to see what we have here diminished, just because we can’t pay them a fair wage.”
Bill Christy, who echoed the sentiments of King, Hay and Pertiller, added the town council would need to be mindful of how to fund the measure, adding his reluctance to utilize the surplus money created by the town’s use of funding through the American Rescue Plan Act.
“I personally am opposed to using ARPA money to fund this,” he said. “What I’ve been thinking, and believed last year’s council was thinking, it was to be used for one-time expenses.”
Hay asked Town Manager Josh Harrold how a $360,000 expense would’ve impacted the current budget, excluding the availability of funding made available through ARPA.
“I don’t know if I can answer that exactly,” Harrold responded. “You would have to cut services, more than likely, or raise taxes or fees. There is only so much money we get, and that can go up year to year, generally, but without knowing what those numbers look like it’s hard for me to say.”
Hay moved to adopt the compensation plan, with Councilmember Alice Berry agreeing, calling it a “leap of faith.”
“We’ll figure out going forward how to make this work; it’s the right thing to do and an investment in our town,” she said.
While paying for the salary structure will present challenges, no additional information exists for town council to know how it it will be funded, Hay said.
“The information you’re looking for is going to be what these numbers look like when they’re rolled into the budget,” Harrold replied. “Unfortunately, that’s not going to happen for a few more months.”
Christy added there were limited options on the table.
“So that very well could mean that we have to cut some other spending or raise revenues,” he said.
“That’s correct,” Harrold responded.
With no further discussion, the town council voted unanimously to adopt and immediately implement the recommended pay and classification structure. An amendment funding the plan through the current fiscal year will be brought before the town council in February.