Lee Pulaski, lpulaski@shawanoleader.com
Shawano County will not approve a wage study this month as originally planned.
Representatives from Madison-based Carlson Dettmann Consulting LLC gave the Administrative Committee and department heads draft recommendations of pay levels for all positions during two meetings Thursday. The committee and managers are expected to take about a week to review the recommendations and respond to Carlson Dettmann.
At that point, the firm anticipates taking at least a week to finalize pay levels and determine minimum and maximum hourly and salary rates. The Administrative Committee has tentatively scheduled a meeting for 12:30 p.m. April 14 to review the study.
The County Board meets on April 15, but it likely will not vote on the study until May.
Consultant Charlie Carlson said the county is at a “key juncture” in the study.
“We’re going to counsel people to be calm. We’ve got a ways to go yet,” Carlson said. “We just need your thoughtful reactions.”
Carlson noted that the county’s original plan to complete the study before the April 1 general election was not feasible. He advised taking up the plan after the board reorganizes in April and implementing the wage changes in 2015, so the county has sufficient time to budget accordingly.
Carlson said municipal and county governments are able to control wages more effectively since most public unions disbanded following implementation of Act 10 in 2011. Prior to that, public employee unions negotiated pay increases and other perks. Act 10 took away most union rights, save for modest wage increases.
“Most public employers in Wisconsin, for four decades, have engaged in a political process of wage determination,” Carlson said. “This is a process about logic and system and method and control. We try to get as much error out of the process as possible.”
The firm has compared Shawano County’s wages with 23 other Wisconsin counties and two sources in the private sector.
Consultant Barbara Petkovsek said there are three basic pay plans — developing annual or biennial steps across a range, having pay-for-performance similar to what is used in the private sector, or developing a hybrid plan that allows regular steps to a control point and then having future raises or bonuses depend on performance.
“There are ways to design a plan you can afford,” Petkovsek said. “We help you understand so you can make good decisions with the information you provide.”
She said most counties want their employees to at least match the average pay of other counties, but that depends on the county’s budget situation and the need to retain and attract good employees.
Petkovsek pointed out that the county has hired 72 people since 2012 and has several vacancies, including the county planner job, that are expected to be filled in the coming months.
Once a plan is adopted, there is an appeal process for employees, but changes will only be made to correct errors by the consultants or for substantial changes in an employee’s job duties, Carlson said. Changes should not be based on policy decisions by the County Board, or the study will fail, he said.
“This really has to be the art of what’s possible,” Carlson said. “If all we can accomplish in this study is to get positions arrayed appropriately internally and paid competitively, that would be a good day.”