Wage study heading for County Board

The Shawano County Board will vote whether to approve its latest county wage study Wednesday, but there already seem to be mixed feelings on the matter.

The Finance Committee voted unanimously Monday, with one supervisor absent, to move a resolution regarding the study to the full board, but the Administrative Committee deadlocked 2-2 Tuesday before opting to send the resolution forward with no recommendation—an unusual step.

Supervisors Deb Noffke and Bonnie Olson voted against recommending the study Tuesday, while Jerry Erdmann and William Switalla voted in favor. Gene Hoppe, the committee chairman, was absent.

“I’m going to say right now that I am not in favor of implementing this all at once,” Olson said, noting it was unfair for some employees to get minimal increases and others to get an additional $3 per hour.

Noffke was concerned that the wage study would result in all employees in a classification being paid the same, regardless of how hard they work or how long they have been employed.

“If some people were here a considerably longer period of time and have more experience, they’re treated the same (as a new hire),” Noffke said. “You might have had someone who increased because they had a great idea or lit the world on fire in some way, and they’re going to be treated the same.”

The board hired Carlson Dettmann Consulting LLC in December 2013 to do the wage and classification study. Consultant Barb Petkovsek presented the study recommendations to the board in September.

Shawano County is paying at 95.7 percent of the market average in wages, Petkovsek told the board.

However, the county is offering a generous benefits package in comparison with other county and municipal governments, she noted.

For example, Shawano County is paying 90 percent of the health insurance premiums on its individual and family plans, while other employer contributions range from 71-80 percent, according to information Petkovsek found from the Kaiser Family Foundation.

According to Petkovsek, the health insurance benefits make up 17.7 percent of the county’s total employee compensation, compared with a 12.1 percent average for state and local governments and 9 percent for the private sector. She recommended in September that the county revisit its health insurance practices and see if costs could be reduced to help provide more money for wages.

The estimated impact on the county levy to implement the study’s recommendation will be $161,447 for 2015, according to Petkovsek.

Supervisor Arlyn Tober, who heads the Finance Committee, said in September that there is enough money in the proposed 2015 budget to implement the full Carlson Dettmann recommendation.

Erdmann noted the wage plan should be reviewed regularly, and said it needed to move forward and not be delayed any longer. He said employees are leaving for better paying jobs.

“In the long run, it’ll be better to implement it all at once,” Erdmann said. “Is it sustainable? I believe it would be, but we need to look at our health insurance benefits.”

If approved by the board, the updated wage and classification structure would take effect Jan. 1.