Tim Ryan, tryan@shawanoleader.com
A Shawano County committee Tuesday recommended moving forward with a long-awaited wage and classification study in hopes of having a contract approved by the County Board this month and the study completed before the April elections.
The Administrative and Insurance Committee unanimously recommended a contract with Madison-based Carlson Dettmann Consulting at a maximum cost of $42,000, plus up to $2,000 in travel expenses.
However, committee members are hoping to pare the cost down a bit.
The $42,000 price tag assumes 140 job classifications would be evaluated, but the county is in the process of consolidating some of those classifications.
Consultant Charlie Carlson told the committee he would knock $250 off the price for each classification eliminated if the total number comes in under 140.
Though some committee members had initially hoped for a simple comparison of wages with other counties, Carlson said the county should have an evaluation done of job duties and where those jobs fall in the county hierarchy.
“Unless you can convince yourselves and your employees and your department heads that you have given fair consideration to the potential uniqueness of their jobs, you will be forever struggling with the question of ‘you graded my job wrong,’” he said.
Carlson said the evaluations would document what the county should be paying and the reasons for the wage to avoid “a parade of people” coming before the committee asking for a grade change.
“Without job evaluations, you’ve got nothing to hang your hat on,” he said.
Supervisor Jerry Erdmann said he was concerned about department heads disagreeing with the classification results and who would have final say.
“That’s what I’m worried about, that we’re going to have department heads come in and say they want this individual classified a certain way,” he said.
Carlson said the committee would ultimately make the call relying on the evaluations.
“You’d have the confidence to say, ‘no, we did this according to a system and we used objective criteria,’” he said.
Supervisor Deb Noffke sought to tamp down expectations that the study would result in a countywide increase in wages.
“There’s an expectation within staff is that this new wage adjustment will give everyone more money, and quite frankly we don’t have more money to give them,” she said.
Committee members also questioned what would happen if some employees turn out to be making more than comparable positions in other counties.
Carlson said it would have a negative impact on morale to cut anyone’s wages, but those employees could be “red-lined,” meaning the wage could be frozen until enough time has gone by or the duties change sufficiently to warrant a raise.
Carlson initially estimated it would take four months to complete the study, which would have put it before the County Board after the April elections.
Supervisor Kathy Luebke, however, said she was concerned about the potential for turnover of the board after the elections.
Carlson said he thought the study could be completed by March if contract approval is granted soon enough.
The County Board will take it up on Dec. 18.
The county’s last wage study was done in 2007 and a new one was long overdue, Administrative Coordinator Tom Madsen said after the meeting.
