1982 01 25
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SPECIAL CHANHASSEN CITY COUNCIL MEETING JANUARY 25, 1982
Mayor Hamilton called the meeting to order at 7:40 p.m. with the following members
present: Councilwoman Swenson, Councilmen Neveaux and Geving. Councilman Horn was
absent. Bill Monk, Scott Martin, and Don Ashworth were present.
SENIOR CITIZEN BUS RATE: The City Manager stated this item will be on the next
council agenda.
CARVER COUNTY POLICE COMMITTEE: Mayor Hamilton recommended the Council appoint Candy
Takkunen as Chanhassen's representative on this committee.
Councilman Geving moved to make the nomination of Candy Takkunen for the
on the county police committee. Motion seconded by Councilman Neveaux.
voted in favor: Mayor Hamilton, Councilwoman Swenson, Councilmen Geving
No negative votes. Motion carried.
representative
The following
and Neveaux.
PAY CLASSIFICATIONS AND COMPENSATION:
Mayor Hamilton - The item we came here to discuss is the pay classification/compensation
thing. I received in the packet the results of the consultant in
reviewing those items that we asked him to review. Don, you mentioned
in your letter attached that you would have more information available
tonight. Do you have something that you were going to pass out?
Don Ash\Jorth - I would like to go through what it is that has been done. I believe that
we are in concurrence with the work of the consultant, Mr. Johnson. I
am concerned as to some of the statistical sheets in the rear of that
packet and how they relate tb Chanhassen positions, more specifically,
it may be just a misunderstanding as to what was previously done.
Mayor Hamilton - Those sheets in the back, I was not going to include them. In fact I
have a couple of others that I didn't put in because they can be
misinterpreted without an explanation. I think the statistical sheets
in the back were done just an informational thing.
Councilwoman Swenson - Don, on your sheet, your appendix A in your numerical sequence,
number two. is blank. I have got three charts here and I am
trying to coordinate which one is what.
Mayor Hamilton - Don had some things he wanted to go over and I would like to get in to
what I have.
Don Ashworth - This sheet came from the stùdy that was done by Loren Law in 1976. It
assigned points to each of these different skill levels and you were
to rank each of the existing positions in terms of how they ranked with
all other positions in the City. We updated this, Scott, Bill and myself.
Each applied point systems as they were set out in that original study.
That came back with a listing of positions and the final listing as far
as the salary grades positions. All that does is attempt to establish
the relationship of each position in the city in relation to every other
position. That was one of the job assignments of Mr. Johnson. He used
a different numbering system in trying to rank Chanhassen's positions
in relation to each other. His ranking came out almost identical
with this one. In other words, we have verified that each position
in relation to itself is accurate. Now it becomes a question of how
do you assign a salary associated with anyone of those salary grades.
You have 22 full time positions. You could get into 22 different grades.
That really doesn't make any sense especially when the point system used
really says several positions are identical to each other. So you try
to reduce the number of salary grades to a level that,or a number that
is reasonable to administer and also represents consistent levels.
In other words that under a level 6 we are really saying that the
Engineering Technician, equipment operator, utility maintenance operator,
in terms of interrelation to each other are on the same level. If we make
a comparison of salaries in the Twin City area you may find that anyone
Council Meeting January 25, 1982
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of those positions is slightly different than the other one
but you are going to come up with a salary range which is going to
be identical to those three. You are going to test it. You are I
going to make sure that this is a reasonable comparison. My main
point in noting this relationship is simply to state that what we
did, as a part of the pay compensation plan booklet, is
identical to what Mr. Johnson did in his ranking. The next issue
that comes up is one of how do you reasonably associate salaries
with these and a great deal of emphasis has been put on the 13
cities and I think incorrectly so. What you have is, let's say
in the accounting area, if you look at the Stanton Survey you will
find that there are over 700 accounting positions in the Twin City
area. Now, those positions don't necessarily all relate to what
Kay does or what Jean does, but within that 700 there are a number
of positions that really do. If you have the number of positions that
you are comparing of a reasonable size, let's assume like
100 positions, you can reasonably pick out the highs and the lows
and the mid-point. It becomes very obvious in charting those. If
you reduce the sample down to, let's say 13, the re Liability of
your statistics aren't near as good and especially if in that
13 you don't have a true comparison or you are limited in the number
of comparisons. Again, in the planning area, you are talking about
150 positions, in the accounting area something in excess of 700.
The 13 that we looked at was used as a bench mark to test the
validity of the actual calls that we made. We have an actual position
description for every job here in the City. You have the Stanton
Survey that puts names associated with jobs. That really doesn't
tell you that that's exactly the same job. You have got to almost I
go through those full 700 to figure out where she (Jean) reasonably
stands. We have previously handed out sheets, you have seen some
of these before, the City Manager's position. Here is a position
that really is going to have more commonality than most of the other
positions you are looking at. Again, in terms of a Senior Account
Clerk, the total number of positions out there and the work
associated with that position is going to be more closely aligned
in this type of comparison, whereas you take my job description and
comparing it to job #63 out of the Stanton Survey. Here is examples
of those that really don't work. One of them is Nancy Herfertls
position as the Section 8 Housing Coordinator. In Nancy's case
we looked at comparisons of secretarial positions and again realized
that there is potentially 300 positions that are potential comparables
in that area. What we actually used in Nancy's case were people who
are doing exactly the same thing that she is. The 1981 salary
comparison for her position reflects, again, City of Chaska, Osseo,
Champlin, Richfield, Hopkins, Mound, Maple Grove, Shakopee, Fridley,
etc., these people do exactly the same thing that Nancy does. They
each operate a Section 8 program. Remember Nancy has six cities
that she is working with so the comparison being made, she serves
more under her Section 8 program than Chaska, Champlin, Shakopee,
Fridley. The comparisons really establish a mid-point for that
position. We felt that that was fair. You Dreviously received the
comparisons for Nancy's position. Yes, it goes back to I
the bench mark of the 13 cities but it doesn't rely on the 13
cities. It goes out into the full base of comparables and tries
to come in with a comparison that is more accurate than any of the
others. You have previously seen this handout. This went with the
packet tHO packets ago. I t relates to how the comparisons were drawn
in the case of Scott's position. If you look there and the rationale
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that we developed in terms of that position, you are not going to find
a comparable that narrowed into either the 13 cities
that were previously shown or potential 13 or any other 13. One other
one. This one, was in~luded in the early work you had received
a copy of each one of these sheets. The Manager's Secretary is one that
is outlined in Stanton. There is a description called Manager's
Secretary. The problem with that is in most cities the position is
solely that, the Manager's Secretary. Karen has responsibility literally
as Office Manager. She prepares all resolutions, she oversees the work
of Becky, Nancy, when we had the receptionist position and part time
people. The only comparable that we had in that area was looking really
at the next sheet showing City Clerk. That's a deceiving title. There
are a number of clerk's positions. We went through each of thosß We
excluded all clerk's positions that deal with elections. We excluded
all clerk's positions that did not relate to the specific work, the
same type of duties that Karen has. The comparison made with the
Manager's Secretary took the salary from the Stanton Survey which in
this case we approximated at $1250 per month and we averaged that
with the responsibilities for the Office Manager which is $1450. That
average came out $1350. In other words, half time Manager's Secretary
and half time Office Manager. If you look under the salaries that are
proposed and you multiply that $1350 per month times 12 you won't come
out with the $16300 that is shown. It's the $1400 per month. Again,
I think a great deal of emphasis has been placed in the 13 cities. I
have probably been responsible for mis-communicating to you the
reliance on this 13. If each of you have come away with the idea that
we are gearing in solely with those 13, we are not. All of the work,
the sheets that you previously had, attempted to find out of every
position in the Twin City area, those positions that were most
comparable and it did not just go into the Stanton Survey and look for
something that said, Senior Account Clerk because it's very different.
Lake Elmo is a good example, they have no sewer or water. In terms of
that position it cannot be a reasonable comparable. A number of the
other cities will have a Senior Account Clerk but not at the same
responsibility level that Jean has. We attempted to go through every
position in a similar manner. Differences that you have in this city
from those that would be shown in the Stanton include the City Treasurer,
Planning Coordinator, HRA Director, Manager's Secretary, Housing
Coordinator. They are very difficult just to pick up from the Stanton
Survey and say this is a comparable. We have spent a great deal of time
in attempting to come up with comparisons that we felt really represented
the job being carried out by these people. Again, in terms of the
statistics at the end of the Johnson report, I was very fearful that
it appeared to be saying that the salaries being recommended through
the committee were different than those of the Stanton Survey. Yes, they
are but they are only different in terms of picking out those positions
that are comparable. You have one additional sheet and I don't know
if you want me to distribute that at this time or not. One of the
problems in the statistical sheets, one of the concern areas, was we
appeared to be looking at the present salary of an individual in
comparison to the 1982 mid-point from the plan and drawing percentage
differences. Itappears as those they are way out of line. I have done
two things, I have shown 1982 mid-point that's from the plan document
you have. I have backed those off to what the 1981 mid-point was, that's
column 2. The only reason I did that was to try to compare apples and
apples because we continue to have 1981 material, we should be comparing
that in comparison to 1981 mid-point. The third column is the 1981
salary for the individual. The fourth column represents the percent
increase as proposed under the cube that was presented as part of the
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plan booklet. The fifth column, and Tom you are going to have to
help when we get into a review, I thought I understood what Mr.
Johnson was saying. tfuen Bill and I went through this in terms of I
how do we apply this cube, let's make the assumption that the
mid-points as proposed by City Staff stay in effect and we have a
certain review, how are we going to apply that. I think I ran
into some problems there. A good example is the
Administrative Aid,which is Nancy's, that what Mr. Johnson was saying
is that if you have a top performer and you are in an 85% bracket
Mayor Hamilton - What do you mean by a top performer?
Don Ashworth - Let's say a 4. Nancy had rated previously as a B performer and at
an 88%. What salary does she get?
Mayor Hamilton - She is at 88%, you would be looking at nine to 10%. According to
this cube she should be reviewed again in six to nine months. That's
a discretionary thing. It could be six. It could be nine.
Don Ashworth - We have shown 17% in there because we assumed it was on a six month
reviewal and so what she would get would be nine percent and six months
later eight percent for a total of 17%. Then, reading the footnote
I felt that no, it was ten or 11%. Before we finish it I should
make sure that we know what it is that we are doing between the
three of us. Bill has some concerns in that area as well. You
have my comments in the header which says that I would like to see
a salary increase occur for someone who is above 104% but an average
employee. I don't care if it's five or six percent but a zero increase
is pretty drastic if you are doing all of the duties associated
with your job but you are five percent higher.
Mayor Hamilton - That iš one of the variables that has to be decided. If you
this cube as recommended by Mr. Johnson and myself then 104% is
maximum for anybody that is functioning at a C level.
Don Ashworth - That is your decision. The next section shows the Johnson proposal
for salary adjustments show·s the asterisk, "no comparisons
were shown!;. I really didn't have anything to say what salary level
would be imposed. I did show then, for each of the job descriptions
he showed, the amount that would be included and then proposed
adjustment using that same salary cube. You have in column 8
what that amount would be if, again, Bill and I had interpreted
correctly what the cube was saying. Torn did distribute to me, this
last Wednesday, the 13 cities that had been shown or that you have
in your packets. tfuat I did was take those 13 cities and use the
Stanton Survey in accordance with the job descriptions that Mr.
Johnson noted and created the average then for that position using
those 13 cities and averaging them for the 1981 average salary. I
did not group them as I see the Mayor has for this evenings meeting.
Those are just the straight averages, straight from the Stanton
Survey for those 13 cities. You see then the percent in comparison
to the mid-point and again, using the same evaluations that previously
occurred, what type of adjustment may occur.
Councilman Geving - Are you talking about column 10 and II?
Don Ashworth - Yes. This is the same thing. The only thing here was that Bill
had put in afterwards the overall percentage increase that would be
created by each of these options. So as previously noted, the
percent adjustment as previously recommended would be column 4
showing an overall increase of 9.7%. If the Johnson cube were
applied it would result in 10.65% and again, I couldn't make any
conclusion without having descriptions in for a number of the
positions. That's going to make a lot of difference. These
statistics here aren't right, you would have to plug in whatever
you had in there. One thing, I was looking at these and trying to
follow
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Council Meeting January 25, 1982
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compare your recommendation whether or not this amount shown here are
1981 or 1982. So basically what you have under column 10 is the average
salary from the Stanton for those 13 for 1981. I am assuming you would
have to increase those by about somewhere between 9 and 10% and it
should approximate what you have included in yours. I am open for
questions.
Councilman Geving - What happens, Don, in a year when the consumer price index is less
than, let's say, 9%? What happens to the rationale for this kind
of a system? Let's say in a year when the consumer price index
really hits 8.5, will this system provide us with an analysis
that could possibly give us a salary increase proposed at 9.5 or
10.5 out of sink with maybe reality and other communities.
Don Ashworth - What you are continuously looking at is what is the average salary
paid for a position. I don't know if you just saw the Mpls:paper
showing the consumer price indexät 15%. We are talking here about
an average of 9 to 10%. Let's assume the same type of thing happens
in governmental areas as is occurring in the Ford plant where there is
either a zero ~ncrease or roll backs. What you are talking about
is making a comparison in terms of what the real world is paying and
in that case it would show as a zero. Potentially it could show as a
roll back. Whether it's the 13 cities, some larger, some smaller, or
a comparison of similar positions metro wide, you are looking at what
it is that is being paid for a position.
Councilman Geving - I have no problem with that as long as the comparison, and I think
this is what the Mayor was trying to get at here. as long as the
comparison is comparing like jobs within a like commuting area, a
competing area for that persons talent and representing the
approximate size of the City of Chanhassen. Under 10,000, competing
for that persons talent in let's say Shakopee, Chaska or Mound
or wherever that might be. That's what I am talking about is a
person who lives locally and is willing to drive out 10 miles from
Chanhassen or 15 or 20 in any direction to find a similar job.
It should be paid then a competitive salary whether he was actually
hired by Chanhassen or one of these other like type cities. That's
what I tried to get and brought out in my comments the last time
we met on this and so I find personally that the comparison suggested
by the Mayor and his cities here is to my way of thinking, Wayzata,
Waconia, Savage, Orono, Chaska, Shakopee, Mound, these to me
represent that kind of thinking that I am trying to get across
whether it be for the Manager's job or another job. The only other
thing that I was going to say in regard to the question that
Don posed for the person who was an average performer with a 3
rating and was already at the 104%, I have no problem with giving
that person zero.
Don Ashworth - The problem I have is if you look under the last category you have a
number of people who have been continuously good performers for the
city, Harold Brose your Mechanic, Dale Gregory your Park Keeper, Nancy,
Jean, Karen, they are all at zero.
Councilman Geving - But you see, that's the purpose of the system though. Eventually
you are going to get to that point in any system where the top is
reached in short order and I don't care if you are the best performer
or an average performer you are going to reach that point where
you have maxed the system. I agree it's not good from an incentive
standpoint but it tells me you have been in the system for a long
time and unless you are a top performer, in other words a 5
performer, maybe you ought to move on. Maybe we are not satisfying
that individual, challenging him or her, maybe he has grown to
the point where he is no longer of real benefit to the city unless
he is. I am thinking of a person that has been around a long time
Council Meeting January 25, 1982
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they should be the outstanding employee. Not just an
average employee and you are going to have average employees
who have been around a long time and that does not equate
to me an automatic pay increase each year just because they
have been around.
Don Ashworth - I guess I agree Dale, but it should be, I look at somebody like
Syl Chastek who has been here for 17 years. He is making 5%
more than the average pay for equipment operator. Whether it's
through tenure or whether it's through his work performance, he
has gained that 5% more.
Councilman Geving - That's right.
Don Ashworth - He should reasonably be, if he has carried out his full duties, he
has met all the job requirements, he should reasonably be insured
that he is going to be staying close to that average pay for the
position. In other words, he is 5% more than average right now
and other positions are increasing 9 to 10%, a zero percent increase
this year would put him at a 95% level. What I am saying is
that when the people do get over the mid-point area that you should
potentially consider a 5 to 6% increase at that point. If their
work performance is below adequate then I would say no. In fact
I have a problem with the cube in terms of rewarding a 5% increase
for someone who has done a very poor job.
Councilman Geving - What you are saying is that you í.¡ould
the top of everyone of those cubes.
a welfare system.
Don Ashworth - No. I believe that salaries should be reviewed in terms of the market.
Every year the cube does have to be adjusted in terms of
what is occurring in the real market place. At this point in time
you are looking at salary increases in a 9 to 10% area. If you
are giving a person a 5% increase you, in fact, are penalizing him.
You are telling them, hay, you are too high in comparison to a
mid-point or not performing literally are dropping you
back down. When you are giving increases of 11, 12, 13% you are
bringing a person back up. Now, again, the Johnson cube puts a
greater emphasis on bringing people to a mid-point position. The
last time around the Council had said, we don't really want to get
to a mid-point position rapidly. We are not looking to getting
there. Hold dOí.;Tll your percent increases. If the market is going
up by 9 or 10% you are gaining on the mid-point by one or two percent
per year. If you are ten percent below right now it could take you
five to ten years to get to that point but as I heard what the
Council was saying you wanted that to occur.
Mayor Hamilton - The comment was made that the goal is to get people to the mid-
point and I don't think that should be the goal of salary
administration to get people to the mid-point. The goal is to
fairly compensate people for a job that is adequately done and
if that moves them toward the mid-point that's all well and good.
The goal is not to get everybody in the middle.
Don Ashworth - The salary cube as was recommended in the plan does not bring people
to a mid-point as quickly as does the Johnson cube. That's all I
am saying. The first cube we had brought people to a mid-point area
faster. We had people up to a total increase of 17% per year.
The statement then was, we are not really striving to that so we
brought back, dropped that whole cube back.
Mayor Hamilton - You have got to tie together your salary ranges. If you look at
the ones I have in there you can see the whole range. That range
is 1982 suggested range. What I did to reach that is to take
mean from 1981 study and I increased those means by 9.2% to give
me a mid-point. If we go back to Dale's (Geving) question, the
I
add one more level onto
Then you are developing
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Council Meeting January 25, 1982
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way you get that Consumer Price Index in your salary structure, if
the cpr is only a 4% move that year, your raises are adjusted
accordingly. They only go up 4% or some increment within reason.
Councilman Geving - I just want to make sure that the system we develop today will not
have to be changed next year and go through this again.
Councilman Neveaux - I think one of the problems is we are trying to develop a perfect
system which is absolutely impossible first of all. I would
suspect that we would probably be going through this type of
discussion each and every year because the job descriptions that
we write for our employees are different than job descriptions
that we see in a composite kind of a all metro wide type document
and to try to change our system to totally fall in step with a
metro system, I think although noteworthy in its intent, I don't
think it's possible. I find a great deal of difficulty in trying
to say that in fact under Senior Account Clerk, that the duties
of that individual performs in this community are identical to the
job description that is put forth in the Stanton Survey. I
think that we need to have some flexibility and some
individualization of the positions and along with that some
different salary ranges and mid-points than what is in the Stanton
Survey. I think the Stanton Survey is fine from a standpoint of
giving us some bench marks to work from but not to be totally
locked in to that. I think that in a community such as Chanhassen
which is in my estimation doing an excellent job with the limited
amount of people, typically the individuals are doing more than
just the kinds of things that you will find in a typical job
description and I think we need to identify that and reward those
individuals somewhat differently than perhaps is found in a
typical all-metro system.
Mayor Hamilton - Why don't we go through what I have done here in my attempt to not
create a perfect system but to suggest some guidelines that we can use
and use from this point on as a guideline for salary administration.
Let me start with the 13 cities. I did look at the Stanton Report
because it did have all the cities included in there, based on
population and the 13 cities was not ever suggested by myself. Don
suggested it so I thought I would use that seeing as how it was his
criteria in the first place. I merely selected cities that are of
equal size but I would assume that tasks within cities that are within
the same size as you have are going to be within a similar range.
Certainly every job may be slotted a little differently but their
tasks should be somewhat the same. When you have 22 people in two
communities their tasks have to be more equal than a community with
22 people and one with 75. So what I did was take from a list of the
10,000 and smaller communities. I started right at the top of the
list and I went down and I took seven communities that are larger
than Chanhassen. I took six that are smaller. I didn't take any
communities from the bottom eight. The smallest one that I selected
was Waconia and that is the nineth smallest community. I followed
Mr. Johnson's recommendation and what we had discussed and I applied,
I went through it and I was looking for similar things within the
Stanton Survey and within reason I tried to slot the positions based
on what Don's information is and based on the Johnson information. I
didn't try to create anything new. I was trying to slot positions
and what you do, as Wally (Johnson) so succinctly puts it; he says,
if you get positions that are kind of grouped together you just
mush them together and that is one salary range. That's one grade
level. Otherwise you would have 22 grade levels. So you do mush them
Council Meeting January 25, 1982
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together and you set your salary accordingly. In most cases
in mine, I had set it so the bottom people were being, it wasn't
an average but I looked at their salary and I just said, well, I
this looks like a good figure. Another test that Wally (Johnson)
used that would apply was a percentage of increase from one job
to the next in dollars and he said that should have continuity
to that. So after having gone through this exercise I tried to
see what percent of change it would be and it seemed to come out
reasonably well. The smallest change between t\vO levels was 10%.
The largest was 21.8%.
Councilman Geving - What were you trying to do there again?
Mayor Hamilton - For instance, the difference between the Manager's mid-point and
the Public Works Director and the Community Development Director
is 15.6%. Wally's (Johnson) point being that you don't want to
have great gaps between positions nor do you want to have ranges
that are one or two percent different. You should have enough
leeway there so that if another position comes along you just
slot it in there. That seemed to corne out reasonable as far as
I was concerned.
Councilman Geving - Is there any rationale for the ranking of jobs that Wally
(Johnson) did. I didn't see that it meant anything in terms
of his final determinations.
Mayor Hamilton - What he did, Don and I sat down and talked with him, he didn't
know anybody in Chanhassen and he didn't know any of the people
who work here. He didn't know anything about the positions.
What he did was to read the job descriptions and being he is quite
familiar with the Hays System, he applied what he saw in the
job descriptions to the Hays System and he slotted the positions I
based on that. He didn't know if it was male or female. He didn't
know if they were 50 or 20. I told him nothing about any of the
employees. It was strictly a very subjective thing. T;felt it
\vas a good evaluation on his part. Consequently, afte:c I reviewed
his report I merely went through and made some comments of my own
of what I felt we need to accomplish tonight and how I arrived
at my salary figures on the last page. I am certainly not saying
those are hard and fast, I am suggesting that those are reasonable
ranges. On the third page of my report there are five items there
that we need to deal with this evening. We have spent, probably
too much time trying to come to some conclusion on this particular
item.
Councilman Neveaux - I think we certainly have spent a great deal of time and
resources in this process and it's all well and good, arriving
at something that's going to be the fairest and most workable
for everybody concerned. I guess as I looked at this process,
although I was on the outside as were several of the other
councilmembers, I was under the feeling that the professional
folks that we have hired within this community to give us
guidance and suggestions were to present us with a proposal
and guidelines to follow, etc. and as we approach the
process, I am looking at their recommendations in November and
December, there are some concerns of councilmembers about I
the process and the cube and at the end of December then
we decided to get a consultant, another professional individual
experienced in the salary review and compensation packages,
to corne up with four specific tasks which I understand is
the recommendation, which is not dated but I would assume that
it's last week, was going to be the end of it or in essence
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Council Meeting January 25, 1982
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we really don't accept the cube that we had in December and the
plan that we had in December and/or the recommendation of the
consultant and now I see we are kind of looking at three plans.
I am somewhat concerned about that. I just do not want to drag
this out any longer. I think the suspense is very difficult for
everyone concerned, from the people on this body down through the
staff and certainly the most affected the employees. I agree with
the Mayor that we should definitely bring this to a head this
evening and make a decision that represents, at this point in time,
our best estimate of resolution to the problem. May I ask the
Mayor or Don where Mr. Johnson is tonight? I certainly would have
liked to have seen him here this evening to present this report
and go through it with us. As you well know, you can write
something and you still need to have someone there to flush it
out a little bit and answer questions specifically and I would
hate to put either the Mayor or the City Manager on the spot to
answer for someone elses report.
Mayor Hamilton - Mr. Johnson is a very capable person. However, you have to know him.
He is a little eccentric. He will not go out in the evening. He
will not drive in the evening. He said there isn't anything in that
report that you don't understand.
Councilman Neveaux - As I remember our discussions back in December,it was a question
that you were not particularly satisfied with this report and
you wanted to bring Mr. Johnson in to give us a experts opinion
on this document in a few areas and now we have that and I have
not had an opportunity to read this but it looks like perhaps we
are talking about adding some additional things to consider which
I am not ready to think about this tonight. I don't know whether
they changed this or whether they changed that or whether they
agreed with this or agreed with that. It appears to me that
this is prolonging something that we have already prolonged
probably beyond what it should be.
Mayor Hamilton -- If you read and digested Mr. Johnson's report you won't have any
trouble with mine. All I have done is taken the 13 cities which was
one of the things that Wally suggested was to,probably one of the
things you ought to do is compare cities of the same size. I merely
did that. I selected 13 cities that are comparable size and I created
a dollar structure out of that. I think the Johnson report and
information that he supplied is very good. He basically is saying
that the book that we have that Don has created is good. There were
a couple of adjustments that he would suggest that we make. Nothing
very serious. He felt, that as Don has stated that the positions
came out very close to what Don had suggested. He did note that
our salary administration is very competitive within the metropolitan
area.
Councilman Geving - I, too, agree with John (Neveaux). I think we have spent much more
time this year than the four years that I have been on the Council
on determining salary for the staff, but I think it's an important
process. It's one that we must take time and do it right and I
had no problem with the hiring of our consultant to come up with
his guidelines and I think that he did a good job. I, too, would
like to talk to him personally and maybe got a little bit better
understanding of what he was attempting to do. His report is
complete. From my own personal standpoint I think I am about ready
to make a decision, in my own mind, on how we think we ought to
go. I think some of the guidelines that I spelled out or at
least talked about the last time we met on this was that I
Council Meeting January 25, 1982
-10-
personally want to keep the salary increases at a rate
that was less than 10%, something in the neighborhood of the
budget figure of less than $40.000 or so which we had provided I
for and to arrive at those cities that I felt were competitive
and that were in our market area and I think the Mayor has
done it. Again, I repeat what I said earlier but I think
this adequately spells out what I was looking for in the Mayor's
suggested comparison cities. In reviewing what the Mayor
did here, I don't think that, John, this is very different
I think that in the two pages or so that Torn (Hamilton) has
put together he is really just explaining ho~v he arrives at
those 13 cities and that was the basis of a recommendation
here from the consultant. Personally, on page 3 of this report
dated 1/25/82 I am willing to accept the 13 communities to
be used for comparison purposes as proposed by the Mayor.
Councilman Neveaux - I did not take the time to compare this with schedule C in
the report of Johnson. One of them appears to be comparing
or listing population and number of employees and I don't
know what these figures are over here.
Councilman Geving - One is population and one is dollars. Tom's has got a dollar
figure.
Councilman Neveaux - You are taking the means of the Manager's salary, is that it?
I did not get that.
Councilman Geving - That's what Tom's 13 cities represent.
Councilman Neveaux - How does the populations average out?
We are not comparing the same things.
this page and oranges on this page.
Mayor Hamilton - Not at all. We have apples on both pages. I am comparing cities I
that are the same size as Chanhassen. That list of 13 communities
is just 13 communities selected, I am not sure why, but they were
selected. Some of them are near us and some of them are not.
You can see the population figures on there. There are eight of
them that are quite a bit larger than Chanhassen. I don't think
there are any that are smaller.
Councilman Geving - But out of those 13 there are six of them with asterisk that
are under 10,000 in population and all of those six are over here
on the mean salary of the Manager.
Councilman Neveaux - That's the only thing that I can read out of here is the Manager's
salary and the fact that seven of them are larger than in
population. I didn't know this until just now. Thatls why
I am having difficulty relating to these figures.
Councilman Geving - That's why, all along, I never really liked this selection of
13 cities that has been used consistently throughout all of the
information we have received on all the previous salary information
because I never agreed with the 13 selected cities and here for
the very first time the Mayor has pulled together what, I think,
represents 13 like cities in terms of both the Manager's mean
salary and those that represent approximately the same population.
Mayor Hamilton - I had never seen this list of cities. I didn't know why we had
these 13 cities.
Councilwoman Swenson - I am confused because there is a listing on the back of this
form and I know I have seen it before.
Councilman Geving - Yes, we have all seen it.
Councilwoman Swenson - He is a list of the same cities we are talking about.
Don Ashworth - One list is the 13 original cities and on top of that I have put in
the 13 cities that Tom had suggested. There are overlaps in both.
In terms of the employees and again, I think that data sheet as included
in the Johnson report is misleading. It has Oakdale, for example,
shows 33 employees, yet in fact Oakdale has 23 employees. Ten employees
The number of employees?
We have got apples on
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Council Meeting January 25, 1982
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are associated with their public safety department. What I did in this
listing is I excluded public safety and I think, first of all this is
a comparison of cities that you are going to use for all positions.
I really don't know whether we have police or don't have police how
that affects the comparison that's going to be carried out for Bill Monk.
Secondly, we have ten employees, ten police personnel serve this city.
If we had a police department there would be a police chief, my job
would be easier in terms of writing the bars and in terms of the snow
bird problems, in terms of the negotiations that have occurred with
the county. All of those functions right now are coming back into my
office. It should be a comparison one way or the other. If you make
that exclusion you will see that there is a number of those that have
seven or eight employees. I don't think that's fair either. One of
them is a treasurer's post, the other one is a clerk-treasurer. Again,
I guess I have combined the two lists and come up with an average
portion in there. This is going to be the most relevant one you have.
Receptionist will probably be another one but where this is going to fall
down is going to be in terms of all the other positions in the City.
There are significant differences, if you are just trying to gear into
whatever 13 we are going to corne up some real differences in terms of
comparable salaries and where people are positioned, Utility Superintendent
Street Superintendent, we have those two in the same level. What that
does is put Schlenk above Boucher. Those two are foreman type positions.
We are creating inequities in here in terms of some of these positions.
A number of these people, and as I have tried to show in that last sheet
here, I met with Mr. Johnson and the Mayor in terms of how this was
going to affect employees. I really walked out of that meeting believing
that the salary ranges that we were looking at were comparable. That
the position descriptions and how they would interrelate was comparable.
We talked in terms of exempt persons, non-exempt. I knew that there
was a lot of rumors occuring here. I called everyone together. I told
them, I related to them that the Council had hired a consultant, what
it was that was proposed to be accomplished, everything that I had
believed to that point would reflect that there is not going
to be significant changes for the people that work here. If we adopt
this we are talking about 33% of the people getting a zero percent
increase. With the park foremen, utility superintendent, street
superintendent, different salary levels, how can I go back to some of
these people and try to relate where it is that they stand.
Councilwoman Swenson - I have to interrupt you because I have three levels in front of
me and my first question when we started this evening was for
an explanation of the Mayor's. You are saying how do we go
back to this, I don't know what you are referring to any more.
Don Ashworth - I am taking the one that shows the Mayor's 13 salary chart and the
affects back to the positions in this city.
Councilman Geving - I can't believe that you would have even spoken to any of the
employees at this point.
Don Ashworth - If I have gotten any criticism back it's been that I didn't take and
meet with them sooner. This has been going on for a long period of
time.
Councilman Geving - I don't know how you could have met with them when there was no
conclusive information that you could provide them. It would be
better to be silent than to give them any false hope that there
would be a substantial increase.
Councilman Neveaux - We talked about this last week Dale (Geving), and I heard someone
on this table mention the fact that Don had not been talking with
the employees to tell them what's going on and that was spoken of
as being something that was not acceptable to them. That they
Council Meeting January 25, 1982
-12-
wanted a manager that would be talking to the employees
and now we are saying that he should not have been talking
to them.
Councilman Geving - No, I didn't mean it that way. You should always give
guidance to your employees but in this case he had no
information to pass on to them. I would hope he wasn't
showing them tables like this.
Don Ashworth - Everyone wants to finalize this thing. I do, as well. We haven't
had a chance to really carry out an analysis of this. How is this
going to affect the 22 people you have here. Does it mean a zero
percent increase for 33% of them? There is something wrong.
Mayor Hamilton - How did you corne up with that?
Don Ashworth - I am counting them.
Mayor Hamilton - You haven't raised the range for 1982 I suspect. According to
what I have done, I couldn't see where anybody was getting zero.
Don Ashworth - I have taken the various positions, Senior Account Clerk, I am
showing here as a $13,800.
Mayor Hamilton - The salary is $14,449, Senior Account Clerk, mid-point $16,500.
Councilwoman Swenson - Are you working from the Mayor's appendix A from his letter
tonight?
Don Ashworth - The only thing I have is a statement that the 13 cities and taking
the average salary that was paid in those 13, using that letter.
Mayor Hamilton - If you want to do a comparison quickly, if you look at what I have
done,just because you have got the whole range and then just look at
column 3 , it says 1981 salary, just pick one, Planning Secretary.
apparently she is being paid presently $12,156, the mid-point that
I would suggest is $13,500. The next position, Laborer, being paid
$13,524 falls in the same category so it's a couple dollars over I
mid-point.
Don Ashworth - Are we comparing apples and apples?
Mayor Hamilton I am not looking at cubes right now. I am saying if you just want
to make a comparison of what their 1981 salary is to a range that
is being suggested for 1982. This includes a 9Yz% increase in the
range. All I am saying is that those people are below the mid-point
and that is based on whatever their, let's assume that their rate
is a 3, the Planning Secretary for instance, the current salary is
$12,156. That person is rated a 3. She is at 90% which puts her
just above the 88% which is in the 88 to 96% range. That means
there can be a 7 to 9% increase for that individual and that person
can be evaluated again in nine to 12 months and that's a
management decision. If they want to review her at nine months
fine. If they want to wait for 12 months fine. That's up to you.
Don Ashworth - One of the things that you are doing different than the Johnson
report is you are looking at a 1981 salary in comparison to a 1982
range.
Mayor Hamilton - Thatls the only way you can corne up with what their increases
should be.
Councilman Geving - What Tom is saying to you is that there is an increase for
virtually every employee. Not the 1/3 as suggested that won't
get any increase. That's not true. You can go dO~1 anyone
of those and I think you will find that there is an increase.
Unless the guy is going to be a poor performer.
Councilman Neveaux - Can I say in column 5 says proposed adjustments in Johnson
cube and Chanhassen ranges, do they relect the actual
performance ratings of each of the individuals?
Bill Monk - That column represents existing 1981 salaries with existing 1981 mid-
points with their performance ratings thrown in. I am very confused
if we are comparing it to 1982 mid-points because when I tried to do
that it broke the bank. The percents that I was coming out of the cube
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Council Meeting January 25, 1982
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with for individual positions were phenomenal so I assumed he must have
been comparing 1981 with 1981. I was coming up with 16 percents and 18
percents because, as I understand this, if you were in the 80 to 88
percentile, would you be eligible for sever to eight percent each six
months or is that for the year? I assumed that was for each six months.
Mayor Hamilton - Let's just take January as an example. It's January right now and
you are up for review. You are at 88% which you have done an
outstanding job and you are in the B performance zone so that means
that you can receive a nine to 10% increase. It can be either nine
or 10, based on the salary structure for 1982 that would have been
accepted. Let's say that Don bought this, fine, that's perfect I
think it should be done that way, so we could look at your position
and based on that you could receive a 9 or 10% increase and that's
9 or 10% of the mid-point.
Bill Monk - For the year or that six to eight months?
Mayor Hamilton - For that pay period. You say okay, I am going to add a 10% increase
to your salary effective Monday.
Bill Monk - So then if you were re-evaluated nine months from then you could get another
increase.
Mayor Hamilton - That's correct. If you decide that this person should be reviewed in
nine months, but don't forget that that range is not going to more,
so all of a sudden you are not at, you add 10% onto your 88% you are
now at 98%. That would put you up higher. Let's say you are still
rated a 4, it's probably September and you are rated a four still
because you could be reviewed in six to nine months you are being
reviewed again so you can receive another 10 to 11% and you will not
be reviewed again until September of 1983.
Bill Monk - I understand that but I did try and work a few through that way and given
it was based on our text and not on a revisedlschedule but I seriously was
coming up with large amounts. Either I was doing it wrong or something
and I did not think that the budget could withstand that.
Councilman Geving -For a high performer at a low percentile, that's true because it
moves them up quickly. This is a performance cube.
Councilwoman Swenson - That doesn't make sense to me. Here we have a high performer
which is of a benefit to the City and we are saying, we don't
need you anymore go some place else.
Mayor Hamilton - No we are not. What we are saying is and each time that person is
reviewed you should be saying to him and reminding him that don't
forget there isn't anyplace here for you to go. We can get you
eventually up to say 112% of your mid-point and then the only increases
you are going to receive each year after that is whatever the range
is increased. If it's 4% you are eligible for 4%. If it's 10% you
are eligible for 10%. The person has to understand that unless, let's
take Bill again as an example, so we say okay you are doing fine.
You are developing into a 4 rater and he get up towards the top of his
range. If he gets over 104%, it's up to Don then to say okay I am
not going to review you for 18 months. You are going to stay there.
So in that 18 month period that range could increase twice. The next
time that he is reviewed after that 18 months he could still be in line
for a very healthy increase but he also knows that the only position
that he could move into in this community is Don's position should
Don leave. Bill has to understand that and if he isn't satisfied
with that then he has got to be looking some place else anyway. I
think that is the same with all of our employees. We just don't have
any place for them to go and we can't keep creating positions with
higher point values and higher salaries just to keep everybody happy
because we don't have the money.
Council Meeting January 25, 1982
-14-
Councilwoman Swenson - So what you are saying is we are going to get them to the
top bracket as quickly as possible and from there on
there will be no more merit increases it \vill be strictly I
IIcost of living".
Don Ashworth - Again, having just received this this evening, I don't know how .
many it would affect. It's a difference in the Johnson portion
it really appeared as though he was saying 1981 in comparison to
1981 and receive a 10% increase and that would put you at an 1982
scale that was comparable to where you stood before.
Councilman Neveaux - That's what I assumed.
Don Ashworth - I am hearing something different. The biggest concern though is
that in the grouping of these positions has changed over what we
had here.
Councilman Geving - We haven't gotten there yet. That was the third question in
Tom's handout. I have some disagreements with his groupings.
Bill Monk - Tom, have you extended this thing out to find out how much money it
would entail because I have got to believe that this cube which is
geared to getting people to the mid-point, I don't think the budget
can \vithstand it. I would want to check it but like I said I was
comparing 1981 to 1981 and I carne up with something that I would call
it the Johnson cube, which was very close to what we had proposed
in this book. If you changed that to the 1982 mid-point,that's going
to make everybody drop their percentiles, increase their percentages
and the budget just cannot withstand it.
Mayor Hamilton - I guess most people are going to be eligible for a 9% increase and
that's going to be the annual increase.
Councilman Geving - Why couldn't you set up your cube on that basis?
Mayor Hamilton - We can. There is nothing sacred about this cube. I
Councilman Geving - Those are somethings that I would question here.
Councilman Neveaux - Why do we wait till the last minute. I sense this thing being
delayed another week until we get staff review on the actual
net affects it's going to have on our budget this year.
Mayor Hamilton - I have been working on that thing now for about three weeks, John,
without a lot of help from anybody else and I have sat up here
nights until 10:00 working on it. If you want to do it, go right
ahead.
Councilman Neveaux - I am just saying that this is a last second document and it has
some imput that the staff is concerned about and I am concerned
about it too. If in fact it fits in and it flies with what
we have approved in the budget, I will have little difficulty
with it. I just don't think you have the answer and they
have the answers to what the net affect is going to be. As
you remember in December, this Wally Johnson thing was a last
second type of a thing and the uncertainty that everybody is
going through here, particularly staff, is very difficult.
Councilman Geving - I am not so sure that we have to pay much attention to the staff
because.
Councilman Neveaux - I do. I pay a lot of attention to the staff. I think they
are very important people.
Councilman Geving - I agree. They are important but this is a decision that the
Council and only the Council can make. What I have seen before
me tonight I am not in disagreement with the Mayor and his I
position on the five points that he has prepared on page 3.
I do have some questions about the grades and the ranges as
proposed. I am not totally in disagreement with his nine
grades. I think that's fine but I do have some problems with
some of the people in those nine grades. I right tonight can
tell you that I am satisfied with what I see and I would be
willing to wholeheartedly accept what the Mayor has presented}
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Council Meeting January 25, 1982
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including the 9.5% increase in ranges. I am not certain what the
total position will be in terms of the budget for the year. Whether
this will exceed $40,000. I am not sure of that but what I have
seen here represents one heck of a lot of work. The things I
would question would be those positions that have been placed for
example, in grades 6, 7, and 8. Those are the only ones I would
question. The Utility Superintendent and Treasurer in group 6
along with the Street Superintendent being placed in grade 7 and
for that matter grade 8, I never have considered the Senior Planner,
in my view, in the same grade level as the Public Works Director.
I would like to see an adjustment there. I originally thought the
Treasurer's position should belong back with those various foremen
in grade 5 and that, if I were to make a recommendation on appendix
A, I would interchange the Street Superintendent and the Utility
Superintendent and their positions. Moving the Street Superintendent
back to grade 6 and the Utility Superintendent to grade 7 and
along with grade 7 I would move the Senior Planner into that
position and leave the Public Works Director alone in grade 8.
Those are the only changes I would see on appendix A. I can tell
you for one councilman, I am willing to accept what I see tonight
if I can be assured that we have not exceeded the budget.
Councilwoman Swenson - Did you eliminate grade 2?
Mayor Hamilton - Two is an open space. As a position is filled, based on what the
requirements for that position are, it could be slotted within areas
or create a new grade.
Councilman Geving - Torn, you indicated in your handout that you had changed some of
the names of the titles of these positions to become consistent
with other communities. Would you describe which ones those are.
Mayor Hamilton - Community Development Director seemed to be more commonly known as
Senior Planner. Our Building and Zoning Inspector to Chief Inspector.
Councilman Neveaux - I honestly do not have the ability to digest the ramifications
of appendix A on Tom's memo of this evening or the things that
Bill has brought up in regard to applying the cube to the 1982
mid-points. I have always assumed that it would be applied to
the 1981 and I indeed have some serious questions about what it's
going to do to the budget. I can see, also, by putting these
maximums, I just assume that perhaps we may have some difficulty
with putting these maximums on here in stopping some of our people.
I am wondering what is happening with some of these figures
and what outright affect it has on some of our employees.
Don Ashworth-The slopting of Dositions definitely affects where you put them because
you are establishing ranges for each of the positions. The problem I
have is, we had gone through a point system to try to determine of
responsibility levels for each of the positions and so there is some
inter-relation between them. I think that these have been time honored
principles in terms of the street foreman's relationship to the
utility foreman, that the park keeper is literally underneath the
street but he is above the equipment operators. The responsibility that
he has with the kids, etc., in the summer. The planning secretary
is a good position. She is a knowledgeable person. It's a responsible
position but it is not equivalent to that of the housing secretary and
senior account clerk. Johnson's study also re-affirmed the basic
grouping of positions but we are seeing differences in this one.
Mayor Hamilton - That's because I have applied the same principle that you used to a
different set of cities. That's the only difference. I want everybody
to understand that. The only difference and what Don is saying and
what he has suggested and what I am suggesting is that I selected the
13 cities out of a book that are of equivalent size to what we are
and I guess I shouldn't have done it because it seems to be very
Council Meeting January 25, 1982
-16-
confusing to everybody. All I am saying is I want Chanhassen
to be cOlnpared with communities of like size. I don't think we
can continually compare ourselves to Hopkins and Edina and
Burnsville and every other city of 25,000 around us just because
we want a compare ourselves to somebody and get our salaries up.
If the people who are working in this city go out on the street
looking for a job they are going to be competing for jobs in the
cities that I have listed on here and I am sure that they will be
also competing for jobs in the larger cities if they can find a
job there, I don't know.
Councilman Neveaux - That might be where the whole crux of this thing is pivoting
right no~v. The selection of Don's 13 cities and the selection
of Torn's 13 cities. It appears to me that there are some
cities in your list that truly are not comparable to ours,
whether it's from the standpoint of number of employees or
population, location, etc. and there is also some cities
in Torn's list that are not comparable in that they may not
even have a city manager only six or seven or eight employees.
So there are some differences there. I don't know how many
cities are in that list but there might be a better way to
get all the same kind of apples. Why don't we take that
approach and then corne back with something that truly is
compatible because I would suspect that perhaps you looked
at them mainly from a standpoint of population rather than
the fact that Orono, Lake Elmo, Rosemount and St. Paul Park
don't even have a city manager and they only have seven
employees or eight employees or only a treasurer instead of
a city manager. That type of thing. We should, in fact, try
to get comparable cities.
Don Ashworth - I agree. This is the reason I put them on. If you are going to do
that then I would recommend taking a look at those as I have listed,
dropping out those that I don't think are comparat again when
you are in six or seven employees.
Mayor Hamilton - You say Orono not comparable with seven employees, just looking at
the manager's job, they do say they have a city administrator which
you have been called and I am saying that city administrator, city
manager it's all the same thing, even clerk-administrator.
There is a city administrator earning $36,500. He even has a car
for his own use and we don't have that but because you are saying
they only have seven employees then it's not comparable.
Don Ashworth - No. What I am saying is, in terms of all employees. Where you are
down into six, seven or eight employees where does a Karen fall or
a Jean, again in Lake Elmo they don't even have sewer or water. They
have got no park system. It's harder to draw those comparisons.
The other problem is in terms of, you noted it would be better if
Chanhassen changed some of the descriptions, Community Development
Director to Senior Planner. Senior Planner is a distinct position
under the Stanton Survey but it is not one who is responsible for
carrying out HRA activities. There could be some in that list,
don't take me wrong, but for the most part it is just that, a
Senior Planner a person in a department who has somebody above
them. They carry out a certain operational area. Let me go down
the list in comparison to the ranking portion that we had from
before. I'll skip around a little here. Heavy Equipment Operator
3. The Stanton Survey relates to, there are several public works
positions but the two that we are really looking at are Light
Equipment Operator and Heavy Equipment Operator, now what appears
to have happened in most of, especially in the smaller cities,
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Council Meeting January 25, 1982
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is they have taken their tenured employees, 2 or 3, and moved them up
to a heavy equipment classification. Those with less tenure are coming
in are light equipment operators. The plan portion as we have developed
speaks about equipment operators and basically we are averaging the
salary in that area. If you are going to do this then I would consider
having under the utility maintenance operator, light equipment operator
and that would really be Doug Mitchell's position. That would put him
in a comparable level with your utility maintenance operator which is
Art and leave your heavy equipment operator where Tom has shown it only
that would be two positions, Syl and Curt. Under 4 I am putting light
equipment operator and under 5 leaving heavy equipment operator and
just changing the 3 to a 2. You have got your park foreman in that
same grouping. That is different than what we had proposed before
because what we have said is that Dale carries out all of the duties
that Syl and Curt would carry out but during the summer months he
has the additional responsibilities associated with all of the part time
kids, etc. You either have to move down the heavy equipment operators
or move up park foreman. Somehow there should be a differential between
park foreman and your heavy equipment operators.
Councilman Geving - The only comment I would make to that statement is that you cannot
move a park foreman and leave the shop foreman or the mechanic
which is a heavy duty job in grade 5.
Don Ashworth - Park foreman and mechanic previously were shown in the same classification.
Councilman Geving - They have always been shown that way. This is the first time,
your last proposal, was the first time I saw the park foreman moved
down into the same position level with the shop foreman.
Mayor Hamilton - In the survey there was one city in our grouping that had park foreman.
I do know what Dale does and I think he does an excellent job at it,
and that position paid $10.01 an hour in the community where they had
a park foreman. I am not trying to play games with this thing. I
was merely trying to slot things in like spots and in the process I
made a mess of things.
Councilman Geving - No, you did an excellent job.
Bill Monk - I would like to explain a couple of things. I will speak purely as a
Public Works Director. There is a lot of reasoning behind exhibit D,
page 79, salary grade positions, salary really was one of the last things
that went into that. Some of the council's comments about people being able
to do a multitude of jobs within the city had a lot to do with the dropping
of the heading in the light equipment operators. We specified them as
equipment operators. The employees were not too happy about that. My
thoughts on that were that everyone in the city will learn to do just about
everything and will be able to do that. Also looked at, what I thought
was a big inequity about Dale Gregory's position with the supervision and
responsibility I was putting on him in the park area. I thought it unfair
to leave him as an equivalent position as an equipment operator and he was
much more into the area and equivalent to the shop foreman in responsibility
and know-how and that type of thing. There is from a public works standpoint
a move in the direction towards what I thought I had heard the council
saying in the slotting of these positions. I guess I am looking at and
hearing that what the Mayor put out was largely based on salary and I get
very worried about mixing salary with the responsibility level and showing
these positions as skipped around. I guess I have no comment to make
except that extreme care was taken in slotting the positions as to
responsibility levels and salary in exhibit D and I would have to look at
appendix A for quite a while because I may have quite a few people to go
back to and I am concerned.
Councilman Geving - Basically all of the people that are shown on the Mayor's appendix
A work for you Bill. Virtually all of these people that are
identified here. I see possibly a reason to break grade 5 into
Council Meeting January 25, 1982
-18-
two pieces, one which would include people like who are
higher level individuals, the shop foreman and the park
foreman in terms of responsibilities so that those lesser I
individuals like the people who work for them like the heavy
equipment operators could be in, let's say Sa. If I were
looking at this again based on what you said, you are saying
that some of these people that have been identified in the Mayor's
grade 5 should be broken out as let's say supervisors and have
two classes.
Bill Monk - I think what you have just done is created levels 6 and 7 as shown in
the original. That's what we tried to do in the original between 6
and 7 is create what you just made a Sa and 5b. There are reasons,
we can try to explain away everything and I am not trying to argue
with the imput that's been made but I just want to make the council
aware of the reasoning that was put into the study because I don't
face ten angry people and then again I don't want the city to be put
in a bad financial picture either.
Councilman Geving - The logic of what you are talking about is that the heavy
equipment operators who work for, possibly the park foreman,
I suspect, probably the utility superintendent and the street
superintendent, but they could work for one of those two
people, the park foreman or the mechanic and if you were to
break this off strictly on the basis of salary, you would
want to have another grade level in there.
Councilman Neveaux - It appears that there is a larger step from the area or grade
6 to grade 7 than some of the other. There may be room for the
establishment of another. In other words, move 7, 8, and 9
up a notch and make it 8, 9, and 10 and put in another 7, I
maybe adjust that 6 down a tab. There is a three hundred and
some dollars a month difference between 6 and 7 on the minimum
and it's been going up about $150 on the other bumps until it
gets up to that point.
Councilwoman Swenson - I recognize, Mayor, you have put an awful lot of time in this
and I know the rest of you have certainly considered very
carefully what this is all about, I am a little concerned
about pitching all these around for two basic reasons, one
is that we do have a traditional position category I guess
that the city has followed for a considerable period of
time and basically I think that knowing anybody who has really
sat down and analyzed these positions and what these people
do, I think it's very important that we have a bench mark
to utilize but I think we do have a unique setup because
I think we have the versatility of each employee and
responsibilities are not necessarily categorized by any
municipal book. I think that Bill and Don and Scott have
worked very hard trying to establish the right categories
for these people to go into on the basis of the versatility
of their jobs are and I guess I am just a little nervous
about changing them because they have to work with them and
they know what the nitty--gritty of each job is and I don't.
The mid-points, salaries may be somewhat negotiable but I
get nervous when we change that. I think there has been a
lot of time, a lot of effort put in.
Mayor Hamilton - I guess I obviously had a problem with where these positions were
slotted also because based on reviewing the 13 cities they just
didn't corne up to where they were slotted. I very honestly
didn't play any games with this thing. I just went through the
survey and maybe that's wrong but I don't have any other information
to use. I merely took what was in the survey and I applied a 9.5%
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Council Meeting January 25, 1982
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factor to the mean that I came up with and in those cases where there
weren't adequate number of positions, I took the whole ränge and said
well, that can't be that far off if you take the mean for everybody
I felt that would give them the benefit of the doubt because you have
got Minneapolis and St. Paul in there. Just the slotting of some of
these positions, I really had a little difficulty with. I am not saying
that what I have is right.
Councilwoman Swenson - I guess that I have always been impressed with the versatility
that we have and I don't know if we can compare and put these
people in a box like that.
Don Ashworth - I should not say that we don't care on the salary area, I think the
comparisons and mid-points that we have attempted to make comparison
to are reasonable but in terms of the relationship of positions regardless
of what salary portion you put in here because you have already
established, under yours, a high, Manager, a low, Receptionist.
You key pegged a number of them in between. I think_thewhole_Jhierarchy
as it's built up in here relates to laborer, equipment operators, grouping
those together in terms of light, maintenance operator, foreman positions,
grouping those together, superintendent positions, grouping those
together. Again, I feel that the recommendation we made in terms of
1982 mid-point salaries are reasonable and again, you have carried out
this study portion and would like to see that rechanneled into those
13 cities or at least hopefully modification of those. If anything
please keep the inter-relationship that has been developed in here.
We have met with each and everyone of these employees. We have gone
through where they reasonably stand and why.
Mayor Hamilton - But Don, your inter-relationship is fine. I understand your hierarchy
and how that all works but yours is tied to salary as mine is. I am
strictly looking at positions and salaries and I am going to talk
about Karen's position, for instance and I am not going to talk about
personalities. There is absolutely no way that I could believe that
the mid-point for a secretary,as I know. that position which may be
way off base, but that that position that mid~point should be
over $19,000. I can't believe that.
Don Ashworth - At the last council meeting you had picked out four positions and had
asked that they be moved back, manager's secretary, housing secretary,
senior account clerk, and engineering tech.
Mayor Hamilton - It wasn't my intent to move any of them back per se, I wanted to have
them have the comparison. To say that you are going to move the
manager's secretary back to 5 doesn't satisf"\T me because I still
don't know that 5 is where that position ought to be. You are just
arbitrarily moving it back. It still comes out to $17880 mid-point
which would mean that the maximum on that job is somewhere $21000.
Don Ashworth - Starting with the city manager and going into the 34, whatever it is,
and dropping them all back down, what's going to happen then is everything
is going to get pushed back as far as the actual salary but the
inter-relationship can still stand unless maybe what you want to do is
pick out one and say, okay, manager's secretary should be in the same
grouping as 4, it should be in that same area. I have a problem with
that because that would be the person that she is supervising,
administrative aid. There is a very small difference.
Councilman Neveaux - I thought we had it pretty well decided the order of ranking within
the city from the receptionist position up to the city manager
and as I look at exhibit D in the original book and some changes
that were made in the discussions that at the December meeting
and then as I look at the schedule that came from Wally Johnson
I see little change in that order and I guess I would be
comfortable keeping that order whether it is exhibit D as modified
Council Meeting January 25, 1982
-20-
in December or Wally's schedule F, I don't have problems with
either one of them.
Mayor Hamilton - As I was going through this I was attempting to slot positions
I throught they should fall and when I did laborer, I came up
with general laborer in the survey it was like $16,000/$17,000
for a mid-point. Then the laborer would be higher than the
manager's secretary and I can't buy that. It's easier to find
a laborer than it is a manager's secretary. I really had some
problems with that. So actually the laborer's position that I
have on here is slotted lower than what it actually came out on.
Councilman Neveaux - That's the recommendation that Wally Johnson had. He puts
laborer in grade 4, administrative aid and senior account
clerk in grade 5. I am looking at categories. When we
decide on this, when we decide which group of cities we are
going to use, I am very comfortable with this and I can see
by moving around this pecking order, very much we are going to
have some difficulties with the folks that we have hired to
run this city for us. The dollars are something else.
We can look at it as outsiders and in essense we are outsiders
as far as the day to day operation of the city and who does
what and how often and with whom and reporting to whom,
responsibilities that are inter-related within the various
departments in the city, I really don't believe that I could
sit do,ill and restructure and group those categories any better
than the people that we hired to run the city for us as
full time professionals.
Mayor Hamilton - There were two positions that were out of sink all the way through
this whole thing. One was treasurer and one was the park and
recreation coordinator. Based on your descriptions they don't
fit the title so he said those are two positions that you have
to slot and they are unique positions you decide where they
ought to be.
Councilman Geving - To me, I relate everything to appendix A of the Mayor's report
and that's the structuring of positions within grades and I
believe that ~ve are fairly close. I think we are extremely
close to what was shown to me as exhibit D and to our
consultant's array of various jobs and the only comment that
again I would like to make is that I have a problem with
grade 5 and some of those positions there. Now I notice
that originally under exhibit D the engineering tech was moved
back grade from the park and rec. coordinator, the mechanic,
the park foreman, is there logic to that?
Bill Monk - The engineering tech is a very difficult position to peg in that I
left it vague as engineering technician. I did not number it a 1, 2
or 3. Maybe I was overzealous. I thought perhaps the city would move
into a tech 2 position. I thought that would logically fit into a
7. After looking at the categories, where everybody was and the beginning
salary that the city could ligitimately offer, I back stepped. Moved
it down to a 6.
Councilman Geving - But you could move him back to what the Mayor is showing here
as a level 4. Do we have any problem with the Mayor's grade I?
It is shown in all the charts as a 1. Two, I don't think the I
Mayor has done anything there that hasn't been done before.
We didn't have a position in the 4 grade. We have now moved
the planning secretary, the administrative secretary and the '
laborer there. I don't have any problem with grade 3, including
those light equipment operators in grade 4, I think that's
logical to move Art and Doug there and separate them out. They
are new employees. What I would like to see is if the Mayor
where
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Council Meeting January 25, 1982
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could create one more grade and separate out, what was originally
shown on D as a park and rec. coordinator, the shop foreman, the
park foreman, treasurer, and planning coordinator. I think all
of those people and positions fall together. I don't know how
that fit with your scheme, Tom, but then whatever that next grade
is, whether it's 6 or 7, I personally think that what Tom has shown
as grade 7, treasurer, should be moved out and moved up and that
would leave the utility superintendent in grade 6 and I think
at that point the street superintendent should be moved into grade
6 and move the utility superintendent into grade 7 along with
the chief inspector. In my grade 8 I would have the senior planner/
HRA. My recommended grade 9 I would have the public works director
and the finance director and in grade 10 I have the city manager.
Don Ashworth - The street superintendent literally has most of the employees under
him. The utility superintendent has less people but that's compensated
for by the fact that the expertise associated with the lift stations
and the whole utility system.
Councilman Geving - I have seen people who have had sewer and water, they have to have
a water certificate, right?
Don Ashworth - That's correct.
Councilman Geving - Those command a very good positiDn in most communities and if they
have that certificate they command a pretty good salary and generally
have thought of as a higher grade in my opinion than the street
superintendent. What I did in making my recommended list of grades
is that I created a position higher for the street superintendent
than the people that would be working for him.
Don Ashworth - That's fine but I think those two should be slotted together. I hope
you are not mixing the people who are associated with the jobs but the
jobs themselves.
Councilman Geving - No, I am looking at the street superintendent's job compared to
the utility and I understand there is a great difference in numbers
of people supervised.
Don Ashworth - If you started to check those in terms of people supervised, 'j
responsibilities for this, certificate required
Councilman Geving - What certificate is required for the street superintendent?
Don Ashworth - None.
Councilman Geving - And no degree. Nothing other than experience on the job.
Councilman Neveaux - We have in front of us the book that was handed to us in November
1981 with page 79 on it. We did some discussion on that in
December. We were to consider it this evening with a modified
exhibit D page 79. We also have in front of us schedule F which
follows schedule E in Wally Johnson's report. I honestly believe
that there is very little difference between those three suggestions
to us. I would make one movement within schedule F, I would
suggest that we move in grade 7 the engineer tech back to grade 6
and keep the rest of them in their respective grades. I am not
talking about anything other than that right now. From a standpoint
of coordination, supervision and levels of responsibility, I am
very comfortable with those groupings, with that one change of
moving the engineering tech out of 7 into 6. I think it represents
the most professional approach that we have to the position grading
within the city. As I read it, it represents the best thoughts
of the three managerial folks that we have hired to give us
suggestions as to how to run the city, mainly Ashworth and Martin
and Monk and also seems to represent the way Wally Johnson believes
it should be created. Just for the sake of discussion, I would
move that we accept that position gradation plan represented in
the schedule F from Wally Johnson, with the change of moving
the engineering tech from 7 to 6. I am not talking dollars one
Council Meeting January 25, 1982
-22-
bit.
Councilwoman Swenson - I will second it.
Councilman Neveaux - It is not dated.
Councilman Geving - Are you saying you are accepting 11 grades?
Councilman Neveaux - Yes. Just because there is nobody in the particular grade
does not mean that there may not be in the future. You may
want to take on a planning intern or something and slot him
in grade 2. You may want to take on somebody that's maybe
not a finance director but may move up into the position
and bring that person in at number 9. I am not locked into
that but I just thought for sake of following through in a
somewhat logical manner what thoughts had been put into this
whole document which I thought we all had pretty well agreed
to,with the exception of 3 or 4 points of modification,back
in December.
Councilman Geving - You said 3 or 4 but you only mentioned 1. I would like to get
to the 3 or 4.
Councilman Neveaux - The schedule F that I referred to already moved the senior
account clerk and the administrative aid out of 4 into 5
and the manager's secretary went from 5 to 6.
Mayor Hamilton - In line with what you are trying to accomplish, John, may I ask
us to turn to schedule B in Wally Johnson's report. It may be
the easiest thing to do but it's more complicated in the long run
but maybe it will solve this problem, this is a ranking of jobs
with the city manager being the number 1 position through 17
in this case. If we can agree that this is what the ranking of
the positions within this city ought to be, then you tell us
where to put in mechanic, the heavy equipment operators, should
they be where? We will put them in there and if everybody can
agree that this is exactly how they ought to be ranked within the
community, then we can assign a salary to each one. Forget about
the ranges. Forget about munching them together, that's where
we are having our problems trying to put somebody in a box when
they might be on the fringe of that box and that seems to be where
we are having problems.
Councilman Neveaux - I am having some difficulty with schedule B. I don't believe
that park and recreation coordinator should be number 6 in the
pecking order above the street and utility superintendents. I
also don't believe the engineering tech should be over and above
the manager's secretary/office manager. I think if we were to
move those positions into their appropriate area we would
come up with schedule F.
Mayor Hamilton - The engineering tech, that's a engineering tech 2, I took 2 which
is in the middle. If you are talking about a person with a degree
they would be a little bit higher than a managerrs secretary.
I do definitely agree with the park and recreation coordinator
that it should be dropped.
Councilman Geving - I would say it should be dropped down to either at the end of
11 or depends on what you do with the engineering tech.
I would recommend that we move it at least behind the park
foreman or somewhere in that grouping. It depends on how you
treat 12.
Councilman Neveaux - I have a
Mayor Hamilton - Is there any
in favor say
Councilwoman Swenson - Aye.
Councilman Neveaux - Aye.
Mayor Hamilton - No
Councilman Geving - No.
This is the report from Wally Johnson.
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motion on the floor.
further discussion on
aye.
the motion?
If not, all those
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Council Meeting January 25, 1982
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Councilman Neveaux - I had a comment on 6. I was just grouping them together because
I was going to see how they compared with this. I just have a
feeling we are going around and around and around and we have got
a point of view here and a point of view here. I want to get this
thing resolved. I truly do and I thought we had it. I thought
we had it just so close that all we needed was to look at Johnson's
recommendations, do some modificatiòns and all of a sudden we have
invented another wheel.
Councilwoman Swenson - I was surprised when I read Mr. Johnson's and saw that he had
gone back to the original because I would have anticipated that
he would probably, if anything, gone to the modified.
Councilman Neveaux - Didn't that indicate something to you?
Councilwoman Swenson - Yes.
Councilman Geving - I think the thing that is confusing here is the number of grades
or steps. On exhibit D there is really 11 but there is two blanks,
and so I think that's what the Mayor is trying to do in his appendix
A. He tried to create 9 grades because there was two that didn't
mean anything.
Bill Monk - Nine was put in there for a park and recreation director should one ever
be hired.
Eouncilman Neveaux - We have already moved community development director into nine.
Councilman Geving - If the Mayor had come up with 10, in my view, I would have been
completely satisfied because I would have just moved the community
development director into that position.
Councilman Neveaux Let's agree to move community development director into nine on
exhibit D and eliminate salary grade 2. That's just in the order
of positions.
Mayor Hamilton - I would like to go back to schedule B. Don said he will go and take
schedule B and include those positions that have been left off of that
schedule so that we have every position noted on there. If you will
accept that and Don will come up with a salary range. The question
remains is what communities ought to be used for the survey? We
are back to the 13 communities again. Don noted on his schedule
where he had a list of communities, Orono, Lake Elmo, Rosemount,
Waconia, St. Paul Park, drop those off and North St. Paul. If you
drop off the two top ones and drop off the bottom ones then you have
a better representation. You drop off North St. Paul, Lakeville,
Orono, Lake Elmo, Waconia for sure.
Don Ashworth - I would ask that Rosemount be dropped. They have 15 employees including
their police department which is 8 employees.
Councilman Geving - On your list you still have Champlain, Mendota, Shakopee, Mound,
Chaska, Prior Lake. How about St. Paul Park?
Bill Monk - It is very small and fully developed city.
Councilman Geving - Savage and Wayzata seem to fit.
Scott Martin - There is not a single community development or HRA Director in that whole
list of cities, what do you compare my position to?
Mayor Hamilton - I suspect we will have to find something to compare yours to.
Don Ashworth - I would aEkthat you look at the schedule that you have in front of you
and drop those I have shown as not comparable. Many of these cities
have an assessor.
Councilman Geving - How many communities does that give us?
Bill. Monk - The one problem that we have had with picking cities is we have come up
with a dozen criteria to compare cities, development potential, population,
number of employees, land area, it goes on and on. There are just tremendous
comparisons that can be made to come up with a list. It is very difficult.
Don Ashworth - I have 12 cities.
Council Meeting January 25, 1982
-24-
Councilman Geving - Did you keep in St. Paul Park?
Don Ashworth - No.
Mayor Hamilton - You will then develop a salary range for each position, Don, is
that correct?
Don Ashworth - That's correct.
Mayor Hamilton - We will have a range for each.
Bill Monk - I have a question about the cube. Is there a consensus of the council
on the cube? That we go with the revised, the consultants cube?
Mayor Hamilton - When you develop the range make it a 1982 range. Do we want to have
that range to be 9.5% higher than last years or do we want it to
be 10%?
Councilman Geving - I would like to see the 9.5%.
Councilman Neveaux - I thought we had agreed to that.
Mayor Hamilton - And that is 9.5% over the mean that you find of the other communities.
That will give you the mid-point. If you look at where you kind of
feel people are going to be rated, you know how these people are
working and where they are going to be rated, you know what their
salary is now, you know where they are going to fall within the
1982 range, that's going to tell you how many dollars and if you
feel the cube is out of whack they you say so and it's got to be
adjusted. The cube is a suggestion.
Councilman Neveaux - You have got to use the cube then as a way to stay within the
budget.
Don Ashworth - Do you feel comfortable now, I guess I still don't. If somebody sits
at an 85% level, they are rated as average, according to the cube
you can go with a six month reviewal. Is that person eligible for
then up to 16% or do I read Wally's note to say that if that person
then would move up to this 9/10% bracket.
Bill Monk - It probably would be in a 10 to an 11% bracket if I am interpreting
it correctly. He would move from an 85 percentile to a 93 percentile
so after six months he would get a 7 to 9% for the next 9 to 12 months.
If this is to the 1982 mid-point, I guess I feel much more comfortable
with it than projecting against the 1981 which is the way I thought it
had to be. The only other item that I have been worried about was what
it meant to me as public works director in doing job reviews every so
often.
Councilman Geving -
I would like to make one minor adjustment to the cube. That is,
an average performer with a level 3 performance and at the 88
percentile, I would like to change that from 9 to 12 months to
12 months. It doesn't seem significant but if that guy is an
average performer, I don't want to see him for another 12 months
if he is going to get a raise of 7 to 9 percent.
Bill Monk - With a discretion, I guess, we could set it at 12 months.
Councilman Neveaux - This doesn't mean that they have to be reviewed.
Councilman Geving - As long as that is understood, I go along with that.
Bill Monk - The D ratings, when we extended those out did bother me that somebody
could be in the 80 to 88 percentile, be doing a poor job and still get a
6 to 7% and be eligible for another increase in another six months.
Mayor Hamilton - Normally that box is reserved for brand ne\v employees.
Councilman Geving - You are giving that guy who may not have performed well in the
first six months a chance to grow.
Bill Monk - I guess if you take this a maximum increases and leave it to the
discretion of the supervisor. I am just worried about the guy who has
been around here 3 years, four years, five years, and still just isn't
performing. I don't want to be forced to give him a 6 to 7% increase
every six months.
Councilman Neveaux - It is not manditory.
Councilwoman Swenson - I don't think there ought to be any raises if there isn't
merit for it.
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Council Meeting January 25, 1982
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Mayor Hamilton - That's why you get paid a big salary to make those judgments.
Councilwoman Swenson moved to adjourn. Motion seconded by Councilman Neveaux. The
following voted in favor: Mayor Hamilton, Councilwoman Swenson, Councilmen Neveaux and
Geving. No negative votes. Motion carried.
Don Ashworth
City Manager