San Juan County explains employee wages

Published 3:46 pm Friday, August 31, 2012

The following was submitted by San Juan County

San Juan County is now implementing the results of a new employee compensation study and some members of the community have raised questions about how and why this is being done.

The county’s policy is to set employee wages based on the rate of pay for similar positions in surrounding counties and comparable San Juan County employers.  The last compensation study had been done in 1996-1997. In 2008, at the request of AFSCME Local 1849, the county commissioned a new market study, which was conducted in 2009-2011.

The study included all positions other than law enforcement employees (who are in a separate union) and elected officials (whose salaries are set by the Citizens Salary Commission).  Implementation of the study affects 214 regular full and part-time positions.

As expected, some inequalities had developed over the 12 years since the previous study was performed. At the top end, the study found three employees – including two appraisers in the County Assessor’s Office and a program coordinator – were due increases of more than $2 an hour. Nineteen employees received no increase at all.

County administration, in cooperation with the union, took steps to minimize the impact on the county’s budget as the study’s findings were implemented. In cases where there were large differences between the current and new pay ranges, employees were moved to the next closest step in the wage scale from their current pay. Most employees received raises ranging from one cent to 99 cents per hour.

To further minimize the impact on the county budget, the implementation of the study included a major, negotiated change to a high deductible health plan and a one-year freeze of salary step increases.

The study itself was done by a human resources consulting firm specializing in compensation studies, selected through an RFP process by the county administrator and the Union.