The Berlin Town Council voted unanimously this week to approve a step and grade system for town staff expected to result in higher salaries.
Berlin Town Hall
File photo
By Charlene Sharpe, Associate Editor
The Berlin Town Council voted unanimously this week to approve a step and grade system for town staff.
Berlin’s human resources director recommended the changes at Monday’s meeting, which is set to result in higher pay for employees. Implementing the program is expected to cost the town $211,000.
“It puts our employees at ease because they know how to plan,” Councilman Dean Burrell said.
After increasing pay so that current positions are at 35% of the market value in November, town officials reviewed plans for a step and grade system for municipal employees. Officials advised Kelsey Jensen, the town’s human resources director, to advance plans for a scale of 25 grades and 21 steps, with 2.5% between steps.
Since then, Jensen has been placing the town’s current employees at the appropriate positions on the scale. She presented officials with the proposed Fiscal Year 2025 step and grade scale this week.
“What you have in front of you today is bringing everyone to a grade, to the nearest step plus one,” she said.
When asked for the total cost of that, Jensen said it would be about $170,000 for the salary adjustments, or about $211,000 when fringe benefits were worked in. In her staff report, Jensen recommended the council implement the salary scale as well as a cost-of-living adjustment, or COLA, as it would help keep Berlin in line with the market.
She added that she’d reached out to other jurisdictions to see if they were planning to provide a COLA and had been advised that most were planning a 3-6% increase. She added that she knew the council had asked how tenure would factor into the salary scale but said that she hadn’t yet determined the ideal way to do that.
When asked how much more money a COLA would cost, Jensen said she hadn’t brought that figure. Mayor Zack Tyndall pointed out that by moving all employees up one step, they were already getting at least a 2.5% increase in the coming fiscal year.
Councilman Steve Green reminded his peers that last year, their concern was that bringing positions up to 35% of market value hadn’t impacted every employee.
“This does. No matter where you are everybody will be impacted because of that step increase …,” he said. “I like the direction we’re headed for sure.”
Tyndall said that with a step and grade system, it would be clear how much funding was needed for employees each year as the town started the budget process.
“This puts the employees at the front end every year,” he said. “We know what our costs will be, the only difference is what we are going to do movement wise on COLA.”
Councilman Jack Orris said there was no code enforcement officer, a position officials have talked about in recent years, on the scale.
“This doesn’t include positions that don’t currently exist,” Town Administrator Mary Bohlen said.
Green said he thought incorporating tenure into the scale would be difficult.
“Not all tenures are created equal,” he said, adding that perhaps tenure should be considered on a case-by-case basis. “When you manage people for a living, I think you realize that. I think the case-by-case approach is going to be a big part of it.”
Green said he supported giving employees a cost-of-living adjustment but wasn’t sure at what level. He added that the town could also be flexible with the date of the increase and could start it January 1, which would be halfway through the fiscal year, to help with the budget.
“Everybody did get moved up a step,” he said.
Tyndall said officials could review the cost of the salary scale and potential cost-of-living adjustments as the budget process progressed.
“We should have time for the council to be able to evaluate this in conjunction with the budget and potential COLAs during the general fund work session before we have to introduce any potential changes,” he said.