Problem solving: From a simple farmer’s point of view

To the editor:
    What ever happened to the art of problem solving in your local government? Wage and Classification Tool: A method of keeping non-union wages and salaries comparable with other similar communities, agencies and firms, and also maintain salary schedule for all positions.     Early summer of 2006, a city employee along with his/her lawyer met with the city’s personnel committee and city manager to convey that the city was not maintaining our non-union salaries as stated in the personnel policy. Five months into my first year on the council I started to become familiar with the term of Wage and Classification Tool – I should say the lack of having a tool. For the three years previous, city administration was trying to develop this tool in house without success. That is a separate story to be told by past city council members.
    The 2006 city council decided to hire a business and human resource consultant to help with this process. Picking the consultant turned out to be a divisive event in itself, but one was chosen, by a 4-3 vote.
    The analysis was broken down into two, but separate, job tasks.
    • An analysis was conducted for each position during the summer of 2006, with a point value being assigned to each position. Then the positions were placed in one of 11 grade levels based on the position score and similarity of job description.
    • A salary structure was then placed on each particular grade level. It was important for me to go through the process looking only at the position, not the person holding it. I wanted to be careful not to allow favoritism to cloud my judgment.
    The report was presented to the council on September 20, 2006. City Administration worked on this tool, and after 12 months, they could not bring task 2 (the salary structure) to an explainable conclusion to the council or the city employees.
    A second consultant was hired. (I made jokes about this but it’s really not funny. The council needs to hire one consultant to explain to us about the first consultant’s work. If it is not simple, there is a reason.) The second consultant explained that the salary structure should come from the target marketing area. For example, where might Caribou expect to hire its next city manager, police and fire chiefs and tax assessor. Of these positions, where were the last five hired? What communities did the last five Caribou city managers originate? These communities would be your target marketing area. This would be the foundation on which the council would build this too.
    In September 2007, another analysis was conducted. The council’s feeling was “let’s not throw the baby out with the bathwater”, but could an understandable method be used on the salary structure for the eleven different grade levels?
    I set my personal goal, which is to provide a salary administration plan that would be equitable to both the city’s non-union employees and to taxpayers, with the objective of simplicity and understanding, without perception of favoritism. Being in the minority, one does not always get their views across to the other councilors.
    On December 13, 2007, the Council was presented with a second salary structure for the different grade levels from a second consultant that I thought was 98 percent on target, and was one of the best documents that I have seen in my two years on the council. It was simple and could be understood. The second consultant, who did this analysis, explained that from his personal observations, and after talking with the employees, that there were issues with some of part 1 (the position analysis) performed in the original study. City Administration was then given the task of working through these issues and report back to the Council.
    In mid-February, 2008, the Council received the report from city administration. After reviewing the report, I noticed the following.
• I believe a problem was created that hadn’t existed before. When going from different salary pay ranges, there was the potential for an employee to make less money. When would a public works director become a city manager? When would a finance director become a police chief? When would a library director become a tax assessor? These specialized positions would not be expected to be crossed. However, the administration stretched the total pay scale to fix this imaginary problem. What was the result? Caribou’s city manager position was being paid approximately 9.5 percent above the comparables at mid-point level.
• Instead of re-analyzing those few positions that were not scored correctly from the first study, city administration rearranged the grade levels, which up to this point was not a problem. What was the result? Caribou’s tax assessor position was being paid 8 percent less than the comparables and public works director position was 10.5 percent less than comparables. City Administration tried to solve a problem by improperly adjusting a non-issue, rather than the actual issue.
• After the above two tasks were put into place, there were still eight positions that did not match with their peers. Therefore, arbitrary adjustments were made by City Administration to place these positions. There was no methodology to these adjustments. What was the result? The possible perception of favoritism and not having a simple, understandable tool for non-union employees.
• This plan had a first-year adjustment. What is the second-year adjustment and how much will it cost taxpayers? How will the adjustment be decided? Who will make the adjustment and how do you tell the employees what they will be making five years from now?
    The result: Holy Cow! After five-plus years, six different city councils, two professional consultants and the same city administration, we are back to where we started in the spring of 2006.
    When City Administration uses phrases like “the new amended, adjusted numbers are”, this is only meant to confuse. This is not simple. The majority of the council was ready to pass this new city administration-generated Wage and Classification Tool, but was also willing to have the second consultant return for his opinion.
    End of part 2. Please do not conclude anything until you have read the entire opinion from this “simple farmer”.
    In closing, I would like to express to Caribou citizens how patient and fair I feel the non-union employees have been with this process. Over the past two and a half years, I have talked to many salaried and hourly employees on this subject. A memo dated March 6, 2007, from department heads, stated: “First and foremost, department heads collectively agree that Caribou does not have to be a pay leader, just match labor workforce comparables and that classifications be completed in an objective fashion.” To date, no employee has come to me and said “hurry up, I want my money.” In fact, what they have said to me is that they simply want it to be fair. In my opinion, the non-union employees deserve better, this city-generated Wage and Classification Tool is not fair.
    When business is conducted in an honest and above-board manner, transparencies need never be a concern.
“farmer” Mark Goughan
Caribou City councilor