City 2023 pay plan increases hourly rate of employees by $1 to $4

Abilene Recorder Chronicle



A major discussion point of the Abilene City Commission recently has been the City of Abilene’s pay plan for 2023. The discussion has centered around whether the 7.18 percent COLA should be adjusted. Before the commission will discuss the plan again, Ron Marsh, city manager, said the pay plan will be altered to better reflect the resolution.

The 2023 city budget budgeted a 7.18 percent cost of living adjustment to its employees. The large COLA is to adjust wages for the increase in inflation and to keep the city’s wages competitive with surrounding city’s wages, stated by city staff during city meetings. The 2 percent merit-based increase is not included in the pay plan and resolution.

“The pay plan that they are approving will to have any affect on the budget for 2023,” Marsh said. “They are passing parameters that allow me to compensate employees for 2023.”

In the past decade, the city has implemented COLAs around 2 percent before implementing a merit-based increase in 2015, said City Finance Director Marcus Rothchild during the Oct. 17 city commission study session. Since 2015, the city has implemented COLAs around 1 to 2 percent and always a 2 percent merit-based increase.

In the pay plan resolution is a graph of what positions receive what funds. The graph shows the 13 ranges of employees, what the minimum and maximum hourly amount an employee in each range can make and what the minimum and maximum amounts are from 2022 to 2023.

Range one would be entry entry-level positions. Range 13 is occupied only by the city manager only. Range 12 is occupied by city manager assistant, which the city does not have employed currently. Range 11 is for city department directors.

The 7.18 percent raised the hourly rates of each employee by between $1 to $3. For example, range one employees will go from a minimum or $14.92 in 2022 to $15.99 in 2023 and a maximum of $20.15 in 2022 to $21.60 on 2023.

For range seven, a mid-level range for example, the hourly rate will go from a minimum or $24.21 in 2022 to $25.95 in 2023 and a maximum of $32.68 in 2022 to $35.03 on 2023.

For range 13, the hourly rate will go from a minimum or $50.34 in 2022 to $52.10 in 2023 and a maximum of $68.02 in 2022 to $70.40 on 2023.

While the resolution reads and city staff communicates that the 7.18 percent COLA is applied to all ranges, range 13, the city manager’s salary range, only has a 3.5 percent COLA. Ron Marsh, city manager, said he decided to lower the percentage.

“As the highest range, it does have a fairly significant impact on the budget. It wouldn’t create a compression issues because of the gap between positions on the scale,” Marsh said. “It should not create any compression issues, and it’s a little more manageable down the road when (the commission) hire a new city manager.”

Marsh said he did not want the decrease publicized, so the majority of the city commission did not know of his decision, and the decrease was not specifically noted in the resolution.

Sometime after the initial interview, Marsh said range 13’s 3.5 percent COLA will be changed to 7.18 percent before the next commissioner meeting. After consulting with Aaron Martin, city attorney, Martin told Marsh the resolution should make note of the 3.5 percent COLA at level 13, and they came to the decision adjust the pay scale to accurately reflect the wording of the resolution. With the 7.18 percent COLA, range 13 will have a minimum of $53.95 and maximum of $72.90.

The 7.18 percent COLA was determined partially based on the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Consumer Price Index for all urban consumers, which was made known during the Oct. 17 commission study session. According to Oct. 13 release, the CPI has increased 8.2 percent from September 2021 to September 2022.

The 2023 city pay plan is on the agenda for the Abilene City Commission’s regular meeting Oct. 24.