Liberty Hill Council approves City payroll increase following salary survey

Star Local Media
By Rachel Madison
​​​​​​​Feb 2, 2023 

The Liberty Hill City Council approved a pay increase of $71,737 total following the results of a salary survey conducted in fall 2022 to properly align the City’s workforce with market competitors.

Though the Council approved the increase, it didn’t come without some concerns from the dais on Jan. 25.

HR Director James Harris told Council the purpose of conducting the survey was to see if the City of Liberty Hill’s workforce was being compensated properly based on current market data. The survey, which cost the City approximately $10,000, proved through data that the employees were not.

“Employees want their pay to be competitive and realistic, and they want to know where they stand in terms of being compensated correctly,” Harris said. “This data proves they are not.”

Council member Chris Pezold said when he looks at this increase from the constituents’ point of view, it doesn’t look good.

“It’s an arbitrary decision to go in and say, ‘OK, we as a city are going to drop not only the $10,000 [to conduct the survey], but another $71,000 to increase pay,’” he said. “We're going to spend $81,000 now, and we’re also being told we should be doing this survey every two years, so we’ll have to go in and spend more.”

Council member Amanda Young said she understood where Pezold was coming from because people did agree to do their jobs at a certain salary, but because the increase for individual employees was so small, she was okay with approving the increase.  

Council member Angela Jones said the current Council has been the most supportive of compensating city staff, and she wants to make sure the employees hear and understand that, as well as Harris.

“What I need to know as our HR director is that you're not only looking out for our employees and paying them well, but that you're also looking at the overarching picture of where we’re at as a City and that [the employees] are not the only thing you’re out to bat for,” she said.

Harris told the Council that the previous City administration, prior to May 2021, had also conducted a salary survey, but never implemented it because of the payroll increase, which stagnated employee pay for much longer than normal.

Additionally, City Administrator Paul Brandenburg said a 6 percent cost of living increase was incorporated for every employee into this year’s budget because a cost-of-living raise hadn’t been implemented for two years. 

Harris said paying employees the market rate is important because the City can’t function without its workforce.

“All of the things that you want to fund and build would not happen without these employees,” he said. “So we did two things. We corrected [cost of living], because the previous administration would not award that and prices were going up and the pay was not increasing. Now we are focusing on the pay structure piece of it that also was never under any kind of control. It was completely out of control. The survey is tied to a pay scale that establishes those controls.”

Brandenburg said he expected the pay increase across the board to be close to $200,000 and was surprised that it was just over $71,000 for the entire workforce. The payroll increase will come primarily from the City’s general fund, with wastewater and water focused employees receiving increases from their respective funds. The biggest payroll increase was just over $22,000 for the police department, while the smallest increase was $717 for the parks department.

Harris affirmed the salary survey will need to be conducted every couple of years to make sure the pay scale is staying competitive. 

The payroll increase was approved 3-1, with Pezold opposed. Council member Crystal Mancilla was absent from the meeting.