Township pay/benefits study results presented
By Dana Casadei
At the Bloomfield Township Board of Trustees meeting on Monday, November 12, Dr. Russell Campbell, Senior VP of Management Advisory Group International, Inc. (MAG) presented the company’s compensation and benefits study results about Bloomfield Township.
Overall, the employees who took part in the benefits and compensation survey indicated a moderate level of dissatisfaction with current pay and benefits. Campbell said he does about 50-60 of these types of studies each year so this wasn’t the worst case scenario, but there was still room for improvement.
“One of the things I kept hearing was that Bloomfield Township is a very affluent community,” he said. “But it has lost ground in respect to competitive pay; this is the process to bring you back to the top of the pact.”
MAG evaluated full-time and part-time positions, and elected officials for this study. Positions that were currently vacant were also evaluated.
This project was designed to not only capture current job data from job descriptions for Bloomfield Township employees, but also ensure internal equity through a job analysis and evaluation for each position, establish external equity based on labor market data, provide an affordable implementation plan, and a process for the future evaluation of positions.
The first step in this study was to grade each position on MAG’s criteria, then MAG came up with peer organizations who are similar to the Bloomfield Township in a variety of ways, such as their level of income, organizational structure, and population. A compensation study was sent to those peer organizations, such as Clinton Township, Oakland County, the cities of Troy, Novi, Dearborn Heights, and a private sector company, O Net, to collect information on their pay structures for the jobs they had that exist within Bloomfield Township. Individual salaries were not collected with this survey.
Campbell’s team found overall that there was some improvement in compensation that needed to be made in Bloomfield Township, especially comparing to other communities which have been quite aggressive with employee compensation and benefits. He then went on to list the suggestions for both compensation and benefits for Bloomfield Township employees.
The new pay structure that MAG – who specialize doing this study of study with state and local government agencies across the country – recommended was based on data from a linear regression analysis. This type of analysis used both the market data from peer organizations and the quantitative point score, and predicts what the competitive pay structures could look like. MAG then made adjustments so they were within the 85 percentile, which they argue is where communities in this part of the state need to be.
There’s four pay structures that they’ve created: fire, police, elected officials, and unified. The last would consist of anyone not found in those first three categories, making it the largest part of the plan.
Within those four structures MAG gave each job an annual salary, and a grade with a salary range associated with it, which was broken down into three components, a minimum entry level salary, a mid point that is considered a reflection of the market average, and the top in value, which is the maximum. It’s then broken down again into an hourly basis for that position.
Within the pay structure, MAG wanted to make sure jobs with a step structure kept theirs and wanted to create a step structure for those positions that did not. For police and fire the pay plan has seven steps associated with it, with three percent between each step; then for the unified plan, because there’s a greater number of jobs, there’s nine steps, with that same three percent increment between each.
After conducting this analysis MAG came back with the goal of creating a pay structure that represents the 85th percentile of the market peers that they compared Bloomfield Township to. Campbell did clarify that with this 85th percentile they are not saying that every employee should be paid at the 85th percentile for their job, they’re saying that with these pay structures, the value of the jobs would reflect the 85th percentile.
With compensation, when an organization has good benefits and their compensation structure is at at least the 75th percentile they’re considered an employer of choice. Campbell said he thinks with their suggestions Bloomfield Township could earn that title and noted that while the 85 they’re suggesting is higher, that’s due to the pattern they’ve discovered when one community does a compensation study, nearby communities will soon follow.
“This should be an attractive place for anyone looking to get into public service,” Campbell said.
Regarding salary ,Campbell’s also suggested giving all staff – fire, police, unified, and elected – a four percent Cost of Living Adjustment (COLA).
Without benefits the total annualized cost of this plan, including that four percent COLA, would be almost $2.3 million.
Additional findings in the study found that employees did not believe Bloomfield Township was competitive with their benefits, something that MAG’s results found to not be true. Campbell said the package the township offers is almost the same as the others it was compared to.
There were a few things Bloomfield Township could improve upon though.
The MAG results suggested the township consider adding a parental leave policy and pay for certifications/licensure attainment, as well as an increase to shift differential pay. It was noted that sick time, paid time off, and holiday leave are slightly lower for Bloomfield Township employees than market totals.
Campbell also asked the board to consider revisiting the defined benefit pension once they're out from under state financial oversight, and said this could impact recruitment and retention for public safety employees.
“This process – no matter what kind of company – is about trying to determine the value of jobs, not people. It doesn’t matter who holds the position, it holds a value,” Campbell said. “You can’t make everyone happy but you hope to treat everyone equally.”
“I really appreciate all the employees engaging in this,” said trustee Chris Kolinski. “You can see a full picture of what the expert is saying… now the new board can take it and run with it.”
The one concern with the presentation wasn’t mentioned until the end, from trustee Neal Barnett, who made the argument that this shouldn’t have been on the agenda for Monday evening.
“The board is here to have information…we didn’t have any. No packet, no data,” Barnett said. “It’s not acceptable to me.”
The information Campbell presented wasn’t in the packet for the trustees meeting; and the board was only given this information the Monday of their meeting.
Supervisor Dani Walsh said it was on the agenda that evening because she needed employees to have this in their hands as soon as possible, she wasn’t about to let employees start negotiating for contracts without this data like last time.
Many departments received it on Tuesday.
Clerk Martin Brook recommended there be a study session on these results, and have a further discussion added to the agenda for Board of Trustees meeting on Monday, Nov. 25.
