While Milledgeville’s elected leaders are struggling with requested salary increases, they must also decide how to most equitably establish salary levels.
Based on City Manager Hank Griffeth’s report and preliminary discussion this week, a minimum starting salary of $15 per hour may be the target.
Council members met in a work session this past Tuesday, and Griffeth gave a report detailing his efforts in the past week to establish suitable salary levels for the new fiscal year, which starts July 1.
Griffeth reminded the aldermen that he had been requested to provide a list of city employees with years of service in their current position. He handed out that list and spreadsheets prior to the work session and indicated that effort proved to be informative.
“We have some long-term employees with the city of Milledgeville,” he confirmed. “But, we actually have a very young work force in terms of where they are in their positions.
“I think what that says is we have an upwardly mobile work force who have done what they need to do to move up in positions over the course of their time with the city.”
There are approximately 130 city employees paid through the general fund and an additional 60 through enterprises funds. The lowest salary for a city employee now is $23,535, according to Griffeth. That equates on a 40-hour work week to approximately $11.35 per hour.
Griffeth said he had also been asked to confirm with Baldwin County that a minimum salary had been established for their workers.
“You asked for me to try to get confirmation from the county that they did in fact upgrade their salary scale to the point where they had no positions making less than $15 per hour,” he said. “I was able to confirm that, and from that I took our pay scale draft, and I made the lowest paid position we have with the city to equal $15 per hour and allow this payscale worksheet to work out from there in terms of what that meant to the rest of the pay scale.”
Griffeth explained he applied that factor to current salaries and came up with a number.
“I have given you a subtotal of what it would cost, not including benefits, for those individual pay grades, to come up with that minimum of $15 per hour.”
For all city employees making less than $15 per hour, that cost would be approximately $279,000, Griffeth indicated.
He next went through several pay grades of employees, making the adjustments of $15 per hour at the starting level. He told council members that his process had included a majority of city employees and that he would be making a recommendation for increases in the next few days.
“The nut I haven’t been able to crack yet is how we play into this in terms of years of service of seniority, whether it be overall with the city or in their current positions.”
Council member Denese Shinholster in her comments stated she was in favor of looking at the $15-per-hour level, and Griffeth concurred.
“I kind of feel the same way. I feel the $15 per hour is where we need to start and see how far we go with it,” he said.
He also told council members that the federal poverty guideline for a family of four is $30,000. A starting salary of $15 per hour is $31,200, just $1,200 above that.
Griffeth concluded by saying he wanted to shift the discussion at next week’s work session.
“I want to start talking to you about some new sources of revenue I have identified,” he pointed out. “There’s a pretty good chance these resources will not start coming in until January 1. But, we can handle this from July 1 until December 31, as long as we know those new revenue sources are in place by January 1.”