County officials okay employee compensation study
After losing a county engineer due to pay issues two years ago and hearing continued concerns from county employees about appropriate levels of pay for county positions, the council has entered into a contract to have a compensation study completed by IU Kelley School of Business.
The graduate students in an accounting course at IU will gather data from all of the departments about the job titles then compare them to standard jobs in other organizations and see how they stack up.
The council is hoping that there won’t be too much disparity, but any major discrepancies will have to be addressed, which could cause the county to have to adjust wages and benefits.
“Hopefully we’re not too far under-paying anybody, and hopefully we’re not over-paying too much. We want to make sure that were treating our employees fairly and they get compensated the way they should,” said Council President Greg Kendall, after Wednesday’s special meeting.
Earlier this year, local consultant John Siebert assisted a team comprised of councilwomen Charmian Klem and Becky Beckman, councilman Craig Greulich and commissioner Elmer Brames in assessing county employees’ satisfaction with their work environment.
Wages and salaries were among the top of the list of problems cited in the survey.
The study will be done at no charge to the county except for compensation of incidental expenses and mileage related to travel to and from the county.
The council also discussed another regarding pay: a new law going into effect soon that is forcing companies to make changes in compensation plans for some employees, so that the accrual of overtime doesn’t overwhelm the company payrolls.
One such county employee that falls under that scenario is Emergency Management Director Tammy Humbert.
The Fair Labor Standards Act requires ‘non-exempt’ employees — such as Humbert — to be paid at least the federal minimum wage for each hour worked and paid overtime of not less than one and a half times their hourly rate.
The question before the council is whether to change Humbert’s employment status to exempt to avoid having the issue.
Kendall wants to wait a year and see if it develops into a problem. He said he could justify either status for Humbert. As a member of the Dubois County EMA board he leans toward exempt, but as the county council president, he wants to wait for a year and see, he explained.
The council wants to make sure that Humbert gets paid fairly for her work. They cited the Avian Flu issue this past January, and how Humbert went far beyond expectations in making sure the response to the issue was handled in the best way possible. In fact, federal officials were so impressed with the response of the county; new guidelines for handling such a situation were created based on the county’s response.
