San Angelo consultants say 40% of jobs fall behind market; city weighs several pay-plan options

Sam Hines, the lead consultant from Public Sector Personnel Consultants, presented results of a citywide classification and salary survey that city staff said will guide potential pay-plan changes for the upcoming budget. Hines said the consultants identified 328 distinct position classifications and selected 230 benchmark jobs for a market comparison. "Out of those 230 benchmark positions, around 39% of those were what we would characterize as being behind market," Hines said, explaining the team defined "behind market" as midpoints more than 5% below the market average.

Hines outlined three implementation approaches: (1) bring incumbents below a newly assigned range minimum up to that minimum (less complex, lower per-employee increases), (2) maintain each employee's comp-or-ratio within a new assigned range (costlier but preserves internal pay relationships), and (3) align entry rates to within plus-or-minus 5% of market to smooth rank progressions. For general-service positions, preliminary modeling without a cost-of-living adjustment produced an estimated $2.1 million implementation cost (roughly 6.8% of current payroll) for one option; public-safety adjustments were modeled separately and produced higher price tags when large regional comparators were included.

Council members pressed for detail on several frontiers: how a one-time COLA would change implementation costs, whether certification and ad-pay policies should be folded into base pay, and whether to exclude high-outlier comparators in DFW from the public-safety market. "If you provide the cost-of-living adjustment first, that might get some people into the minimum of their new range," Hines said, noting the city could model COLA into cost estimates to reduce the direct cost to adopt market-range assignments.

City leaders asked staff to return with refined scenarios including the budgetary impact of benefits (retirement and employer contributions) and to model options that preserve internal equity among incumbents. No formal decisions were made; staff said they would bring additional details, implementation timing and funding scenarios to follow-up workshops.