Concerns About Clark County's New Compensation Plan
Tuesday, April 5th, 2016 -- 9:28 AM
-The Clark County Board of Supervisors approved the county’s new compensation plan after three hours of discussion at their meeting last week.There were many concerns brought up about the plan. Several heads of different departments felt that the starting wage was too low and they won’t be able to recruit and fill positions that they’re having trouble filling with the old pay method. There were others that felt the job descriptions of some of the positions are not accurate and need to be fixed. It was mentioned that with the passing of this plan, at least 40 jobs will be coming forward to be reclassified.
This ended up being a big point of contention for the county board because an outside source, the company Schenk, who was part of the study when this began, would have a hand in the final approval of reclassification. The cost per consultation is $150. This resulted in a change to the resolution before it was given final approval. Some other concerns were about the overall treatment of county employees as they’ve had to deal with paying more for health insurance, wage freezes and delayed wage increases.
An interesting item brought up about this entire plan and pay classification was the difficulty presented by human nature. For instance, everyone thinks they’re special with what they do in their position. With this study, there were always going to be cases of “nobody understands what I do.” People don’t like to be compared to one another and feel they deserve more. For example, if John Doe 1 is being paid $15 an hour and he’s not aware of the starting pay of anyone else, he’s fine with it. But, since everyone can see what others are being paid it changes things. When John Doe 1 finds out John Doe 2 is making $15.50 an hour, John Doe 1 feels he deserves the same amount because he feels he does more than John Doe 2.
In the end, the resolution was approved, but a change was made. The county board decided they didn’t want to have the re-classifications done by an outside source and they wanted it to stay in house and handled by the county personnel department/committee.
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