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NEW GUIDELINES FOR CITY PROMOTIONS CONSIDERED

By Erin France/OF THE COMMERCIAL STAFF
Wednesday, September 9, 2009 11:48 PM CDT

Pine Bluff City Council’s administration committee tackled the issue of pay raises for promotions during its Tuesday night meeting, before the full council meeting.

A proposed resolution, supported by Vickie Conaway, the city’s human resources director, aims to provide a corrected formula for promotional raises.

The change would ensure promoted employees with 1-4 years of service receive a 4 percent increase, and an additional 1 percent increase would follow with additional years worked until reaching the maximum of 10 percent.

“It sounds to me like it’s more ethical,” said 1st Ward Alderman Irene Holcomb.

The administration committee has dealt with several city employees who disputed their pay after receiving promotions.

The city’s non-uniformed employee handbook calls for salaries to increase during promotions “based upon the base rate of the promotion position plus 1 percent of the base salary of the lower classification position for each year of full time continued experience of employment with the City, not to exceed 10 percent.”

Conaway said some employees under the current system earn only a few hundred dollars with a promotion.

She used the example of a concrete finisher helper paid $21,050 promoted to a truck driver position at $21,203 — an increase of $153.

Another example Conaway used was a truck driver with a current pay of $24,024 who wouldn’t receive a raise if promoted to light equipment operator because the base pay — $21,203 with the applied 4 percent increase — still is less than the truck driver position.

“It’s discouraged him because you try to go for a promotion and you get nothing,” she said.

But 2nd Ward Alderman Wayne Easterly said the change could negatively effect the city’s goal to increase employee wages across the board.

“It’s just another thing to help mess up our salary survey,” he said.

In 2006, the city paid the Johanson Group of Fayetteville to conduct a salary survey to establish guidelines and help make Pine Bluff’s municipal employee salaries competitive with similarly sized cities.

Tuesday’s proposed resolution received a due pass from 4th Ward Alderman George Stepps and Holcomb.

“It’s just something we’re going to deal with later,” Easterly said.

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