Columbia City Council discusses employee pay for FY 2020

The Columbia City Council is holding two-part work session Monday to discuss the budget for fiscal year 2020. One major topic of discussion was employee pay.

The city has had difficulty keeping employees in their positions and hiring people to fill vacant positions.

During the work session the city’s human resources director, Margrace Buckler, said a large number of employees in their positions for one to five years have left.

Buckler said more than 101 positions have turned over so far in fiscal year 2019.

“That one to five year period is when we spend the most money getting them trained,” Buckler said. “They require the most work to get them ready, and to be losing them in that time period at the volume that we are is concerning.”

Currently, the city moves employees who have been in their position for five years to the midpoint, which is the middle of the market-based pay range for the position.

This current compensation philosophy was adopted in 2013.

Council members voiced their concerns that five years may be too long for employees to wait before being moved to the midpoint.

Buckler said low unemployment in Columbia is another reason the city is seeing such a high turnover rate. She said the city is having trouble filling positions and is having to post them more than once.

“It is really difficult in this environment, and it’s not just us,” she said. “The world is having trouble finding people to come to work.”

Interim City Manager John Glascock said the city has made mistakes that have impacted the turnover rate.

“We have a lot of people that come back from retirement just to train the new people we’ve hired. We get them trained, then they both leave and we’ve got a new person coming back in,” Glascock said.

The city has not funded performance pay for employees since fiscal year 2009. Monday the council looked at performance pay as one way to encourage employees to stay and make them feel more valued.

Members looked at incremental increases to the midpoint as one way to keep employees. Under this approach, 40 percent of employees would move toward the midpoint at three years in their positions, 30 percent at four years and 30 percent at the five-year mark.

Council member Mike Trapp said he supports the incremental changes to the midpoint.

“Our highest turnover rate is employees who have been here less than five years. So having to wait, kind of, it’s a lot to expect an employee to have to wait five years before you gt a significant raise,” he said.

He also said he supports annual raises so the city does not have to do what he called “catch up maneuvers.”

Council members also discussed other topics in the budget, like stabilizing transit, sales taxes, new hires at the police and fire departments and more. Many department heads and city employees attended the work session.