Jefferson City leaders hold work session on compensation study

Jefferson City council members met with the consulting group hired to complete a city-wide compensation study Tuesday.

The council awarded the Austin Peters Group a nearly $39,000 contract in May to do the study. Since then, city employees have filled out questionnaires and completed interviews. Consultants have also have toured several job sites.

The group gave an information session to city employees and the city council Tuesday about the steps of the study and answered questions.

The study will consist of three main steps.

First, the Austin Peters Group will do equity scoring. The consultants will look at several things within each city position such as job supervision, required knowledge and experience, level of decision making, working conditions, physical requirements and more.

Second, the group will do a market study. It will take pick 50 benchmark positions and compare the pay and benefits to comparable positions in other communities and adjust the data to the cost of living. The group will compare Jefferson City positions to some larger cities as the city’s daytime population is about 80,000 people with the state capitol and commuters, according to the Austin Peters Group.

Third, the group will update job descriptions for each position.

Mayor Carrie Tergin said the study is crucial to hiring and retaining the best employees.

“It’s definitely important to see where we fall within salary ranges and classifications, looking at other surrounding communities, just making sure that we keep up with that,” Tergin said. “We don’t want to fall too far behind. We want to make sure we remain competitive and this is going to be the tool to help us achieve that.”

Council members had few questions and requests for the group, but Councilman Glen Costales told consultants he would like to see the city in the top five to seven percent pay for its size.

The study is expected to be completed by the Fall 2016.