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FALCON HEIGHTS CITY COUNCIL MINUTES _4_ June 22, 2005 Consideration of mid-year salary adjustment for the position of City Administrator (continued) Mayor Gehrz said the 90% of the average compensation for comparable cities adjusts for geographic size, population, number of employees, and number of enterprise funds and utilities operated by the city of Falcon Heights. Every three years, the City Administrator is responsible for completing a scope and scale analysis for every full and part time position and making salary adjustment recommendations to the City Council in accordance with personnel compensation policies adopted by the City Council. The City Council is responsible for making compensation adjustments for the position of City Administrator. The analysis done in 2003 showed that the City was paying the City Administrator $14,312 less than the goal of 90% of the average salaries for the same position in comparable cities. Spreading that amount across three years resulted in a planned annual increase of $4,771 for 2004, 2005, and 2006. The City Council did not include any inflationary or cost-of-living increases that the City Administrators/Managers in other comparable cities received during those three years. This error, combined with the salary increases in other comparable cities, results in an inability to reach the 2006 goal. The Stanton Group Survey Data for 2002, 2003, 2004, and 2005 for City Administrator/City • Manager positions in comparable cities was used to determine the average salaries and the annual inflation rates for those salaries. The cities used as comparables were: Little Canada, Arden Hills, St. Anthony, Mahtomedi, Hugo, St. Paul Park, Wayzata, Bayport and Lauderdale. She reviewed four options, outlined below, and the pros and cons for each one. 1. Eliminate the goal of bringing the salary for the position of City Administrator up to 90% of the average of comparable cities by 2006. 2. Extend the time period for reaching that goal for an additional three years. 3. Make an interim salary adjustment in 2005 equal to the average inflation rate for comparable cities for 2003 and 2004, and add the inflationary rate from the 2005 salary survey data to the 2006 salary adjustment. 4. Add the entire salary gap in 2006. She said the City has traditionally been conservative in budgeting and has tried to avoid large increases in line items in the general operating budget. The preference has been to spread necessary increases more evenly across fiscal years to reduce financial impact on the taxpayers. This was the reason the Council adopted athree-year, rather than aone-year plan for salary adjustments back in 2003. She said her recommendation would be approval of Option 3 and implementation of the 2005 salary adjustments by adding prorated amounts to the remaining pay periods for 2005. • H