Board contemplates wage increase for county workers

By Valorie Brecht In an effort to recruit more workers for county positions, the Clark County Board of Supervisors is considering a proposal that would result in a 1.66% wage increase for county workers across the board and would have a roughly $560,000 price tag.

At its last meeting, the county board heard from Jenna Bidwell, a senior compensation consultant with Cottingham and Butler. Bidwell worked with Heather Murray, county personnel manager, to review all 66 Clark County positions with a job description. They divided jobs into four tiers, ranging from entry-level to a senior level or supervisory position. The criteria used in evaluating jobs included: thinking challenges; how much decision-making was required; interactions and communications with other departments and the public; the work environment, including the potential for accidents and physical demands; and formal preparation and experience required.

After dividing the jobs into four quartiles from low-level to high-level, Bidwell cross-indexed the county positions, comparing their compensation to that of similar positions in the public and private sector. She used external data sources such as the Bureau of Labor Statistics, CompData, Economic Research Institute, and other Wisconsin counties. She determined that Clark County positions in the lowest quartile (i.e. entry-level jobs) were 6% behind the market in actual pay, the lower middle quartile was 3.5% behind, the upper middle quartile was close to average, and the high quartile was about 3% behind.

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“Overall, we’re sitting at 97%, but your lowest quartile, those bottom jobs, are the furthest behind,” said Bidwell. “And there are significant gaps between your current structure and the market across the entire structure.”

To help make Clark County more competitive, Bidwell proposed a new pay scale, which has 11 steps with a 3% progression between the steps. Workers would maintain their annual step progression on their work anniversary date, with the exception of if they were hired at Step 1, they would move to Step 2 after six months, and progress up the step structure annually thereafter.

Bidwell offered three options for transferring employees into the new pay scale. If approved, the transfer would take place April 6. Option one is that employees would move to the step of the pay scale equal or closest to their current rate of pay. Option two is they would move to the step that provides at least a 2% wage increase. Option three would be moving to a step based on their length of employment with the county. Bidwell recommended option one.

There are a couple of caveats with option one. Individuals at Step 7 prior to 2024 would be moved to the step that provided at least a 2% wage increase. There would also be a few individuals that would experience an annual decrease in pay by moving into the new pay scale, so they would advance two steps to counteract that.

The cost to implement the new pay scale and other recommendations is approximately $560,000 in wages and benefits. That is strictly due to the wage study and would result in a 1.66% increase overall. Including the 1% increase that already went into effect in January, the total cost for the year would be $895,000 or a 2.68% increase overall.

County finance committee chair Chuck Rueth asked county comptroller Terri Domaszek how much the county had budgeted for any wage and benefits increases in 2024.

“As far as what we had budgeted for the increases, we do a random number because there’s various numbers that go into the contingent fund, and it’s not just wage increases. It’s also if departments are over in their budgets in certain areas,” said Domaszek.

“But I do know that for the ’25 year we had increased the contingent fund by an extra $400,000, in addition to the amount we had in there originally. And the overall increase in the 2024 year was just almost $600,000 that came out of the contingent fund. For wages and benefits. So we include the benefits with it, the Social Security tax, the WRS (Wisconsin Retirement System), the worker’s comp, we include all those items in there. It covers all of those that had an increase. Because at the time we were in the budget, we did not know what the increase was — it was decided on when we were partway through. So, that’s always put into the contingent fund,” she finished.

After Domaszek’s response, there was some discussion on whether to move forward with implementing the new pay scale and whether it would actually solve the problem. The findings of the wage study did seem to match what county department heads had observed anecdotally, that it has been hard for the county to find applicants and hire for lower-level jobs, which could be due to less-than-competitive pay.

“Has Clark County been losing employees because of wages? Or have we not been able to attract people because of wages?” asked county board member Leonard Stoecker.

“The recruitment is the more prevalent concern, and that was really brought up as we were going through. From a turnover or losing employees, that isn’t a concern that was raised as much,” said Murray. “I can’t say I did a full analysis as to what the turnover rate is. But in meeting with the departments, the primary focus or concern was the recruiting side.”

“So we’ve had prospects saying, ‘Thanks, but no thanks, I can go to (pick a county) and make more money,’” said Stoecker.

“Yes, or even just obtaining applications has been difficult,” said Murray.

County board member Jim Smagacz tried to add on to what Stoecker said.

“Is there a certain wage area in our pay structure that we have recruitment issues? You know, I’ve been around Clark County a lot of years, and I look down this list and there’s a lot of people on the upper part of the list that have been here a number of years. I know one of the areas is the sheriff’s department. But there again, it’s their management.

“What I’m wondering is, are we being fair to our lower-paid people in some of these departments, when every time there’s a wage study the upper management people in these departments are getting raises? Does that make any sense?” asked Smagacz.

“I hear a couple of different things in that,” said Murray. “To respond to that last part, I think that as we’re doing the wage studies and implementing the perspective that upper or higher-rated positions receive higher wage increases at implementation, is that what I’m hearing?”

“Yeah, every time we do a wage study, it seems like the top management keeps moving up,” said Smagacz. “It seems like this is one of the first times I can remember where the people on the bottom are actually getting moved up. But are we leaving people out in the middle where we have trouble filling these positions?”

“No, and that’s one of the pieces of the market analysis is making sure we’re comparable across the whole structure with regards to positions. So when they get out and get the comparable data, they’re looking at all the positions and the entire structure to make sure it’s reset to be competitive,” said Murray.

“Then why do we keep having problems with certain areas, if we’re resetting everything?” replied Smagacz.

“So you bring up the sheriff’s office, for example. The deputies. Some of is it that we’re just seeing less and less individuals going into those professions and we’re all fighting for the same positions and same talent. So we can continue to try and fight that. What we don’t want to do is fall behind the market and not pay competitively,” said Murray.

Board member Randy Sebesta said the bottom tier of employees was also experiencing the highest rate of turnover and the county should do a turnover analysis.

Stoecker also questioned whether an employee’s annual raise was predicated on performance. Murray said Clark County does not have pay per performance; it’s based on the pay structure and step anniversary date. She said very few counties have pay per performance.

Bidwell clarified that the pay scale, should the county choose to implement it, would not be set in stone with no adjustments able to be made. There would be some maintenance built into the plan to keep it competitive to the market. The human resources department would review and update, as appropriate, the policies and procedures for wage and pay grade adjustments. Periodically, such as every three to five years, they would measure the full marketplace. Other action steps would include reviewing and updating the procedure to allow classification reviews for changed jobs, and developing a procedure to allow market reviews for positions that appear to have a change in market competitiveness.

The board will need to make a decision on the pay scale at its next meeting in order to meet the April 6 implementation date. The next Clark County Board meeting will be March 20 at 7 p.m. at the Clark County Courthouse, 517 Court St., Neillsville, in the county boardroom on the fifth floor. It is open to the public.