County presents 2025 budget update and HR pay-equity proposal that would affect roughly 1,200 classified employees

Cuyahoga County administration presented a 2025 budget update to council that proposes revenue and expenditure adjustments and includes an HR-led pay-equity initiative for nonbargaining classified employees.

Director John Kenick of the county’s HR compensation team said the office reviewed internal pay inequities across classifications and recommended a systematic equity adjustment rather than ad hoc raises. “We were getting an unusually high number of requests from department leadership and even from employees themselves to review pay,” Kenick said, describing a consultant study of about 1,200 classified employees and formulas intended to bring pay closer to midpoints established in the county pay schedule.

Kenick said the county’s current schedule assigns comparable jobs to the same pay grade, but historic hiring choices and market adjustments had created disparities across departments, with some comparable positions paid substantially more than others. He described examples where a senior supervisor in one department earned significantly more than a comparable senior supervisor elsewhere and said the proposed adjustments “close these gaps” without cutting anyone’s pay.

Fiscal staff summarized the budget update numbers. Walter Perfio of the budget office said the recommended all-funds adjustments include a general-fund revenue increase of about $26.1 million (driven primarily by a $19.3 million increase in projected interest earnings and a $6.7 million increase in property-tax projections), offset by a proposed general-fund expenditure increase of about $22.1 million. Key personnel-service entries included an estimated $1.6 million for HR equity adjustments for nonbargaining staff, $7.9 million for positions in the hiring pipeline, $3.4 million in workers’ compensation costs and a $4.0 million intended increase in sheriff’s overtime. The office proposed $3.9 million in general-fund vacancy-credit adjustments, and the net effect reduced the projected 2025 deficit modestly from the current adopted figure.

Kenick and Perfio said the equity proposal is anchored to midpoints that the county’s Personnel Review Commission set in 2022 and that external peer counties (including Franklin and Hamilton) and local agencies were part of the market analysis. Kenick said the county’s formulas consider years of service and time in job in determining where an employee should sit in a pay range; he emphasized no employee pay would be reduced under this proposal. The general-fund and HHS-levy portions of the equity adjustments and other personnel changes together produce an estimated general-fund and levy impact; Perfio reported a net general-fund budget hit after reimbursements of about $4.0 million for the equity adjustments.

Council members asked for more detail about market comparators, whether midpoints reflected the high end of peer pay scales and how the proposal would treat long-tenured employees whose pay sits above midpoint. Kenick said market peers were urban counties and local agencies and that midpoint is the anchor; he acknowledged some long-tenured incumbents will remain above midpoint because of years of service. Several council members emphasized the importance of comparing to external market rates and requested further documentation on peer choices and methodology.

Perfio also reviewed other adjustments in the proposed update: sales-tax projections reduced by $18.8 million to reflect current receipts; a $5.0 million loan repayment timing change; removal of workforce-development revenue no longer on county books; and technical transfers and debt-service adjustments. The levy column shows a recommendation to repay one-third of a prior interfund transfer and to budget HHS-levy personnel adjustments that mirror the equity exercise. The proposals will be introduced in legislation at the council’s regular meeting and subject to hearings and committee review; councilmembers noted they would examine authorized strength and vacancy-credit mechanics in follow-up sessions.

Context: The budget update is the administration’s intermediate update in the county’s two-year budget cycle; council indicated it would hold further hearings on departments and examine the vacancy-credit calculations and authorized-strength figures in subsequent meetings.