City staff presented a compensation and classification study May 15 that would shift most civilian jobs from a grade-and-step system to open pay ranges, add targeted step adjustments for police and fire, and budget an initial implementation cost the consultant and staff said is just under $2 million fully burdened.

The study, presented by consultant Matt Weatherly of Public Sector Personnel Consultants and by Doctor Kimilton of the city team, was framed as an effort to bring pay “closer to market” while keeping changes sustainable. “One of the challenges that we have … is we clearly have areas where recruitment is a major problem,” Doctor Kimilton told the council, adding that the city regularly has “somewhere around 10 vacancies for police officers at any given point in time.”

Staff and the consultant said the proposal would: migrate civilian positions to an open-range pay table, address about 155 civilian employees who fall below the proposed new minimums, keep public-safety step structures but move many employees to the next nearest step, and budget ongoing step/cola movement in future budgets.

“We’re proposing a new salary table for civilians,” Weatherly told the council. “The plan is designed to offer greater flexibility for in-range salary adjustments.” He said the initial civilian budget impact shown in the presentation was about $600,000–$620,000 and an additional roughly $600,000 for public safety steps; the fully burdened total presented to council was just under $2,000,000.

Council members and public speakers pushed for larger corrections for police and fire. Council Member Nancy Campbell questioned whether the changes would fix retention for public safety, saying, “it seems like you’re paying the people that you need the least the most and the ones you need the most the less.” Union representatives at the meeting said the study and the proposed implementation did not sufficiently address years-long pay gaps. “Extremely disappointing,” Lake Havasu Professional Firefighters President Corky Coiner said of the consultant report and presentation.

Staff described the study as the result of extensive work: roughly 150 desk-audit interviews, job questionnaires for all classifications, and a market survey. Weatherly said about 70% of civilian positions were within 5% of market, but about 30% were more than 5% below market and needed correction. He said city leadership asked for a financially sustainable plan; the consultant ran options and said a complete immediate correction for all employees would have cost “north of $5,000,000,” and later in the meeting staff cited a figure of about $10,000,000 to fully place every employee at the ideal market spot.

Staff emphasized the phased nature of the fix: get jobs onto market-aligned ranges now, then budget movement within those ranges in 2026 and future years. Doctor Kimilton said the worst outcome would be an unaffordable plan that had to be reversed later: “The worst thing that we could do would be to put a plan in place … and then a year from now have to claw it back because we can’t sustain it.”

Opposition and concern focused on police and fire entry wages and the pace of change. Weatherly said the city’s police entry salary was below Bullhead City and Kingman and that moving police and fire pay ranges even modestly carries a high recurring cost: “about every 1% across public safety is another quarter million dollars a year or more in spend.”

The council did not vote on the study at the work session; the study findings were incorporated into the proposed FY 2025–26 budget materials subject to the council’s upcoming tentative and final budget votes in June. Staff said more detailed supporting data and spreadsheets would be provided to council and available for review.

What’s next: the class-and-comp recommendations were included in the tentative budget schedule; council will consider adoption and funding decisions during the June budget hearings and when adopting the final FY 2025–26 budget.

Ending: The council and staff repeatedly described the study as part of a multi-year effort to recruit and retain employees: implement market-aligned structures now and budget recurring pay movement over time rather than attempt a single, potentially unsustainable fix.