Personnel committee continues review of compensation plan; options include shortening step progression, targeted raises for management

The Franklin City Personnel Committee continued a multi-meeting review of the city's classification and compensation plan, focusing on smaller, early actions the city could take to reduce pay compression and improve retention of managerial staff.

Committee members and staff debated changing the step progression and addressing a longstanding cap that effectively limits employees to 65 percent of some salary ranges unless a merit plan is applied. Staff presented examples showing how the current cap prevents employees from reaching posted maximums: for a $60,000–$81,000 range, reaching 65 percent equates to roughly $73,006.50, leaving the top portion of the scale inaccessible under existing rules.

Dana, a city staff member who led the discussion, said that a detailed review of pay distributions found 29 employees in the bottom 30 percent of their range and 14 between the 30th and 50th percentiles. Staff estimated that fully funding the comp plan in a single year would be costly — discussion participants recalled a previous estimate in the neighborhood of $1 million — and so committee members discussed staging increases over three to five years. One staff figure cited approximately $450,000 as a multi-year funding target to begin closing gaps.

Committee members emphasized prioritizing a small set of managers and other employees who are significantly behind comparable pay as a retention strategy. Suggestions included reducing the time to move from the minimum to the maximum on a step schedule (for example, moving from a 16-year progression to an eight-year progression), allowing new hires to enter the scale above minimum when they bring relevant experience, and targeting higher increases for management positions that are difficult to recruit and retain.

Finance-related revenue options were also discussed as ways to offset costs. Staff described ongoing efforts to review fee schedules (for permitting, fire inspections, engineering pass-throughs) and to better capture revenue from new construction; the committee asked staff and the finance director to return with precise cost estimates and a budget timeline to inform the 2026 budget process.

Committee members asked staff to prepare a spreadsheet showing every employee's position on their range and the dollar cost to bring targeted groups to proposed percentiles, with a goal of producing concrete numbers for the next budget cycle.

The committee did not take a formal vote on the compensation plan at the meeting; members instructed staff to return with financial scenarios and a recommended staging approach.