Cleveland Heights consultant recommends pay-plan changes; first-year cost estimated at $277,000

Cleveland Heights’ consultant The Archer Company told the City Council Committee of the Whole on Feb. 10 that a comprehensive salary study of the city’s 114 nonbargaining employees shows the city generally lags market midpoints and that implementing the recommended pay plan would cost approximately $277,000 in the first year.

The study, presented by Jim Battaglia of The Archer Company, combined internal job evaluations and a salary survey of 47 benchmark jobs drawn largely from Cleveland-area suburbs and select Ohio municipalities. Battaglia said the firm used a regression model to align internal job-evaluation scores with external market midpoints and then developed a 25-grade pay structure for Cleveland Heights.

Why it matters: The report provides the city a data-driven framework to address pay compression (long-tenured employees whose pay is below newer hires in the same title) and to set a predictable progression through salary ranges. Council members requested more detailed spreadsheets and comparisons to the city’s current salary ranges before considering ordinance language.

Battaglia summarized the firm’s two main objectives as establishing internal equity among city jobs and achieving external equity with comparable employers. “Our main objectives ... are to establish internal equity by evaluating all the jobs … and then to conduct external equity by creating and distributing a salary survey,” Battaglia said. He told council members the city’s midpoints “tend to be below the market” based on the 47 benchmark jobs the firm analyzed.

The consultant described the recommended implementation approach used for the city’s costing. All nonbargaining employees would be moved to at least a pay-grade minimum; employees making below the midpoint would be phased to midpoint based on years of service. “In the end, the city decided to go with seven years to the midpoint,” Battaglia said. Under the model presented, employees with between one and two years of service would receive the minimum plus 2.85 percent, with incremental increases up to about 17.1 percent for those closest to the midpoint. Battaglia gave the first-year implementation cost as “approximately $277,000 in the first year of implementation.”

Council members asked for follow-up detail. Councilman Petras asked for a breakdown showing how the $277,000 would be allocated across positions and departments; Battaglia said he would provide both an employee-level and department-level breakdown. Councilwoman Larson asked whether any staff were reclassified; Battaglia said there were “some adjustments” to administrative titles but “nothing dramatic” amounting to broad reclassifications. Councilmember Posh asked whether benefits had been considered; Battaglia said the study addressed base salary only and did not model benefits, though he said benefit levels in Ohio municipal governments are often broadly similar because of state retirement systems such as PERS.

Battaglia said the analysis used municipal comparators concentrated in Cleveland suburbs (and supplemented by Economic Research Institute data filtered for the Cleveland area and all industries) and that the firm cleaned and validated survey responses to remove outliers. He said the firm evaluated jobs along three main work-requirement dimensions (data utilization, human interaction, and machinery/tools) plus aptitude and responsibility factors to generate an internal job-evaluation score.

Departments that drove most of the first-year cost, Battaglia said, were Planning, Finance and Public Works; a few departments—city council, the mayor’s office and law—saw negligible cost under the proposed scenario because their current salaries were already near or above the proposed ranges. The firm reported 114 nonbargaining employees in the scope and 47 benchmark jobs used for the market analysis.

Council members asked for additional exhibits and clearer side-by-side tables showing current minimum/midpoint/maximum pay ranges next to the proposed ranges and market comparisons; Battaglia agreed to provide a revised market report and a spreadsheet that includes current structure and proposed minimum/midpoint/maximum with percentage variances. He also suggested possible long-term strategies for progression between midpoint and maximum (for example multi-year step increases) if the council wished to address longer-term retention and recruiting goals.

The presentation closed with council members praising the clarity of the report and asking for the additional breakdowns before any ordinance action. No formal vote to adopt a pay plan or ordinance was recorded during the committee meeting; council members directed staff to produce the requested spreadsheets and supporting exhibits for future consideration.