Consultant outlines classification and pay-study process for Mount Holly employees

Sarah Towne, consulting manager with Baker Tilly’s classification and compensation practice, presented the firm’s scope and timeline for a comprehensive classification and compensation study to the Mount Holly City Council at its Jan. 27 work session.

Towne said the firm will collect position analysis questionnaires (PAQs) from staff, evaluate jobs using a point‑factor tool, compare roughly 75% of positions to a market comprised of 10 public peers and three published salary sources, and produce pay‑plan and implementation options intended to meet the city’s March budget deadline. “PAQs are incredibly important because they form the basis of the study,” Towne said.

The presentation described a five‑phase process that begins with project initiation and data collection and moves through job evaluation, market comparisons, pay‑plan design and implementation planning. Towne said Baker Tilly requires at least a 75% overlap in duties to consider a position a quality market match and that it will not weight any single peer in its market analysis. The consultant also said the team will produce a benefits comparison report but will not make benefit policy recommendations.

Towne told council members the team had been on site earlier in January and expected to carry the project forward into February with completion and final deliverables in April. She said the firm will provide department‑level grade assignments, regression analyses, phased implementation options and training for city HR to maintain the system.

Council members did not take formal action on the study at the meeting; Towne invited questions and offered to return with further information as the study proceeds.

The study kickoff sets deadlines that Baker Tilly said are intended to feed the city’s budget process: PAQ collection and job evaluation in February, pay‑plan recommendations for March budget deliberations and final reporting in April.