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County consultant urges pay-scale maintenance in 2026 to avoid losing ground on employee pay
Summary
The Arnold Group presented options for completing the second phase of Dickinson County’s pay-scale implementation and recommended a 2026 pay‑scale maintenance tied to Midwest CPI. County staff said the county can proceed without increasing the overall 2026 personnel budget as currently projected.
Philip Hayes, a consultant with the Arnold Group, told the Dickinson County Board of Commissioners that the county completed major pay‑scale changes in 2025 and now faces a choice about 2026 maintenance adjustments.
“Last year, we did a 3% — we adopted the pay scales, the recommended scales, implemented a 3% COLA for all employees and addressed the pay scale minimum gaps for a handful of employees,” Hayes said. He recommended completing “chapter 2” of the implementation with a pay‑scale maintenance adjustment in 2026 tied to a rolling Midwest CPI average (about 2.78% in Hayes’s example) to avoid losing competitiveness.
Marcus Rothschild, assistant county administrator and finance director, provided preliminary personnel cost figures and…
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