Summit County Council on Nov. 4 approved salary adjustments for frontline supervisors in the Department of Sanitary Sewer Services and later passed an ordinance increasing on-call pay for those supervisors.

The personnel committee voted to correct pay compression that occurred after a three-year union contract that produced larger raises for bargaining-unit employees, Chip Kloepfer, director of the executive epartment of human resources, told the committee. Kloepfer said the adjustments restore the pre-contract pay spread between supervisors and the employees they oversee and raise pay for a technical non-bargaining residential building official who had become pay-compressed relative to lead bargaining positions.

Kloepfer said the adjustments apply to positions that supervise 24-hour operations and reflected an analysis of comparable pay in similar utilities and contracts across the state. "We went back to the beginning of the contract to see what the spread was between the employee and supervisor and then brought that up to the current salary," he said.

Separately, the Rules Committee considered and approved an ordinance amending Summit County Codified Ordinance 169.07 to increase on-call pay for sanitary sewer supervisors. Michael Venet, director of Sanitary Sewer Services, told committee members the on-call rate had not increased in 10 years and covers third-shift, weekend and holiday responsibility, with supervisors required to carry a phone and respond to emergencies. The change was described as a retention measure to ensure experienced supervisors are available to respond to incidents.

Council members who spoke in support pointed to examples of supervisors responding to prolonged emergency work, with one member noting crews worked through holidays and multiple shifts to avert a community-level sewer catastrophe. The personnel and rules committee approvals put the salary and on-call-pay changes forward for the council's formal adoption as emergency measures.

No dollar amounts for individual position changes were provided on the public record beyond committee exhibit references; exhibit A (cited in committee) lists the affected positions and salary adjustments.