Grants Pass council directs staff to fix pay‑equity gaps, approves retroactive 3.02% COLA for affected nonbargaining positions

Councilors on Wednesday directed staff to fix immediate pay‑equity issues for a subset of nonbargaining employees and approved a retroactive cost‑of‑living adjustment of 3.02% for those positions, following a presentation from staff that recommended wider reclassifications and salary‑schedule changes.

Stephanie Nuttall, the staff presenter, described a task‑force recommendation to reclassify several positions (including GIS coordinator → GIS supervisor, water distribution supervisor, utility billing manager, IT director and chief financial officer), adopt a new salary schedule with market average placed at step 6, and apply a placement methodology that treats three years of substantially similar experience as one step. Nuttall said the recommendation would take effect July 1, 2025, and that the current proposal is budgeted at about $1.1 million overall, with roughly $286,000 from the general fund. She said the task force also recommended standardizing holiday compensation, adopting a longevity incentive and adjusting vacation accrual caps.

Why it matters: Councilors said they…