Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Get email alerts on the Classification topic
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
State HR commissioner outlines $135 million MAP project to modernize job classification
Summary
Commissioner Beth Fastigi told the Appropriations Committee the MAP classification modernization project (Act 27) has $135 million in funding, is nine months into a 24-month Mercer Consulting contract, and aims to reduce thousands of job classes, create career ladders and produce a market-informed compensation framework.
Beth Fastigi, commissioner of the Department of Human Resources, told the Appropriations Committee that Act 27 funded a multi-year classification modernization effort intended to create a clearer career architecture for state jobs.
"We got a $135,000,000 general fund from the classification modernization project," Fastigi said, noting the state awarded a contract to Mercer Consulting and is roughly nine months into an expected 24‑month timeline. She said the project has spent about 20% of the project budget to date.
Fastigi described the project—called MAP, for modernization of career architecture and pay—as a multi‑phase effort to organize and map roughly 5,000 job titles into a simpler architecture, reduce the total number of job classes and develop a comprehensive compensation framework that includes pay philosophy, pay structures and administrative guidelines. The work will also include manager and employee training to support consistent implementation.
The project plan calls for a market analysis in a later phase covering about 715 benchmark jobs to recommend pay structures and market adjustments. Fastigi said the work is intended to reduce the number of Request for Reclassifications (RFRs) that now make budgetary impacts unpredictable: in FY25 the committee heard an estimated $8.2 million associated with classification review results.
Committee members asked whether current funding would cover later phases; Fastigi said the vendor contract cost is approximately $1,575,000 and that, as scoped today, the Act 27 funds cover the vendor work. She and staff emphasized the distinction between the classification mapping work (the immediate MAP scope) and later decisions about pay‑chart implementation, collective bargaining and any dollar changes that would follow.
Fastigi cautioned that classification changes alone will not by themselves resolve the structure of pay charts, which committee members said can widen gaps when pay increases are applied as percentages rather than flat-dollar adjustments. Fastigi said the vendor is likely to recommend a different pay‑structure approach than the current step/grade system and that the administration and bargaining partners will review any recommendations before implementation.
The committee did not take formal action on the MAP project during this briefing; staff said they would provide final reports and recommendations from the consultant when available.
