After addressing minimum pay standards and progression plans this term, the Starkville Board of Aldermen authorized a new staffing study that will position the incoming administration to continue tinkering with personnel issues beyond next year.
The board approved an $8,250 deal with Mississippi State University’s John C. Stennis Institute of Government and Community Development to review and compare 124 full- and part-time job descriptions and their associated pay rates with those of similarly sized municipalities, and provide updates to those functions as needed.
The study will focus on external inequities — when job responsibilities and pay scales differ or trail those in comparable cities — and internal issues such as when similar positions in local departments have a difference in pay and advancement.
The city looked into these issues in 2012, as well, Mayor Parker Wiseman said, and a new review of the city’s functions is due after aldermen mandated $10 hourly pay minimums and set new tracks for internal advancement begin this fiscal year.
Wiseman said the Stennis report is expected to come before aldermen this spring, and the report’s expected recommendations will be passed to the incoming board of aldermen, which will take office July 1.
“There is no such thing as a perfect compensation system. The reality is an organization should constantly be evaluating its system and making changes where appropriate. That’s the task we face as an organization maintaining more than 300 employees,” Wiseman said. “We have made a lot of progress on the deficiencies our last study showed. It’s important that we continue this work, and we won’t know all of our structural needs with compensation until we again take a look at comparable cities.”
Aldermen locked in the new $10 minimum rate and approved pay grade progression plans for various departments in September. Starkville firefighters will see their minimum hourly rates upped on April 1, and the new scale goes into effect for all other employees on July 1.
In August, the city reported 23 firefighters, 10 sanitation workers, five street department employees and seven members of the water department earn less than $10 per hour.
New HR head begins work
In other business, the board also hired former Aramark Higher Education senior resource manager Naverette Ashford to serve as the city’s next human resources director Tuesday.
His salary was set at $73,000 annually, subject to a one-year probationary period, and he will receive full city benefits.
Ashford’s first day at work is today.
He was chosen out of a pool of three interviewees, which included Deputy HR Director Stephanie Halbert. Earlier this month, aldermen gave her a $5,000 raise, increasing her annual salary to $54,000.
“I believe we will have the best HR department in all of Mississippi,” said Ward 1 Alderman Ben Carver after the board approved Ashford’s hire.
Carl Smith covers Starkville and Oktibbeha County for The Dispatch. Follow him on Twitter @StarkDispatch
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