County to raise wagesby 8 percent

With one out of 10 Marathon County jobs going unfilled, administrator Lance Leonhard last week Tuesday told the Human Resource, Finance and Property (HRFP) Committee that he will implement an average eight percent wage hike for county employees starting in December and include the pay raise in a proposed 2023 county budget. The significant wage increase follows a recommendation from consultant Mc Grath Human Resources Group, Jamestown, Tenn. to update the county’s 23-grade compensation schedule, he said.

“We will fully implement the schedule,” Leonhard said.

Total annual cost for the wage hike is estimated at $2,960,672.

Molly Adzic, county human resource director, told the committee the county’s employment situation was a tad better than six months ago, but still dire. The county has 77 open positions, she said, and the county receives 44 percent less applications than in the past. The county’s annual turnover rate is 16 percent, she said, where 10 percent is ideal.

Adzic predicted that 132 staff members would leave the county ranks this year. Of this number, she predicted 27 county workers will retire while 105 will resign for various reasons. A third of the county’s resignations are by employees who have worked for the county for less than two years, Adzic explained.

This year, the sheriff’s department has lost 17 percent of its workforce, Adzic reported. The highway department lost 20 percent, the library 27 percent, the Conservation, Planning and Zoning Department 54 percent and the Health Department 16 percent.

The number one reason for employees leaving, she said, was salary. A second reason was work schedule flexibility.

Malayna Halvorson Maes, co-author of the McGrath compensation study, told committee members that 52 percent of county jobs were paid less than market wages. Eighty-one percent of the county starting wages were below market, she said.

Maes said county employees eventually are paid equal to their peers in the private and public sectors across Wisconsin, but that it takes too long on the county pay schedule for employees to achieve parity with others.

“It takes 14 years before employees are market competitive,” she said. “There are no employees who are going to wait 14 years anymore.”

Maes said that 41 percent of county employees are under age 40 and are “mobile” enough to quit and find employment elsewhere. The county has not comprehensively reviewed its pay levels for the past decade. Maes recommended that a study of county wage rates take place every three to five years.

County board chairman Kurt Gibbs asked whether the proposed pay increase was sustainable over time.

Leonhard said he advised the county board to review employee compensation levels every year.

In related business, committee chairman John Robinson, Wausau, announced a schedule for completing this coming year’s county budget. He said the HRFP Committee would first be presented with a 2023 budget on Wednesday, Oct. 12. The committee will vote on the budget on Monday, Oct. 17, he said, and present it to the county board on Thursday, Oct. 20. The county board will have a Thursday, Nov. 3, public hearing on the budget and adopt the budget on Thursday, Nov. 10.