Personnel Committee - Regular Meeting

All right, let's go ahead and call the personnel committee meeting of Tuesday September 22nd 2026 to order we have roll call And we have mayor Brendan Pratt

Member Tim Lima your Matthew beer and your Bruce Thielen your Terry Magnus Magnuson here We have absent at this time Dionne Sonsala. We also have present director of administrative services Betsy Boley and Cindy Bauer city clerk We have a quorum all right discuss consider approval of the September 8th 2026 personnel committee meeting minutes Here to move for approval of the minutes.

I'm a second I

Motion in a second all in favor say aye aye aye I will abstain I wasn't here Opposed motion carries all right new business number one discuss consider reclassification of the following position Will be discussed at the September 24th 2026 council meeting assistant city administrator position to exempt grade Q from exempt grade P

And let the record show that Dion Sonsala is here.

And assistant. Yeah, assistant, that's for sure.

I'll let him get settled.

All right.

All right. Mayor Pratt and members of the personnel committee, please consider the proposed reclassification of the assistant city administrator position from grade P to grade Q. The assistant city administrator role has evolved into a key executive leadership position within our organization. In addition to overseeing assigned departments and functions, the position carries significant responsibility for organization-wide operations, personnel and policy matters, strategic plan implementation, major projects and implementation of those projects, coordination with other government entities, and department leadership support. It also provides essential leadership continuity in the capacity of a city administrator when necessary. The proposed reclassification is a critical component of the city's succession planning. Aligning the classification with the position's true level of responsibility strengthens our ability to prepare for future organizational needs, preserve institutional knowledge, and maintain stability during leadership transitions. An independent market analysis conducted by Cottingham and Butler evaluate comparable positions and determined that grade Q is the appropriate placement within our current compensation structure. The evaluation noted that the role requires a bachelor's degree and progressively responsible experience in municipal or government organizations. Under the current wage schedule, the grade Q wage range for the position would be $106,620.80 to the top of the wage range which would be $137,092. This places the role just below the police chief, public works director, and the city engineer slash assistant public works director positions. Adjusting this position to grade Q reflects its function as a senior executive leadership role within the city of Altoona. Thank you for your time and consideration.

Questions?

Does that automatically move Roy to that pay scale then?

Yes, as I understand, yes.

And at what point will he be at the 106 or the 137?

That they didn't give me.

How many steps are there in the progression? I can tell you. 26.

There's 11. 11 total steps.

How many?

11. 11.

And our current position is at letter P. At P. Which is how much?

How much? Dollar-wise. Well, I can give you the hourly. I don't have the annual amount. I can figure it out quick here.

Let's see.

117,166.

So where will he be slotted in the new range? 117,166? Oh, 117,166. Yeah. Will he be slotted just above what he's currently making?

That's my understanding.

He's in that range right now. Right, I know that.

He'll be moving to the Q range.

Which is right in the middle of that range as well. That's my question. He's going to get some kind of a raise out of it.

But he normally would get his normal bump anyway. I guess what I'm trying to say is that are we... Rearranging the furniture just because of Mike retiring and putting Roy into a position just to make more money right now What's the what's the mentality the mentality is that he's been doing?

more responsible activities and taking on that leadership role and this is to be compensating him for that additional and

Also, it looks like it aligns that 50th percentile more into the middle of the Q range. So it would put from the market analysis. So he's at the top end of the P range?

I guess I don't remember. Is he at the top end of the P range? I don't even know.

Right now he is. He's at step nine.

So how long does it take to go through the 11 steps is my next question.

It would be a few years, assuming he gets a step increase every year.

So two more years to get to 11. Okay. At his current rate. So if you slot him one step above his current rate... wage, how many more steps does he have to get to the top is the question.

So you're saying he's at 9 of 11 at P, and then he would join Q at a step above where he was? Just one step above. That would probably put him at like step four.

Okay, so then he'd have another seven years to get to the top of the...

It's better than a kick in the butt.

Is that truly what we're doing, or are we just trying to... Are we trying to get Roy more money? I know he's doing more work.

It's kind of a combination of that plus he's been offered different positions, and he could go pretty much anywhere and make a lot more money than what he's making here, too. So it's kind of an incentive for him

on staying here instead of looking elsewhere when when Mike leaves is Roy automatically guaranteed that position or do we go to market and no I would say no no you've got that's where I'm absolutely you guys where my brain is going are we just automatically doing this to help Roy or oh it's it's gonna have to be an open market yeah you've got to open it up to everybody okay

But for now, for the next year or two years, then he's just trying to get up to that decent level.

And understanding that he's been doing a lot more, and he will continue to do even more in the next few years.

He's been taking on multiple projects, leading different initiatives. So it's not, and he does act in the capacity of the city administrator when Mike is gone.

Mike is lucky to have him.

That's my belief. I think you would hear that from everyone.

So I guess it's going to go to the council. My question at the council meeting is going to be, where are you going to slot him? So we have an idea of what we're looking at salary-wise. And it would only make sense that he gets slotted one step above his current salary. Does that make sense?

Well, if I can ask, is Cunningham Butler, you know, they had bolded the 50th percentile, you know, in this analysis. Is that where their recommendation is? But you said he's in 9 of 11 in his current. Correct. So does that put him up around the 75th percentile?

I guess I'm not quite following your question.

Okay, the 50th percentile is 121.6.

I believe they bolded it just because it's the middle. Okay. That's the only reason it's bolded.

It's more of a benchmark that they're putting out there. So he would be more on the 75th percentile.

He would be between the 50th and 75th. That's how I understand it.

So what step would that be?

One moment.

Carry the four.

Divide by two.

As far as I know, Mike will be the one that will request the stub.

Okay. Well, the issue is you're going to run into this again at some point with another position. Every one of them. Yeah. And you want to make sure you slot this one correctly so you have some precedent to fall back on with the next one rather than just say, well, we thought this was good.

The amount listed on the Cunningham Butler, it actually falls between step seven and step eight on our current wage chart.

Current salary.

Current salary, 2026.

So I guess I'm back to my original thought is you're going to have to slot him at least one step above where he's currently at salary-wise. That'll be more than the 50th percentile. Right. Make sense?

It's up to you guys.

I'm just questioning the rationale behind it. Because I know we're going to probably go higher than one step. Which, I mean, don't get me wrong. I'm fine with that. I'm just saying. We're setting a precedence because it happened with Mike. It happened with Cindy's position. It happened with the police chief. gonna end up happening with fire chief probably your position so I mean there's a ton of jobs out there that are gonna start recruiting people because they need good people you know what I agree with you and I feel like we're just being reactionary well we're being I don't want to be arbitrary because that's what it feels like sometimes you want to be proactive but if somebody gets another job offer someplace else does that really to me

Back in my day, they would have said, don't let the door hit you in the ass.

And that's the reactive kind of thing.

I understand that.

But nowadays it's different.

Well, I don't know. Nowadays, I think we dig ourselves in a hole when we don't have some kind of rationale to how we're doing it.

Well, if we're basing it off market rates, you have justification if we go out and do a study and we're... Well, that's why I say if that's one step above where he currently is...

I would say if we're grossly underpaying people, absolutely. But we can take 12 surveys and they can all come back 12 different ways. I mean, it's not... It wasn't too long. I get paid based on my performance. And if Roy is truly performing at that level, then he should be paid at that level.

And that's what I kind of took from the introduction, that Betsy's introduction laid out. Departments assigned responsibility, operations, strategic project, coordinating with others.

But there's no way we could keep Roy here. If Eau Claire decided to say, hey, we're going to double your salary, he's going to go over there.

I guess if Roy applies for a job someplace and says, I can get this salary, $180,000 a year, and he comes back to us and says, this is what they offered me, are we going to do it? Are we? We've done that in the past.

Do we know regionally, you know, within the 90-mile area, is Cunningham Butler saying that all the other cities, municipalities are in the same classification? Q is the going rate. I'm just looking for a benchmark here.

What I understand, they went out to the same, they used the same comparables that they used for past positions that they've, studied for us. So it's not like they selected a new group of comparables. They used the same group as they used for Cindy's position, the city clerk.

And I agree. If the benchmark is whatever the steps are, and he's at this step of Q, you're not going to push him all the way to the top of Q.

So...

he's at you know X number of dollars now you're gonna put him at the next step above that so you're not giving him a decrease no yeah but I guess where is going from P to Q where is he gonna fall when he gets his raise we don't know that I don't have that it's hard all we're doing is reclassifying in most cases over the past years we've tried to get employees at least up to the 50 percentile whatever that

that wage study says at least 50% if not higher if they're above that.

Well, at his current salary, where does that fall in the 11 steps of the queue?

Yeah, it feels like he's at like the 85th now, and this would bring him down to like 60. So four or five.

Yeah. So five would be the 50th percentile or close? Yeah.

Is there 11 steps in P or Q as well? That would be good information to have in front of us.

I would think so.

You fall at step six.

I think everybody wants to keep Roy. I mean, we all have this vision of how things are going to go, but... I don't think we should telegraph that at the same time.

If you remember a few years ago when we went out and did a citywide job survey, they found that pretty much every position in the city was 10% low. We went across the board, 10% raises for everybody because that study said that we're grossly underpaying our employees. Well, this study basically is saying the same thing, that Roy is not in the category where he should be based on as years of experience of what he's doing.

I can't tell you how many times I've been through this with government. Why can't you tell us? I couldn't tell you. It's been at least half a dozen times. And at the end of all this, when you re-evaluate everybody, no one's happy. And I guess that's the point. There shouldn't be people gloating either. So where are we at here? What are we doing?

What's the recommendation?

What we're recommending is to move it, the position, reclassify the position from P to Q. No wage has been discussed that I'm aware of, but it's just to move that position into the correct classification.

Is Roy up for his review right now and for a wage increase?

That happens in the beginning of the year.

Oh, so it's not until the beginning of next year to where we just slot him into wherever he's at currently, okay?

I don't have a problem changing the classification. I don't have a problem with that at all. I think the rub is where you slot him. Where do you slot him, right? I agree.

Okay. Recommendation. Motion.

Tea time? I'll make that motion to recommend. I'm all second.

Okay, we have a motion and a second. All in favor say aye.

Aye.

Opposed? Motion carries. Anything miscellaneous, business?

I had somebody looking at the clerk posting and the dollar amounts on the title versus the description were a little different.

I'll have to look.

Okay. I'll check it out. I'll show you a screenshot, but it was...

Okay.

They were similar, like they're very in the same range, but it was just something like... I didn't know if it was like a...

Okay. Yeah. If you want to show me, that would be great.

Yep.

Okay. Anything else?

I will move to adjourn at 4.50. I feel a little second.

Okay. We have a motion and a second. All in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? We're out of here.

I could tell you. I don't know what these meetings are.