Some Washoe County’s employees are about to get a pay raise, the result of recommendations from a monthslong analysis of the county’s classification and pay structure system. The Board of County Commissioners on Tuesday approved increasing compensation for a number of employees to bring the county into alignment with the current job market.
Consulting firm Korn Ferry worked with the county’s human resources team to evaluate more than 160 different job classifications – covering about 1,300 of the county’s employees – and compared the pay and “size” of each job with similar jobs in the local market.
For lower level jobs within the county, consultants found employees were paid well compared with other local jobs. As job size increased within the county, compensation fell lower than local market average.
Korn Ferry’s Jennifer Hassrick said this is the first time Washoe County has reviewed its job classifications and salaries since 1999. 
“That’s a really long time. The time is due. Partly, also, the labor market is shifting and continues to shift,” Hassrick said. “When you start looking at retention, looking at recruitment, looking at market competition – one thing that’s really shifted in the public sector is that you’re not just competing with the public sector anymore. You’re also competing with the general market and the private sector.”
Commission Chair Vaughn Hartung agreed.
“I’d like to see these kinds of studies happen more often… It’s maintenance,” He said. “It’s so important to stay on top of these and stay competitive and retain the best and brightest.”
Hassrick recommended the county do a review every 2-3 years, looking at various jobs and the job market to stay competitive in hiring and keeping employees.
Commissioner Mike Clark agreed that a review should be done at least every 3 years.
“This county would be nothing without the good working people that we have,” Clark said.
“One thing we have seen is more wage growth in the last five years, last three years, compared to the last 10 years even,” Hassrick said.
Previous wage growth, she added, was around 2% but now can be 4-5% or more depending on the job sector.
Commissioner Alexis Hill said as new employees are hired she would like to ensure equity within the pay structure and not allow for them to negotiate salaries above the set pay for their position.
Hill and Clark both also expressed concern that a separate study on pay in the county manager’s office came before the more widespread study and resulted in pay raises for some higher level staff more than a month earlier.
“Is there a way that we can budget to go back and compensate the staff that were left behind as part of the executive staff receiving a month-and-a-half of compensation?” Hill asked. “I think the staff would feel whole.”
The cost to bring employees who are paid below the levels in the new salary structure would cost $11.5 million in the next fiscal year. The pay raises would start rolling out in August of this year.
The county’s accounting department will also pull together a budget for adding in the extra compensation suggested by Hill to equalize the timing of the pay raises among staff.
