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Tuesday, August 15, 2017

Raises: Slip-Slidin' Away

We got some bad news recently regarding our proposed salary study, which should institute a salary scale and an orderly progression of raises for our Management and Confidential (M&C) employees.  But first, some background.

Last summer, the Performance Review and Goal Setting Committee (PRGS) developed a one-year raise plan (details here) in order to begin the work of salary justice among our M&C workers.  In September, a special meeting of PRGS was held, with all Board members invited, to hear Ronni Travers, from Public Sector HR Consultants, outline the consultant services her company could provide in this regard:  a comprehensive salary study including recommendations for an ongoing salary scale, including comparisons with other similar County scales - not just salary, but benefits, hours, working conditions, job titles and descriptions, etc.  They would also fully integrate a County Manager into the study.  To most of us, it sounded like the best approach to an ever-growing problem.

The County can't just decide to contract with a consultant - we have to send out a Request for Proposals (RFP) and invite a wide variety of consulting organizations to respond with their plans and pricing.   The RFP for the salary study finally went out early this year (after a completely unnecessary delay), and because of the way it was written - by 'our purchasing department,' which is the Onondaga County Purchasing Department - Ms. Travers' company did not respond.  The two organizations which did respond really weren't qualified, primarily because they had no experience working with Counties.  One, it seemed, had no experience at all, and the other wanted to charge us twice the rate noted in the RFP.

So after further unnecessary delay, a second RFP was "put out on the street" in July, this time written with more care and clearly encompassing what PSHRC had offered to do.  However, just last week, we received a response from PSHRC, informing us that they were not able to take our project on at this time.  

We will see if we get any other responses this time that are any better than the ones we got last time.  But the truth is, we will have spent an entire year in a fruitless attempt to solicit a professional salary study that a respected organization had offered us at the beginning of that year.  This seems incredible to me, and suggests that there are major problems in the way we do government.

What makes this even worse is the fact that the salary study was our single, focused initiative for moving forward on the County Manager.  So - unless we get a wonderful proposal out of thin air in the next few weeks, we have no plan for establishing an M&C salary scale, and no plan for moving forward with a County Manager.

This does not mean that plans will not emerge.  They will, and, given the timing, they will be substantially affected by the results of November's elections.  But for now, this does not look like the way to run a County.

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