By Pepper Parr
November 1st, 2024
BURLINGTON, ON
How does the city determine how much a staff member will be paid?
Civil servants in the municipal sector have to put up with a public that wants to know where every nickel and dime goes. And at times they are relentless.
The provincial Sunshine list, a document that lists everyone on the public payroll and how much they earned, including benefits, is referred to frequently.
The city has a tightly controlled regime that sets out how much staff are paid.
City Hall staff at a United Way BBQ
The city has what they refer to as pay grades – there are 19 0f them.
One of the 19 pay grades is assigned to a job
The grade, which is a pay level that has a high number and a low number, is set when a person is hired or moves into a new job.
A staff member can be moved from one pay grade to another, the assumption is that they move up a grade level rather than down a grade level.
We asked Human Resources to provide an example of a grade – we didn’t care which one.
Their response: An example of a grade is: Job grade F ranges from $67,749 to $84,687.
Who determines when a staff member gets moved up in the parameters of the pay grade was not explained – we didn’t ask.
In the past pay cheques were mailed to employees – the bulk are now automatically transferred to bank accounts. Some, apparently are still being paid by cheque.
More interested in how many employees, than how much they receive in total compensation that is subject to competition and other influencing factors such as being a member of a union. The former appears to have no guardrails whatsoever.
The clichés are “where every nickel goes” and “nickel and diming”. When 2 clichés are mashed together a malaphor is created. What a waste inflation is. How much time is spent on negotiating new wages and benefits? The people involved are not part of the productive workforce.
For example, Job grade F ranges from $67,749 to $84,687, that range is divided into steps, the employee goes up the steps based on a performance evaluation that done annually by the supervisor or manager. It usually takes 6 to 10 years to reach the top of the scale, if the employee stay in that job.
There is also the annual cost of living adjustments to take into account.
The City also looks at the market for pay rates.
There’s a slightly different procedure for union bargaining unit members, some are hourly, some are salary paid.
When a job grade has steps, the employee can be given the step increase plus the annual cost of living or union negotiated annual increase. 2 increases in 1 year, every year for up to 10 years in astrago50’s example. You have to be qualified to get the position in the first place. So why do our municipal gov’t jobs have steps and other private companies do not? No wonder so many gov’t employees are on the sunshine list.