After an independent study found that Crescent City’s salaries and benefits were 3-5% behind what’s offered at similar agencies in the region, councilors authorized a pay adjustment for all employees.

But at an annual cost of about $875,000, increasing compensation for city staff so their pay is comparable with the median market is not feasible, City Manager Eric Wier told Councilors on Tuesday. 

Instead of implementing the recommendations Florida-based Evergreen Solutions outlined in its compensation and classification study, Wier and his management team proposed a new pay structure that would cost the city a total of $423,000 spread across its different funds.

“It’s nice to know where we stand,” he said, adding that he and his management team used the compensation analysis as a tool. “But we all know, and that’s including the employees and the Council, that we can’t afford that. Our budget won’t allow us to get there.”

Four members of the Crescent City Council approved a series of agreements between the city and its five collective bargaining groups. Councilors entered into a similar memorandum of understanding with its unrepresented and confidential employees and amended a temporary employment agreement against retired annuitant Bill Gillespie, the city’s interim fire chief.

Councilor Jason Greenough was absent. His colleague Ray Altman recused himself from the vote concerning the Crescent City Management Employees Association, noting that his spouse, City Clerk Robin Altman, was a member.

According to Wier, the new salary schedule adds an additional step to the city’s current step and grade pay scale. Grades are assigned to each job classification and are separated by 2.5%, while steps are pay increases that an individual earns depending on their performance criteria, according to the city’s staff report.

Step 6 would be 5% above the city’s current top step, Wier said.

“This would increase our range so when we go to recruit we would have a bigger range to recruit from because now we have a Step 6,” he said. “But it would also give those employees who worked that time period (the opportunity to) jump to Step 6.”

According to Wier, staff salaries will increase by a minimum of 2% depending on the position.

For officers within the Crescent City Police Department, Wier said the management team was proposing a 12% increase along with a 1-3% cost of living adjustment in July. Wier said the proposed COLA would ensure the city’s pay structure doesn’t continue to lag behind the market.

“We have come to tentative agreements with all five of these collective bargaining units. That’s what’s before you tonight, that they agree to these stipulations,” Wier told the City Council. “It does put us in a good position where we’re able to address some of the inequities, especially the ones that had the larger gaps to them.”

As part of its compensation analysis, which the city commissioned in August 2024, Evergreen Solutions worked with the city manager and “other designees,” collected job descriptions, organization charts, salary information and other data, Project Manager Mark Holcombe said.

Evergreen Solutions representatives also visited the community and interviewed employees. During staff interviews, employees stated that the camaraderie within the organization as well as the benefits were positive aspects of their job with the city, Holcombe told the City Council. However, some also felt that they could earn more money if they worked in “a number of other locations,” he said.

They were also concerned about salary compression and compaction, Holcombe told councilors.

“People were talking about my salary being compressed with someone else’s — it should be higher based on the work I do, but it’s too close to someone else’s,” he said. “They shared that they didn’t feel like it was appropriate or accurate based on the duties and the work being done.”

Other concerns were job descriptions not matching with the employees’ actual duties as well as them feeling overworked, Holcombe said.

Holcombe also referred to the data his organization collected, which he said showed a nice consistent range from minimum to maximum salary ranges. He said the city also utilized the salary step and grade system the way it should work, but added that there were a lot of employees in the top 25th percentile of their pay.

“It’s not necessarily inherently a weakness because it does show that you’ve had employees moving through the scale and staying with the city,” he said. “But we do want to flag that because … if combined with pay that is below market, that can become a limiting factor in employee earnings.”

Evergreen Systems also made recommendations to the Crescent City management team. The recommendation they preferred was to move staff into the new pay plan at the same step on the pay scale that they’re currently at.

“It gives employees the full benefit of the market,” he said. “So, if your classification was 10% behind market, you would move 10%. If your classification was 2% behind, you would move 2%. The way we would accomplish that is by keeping you on that same step. If you’re on Step 2 right now, you move into that new scale and go to Step 2. If you’re on Step 4, you move into the new scale and go to Step 4.”

The city’s management team, which includes Wier, City Attorney Martha Rice, Finance Director Linda Leaver and HR Director Sara Barbour, used Evergreen’s recommendations as a tool. Internally, Wier said, they looked at staff experience as well as their required knowledge and credentials.

The lack of money to bring staff salaries up to the market median prompted one member of the public, county resident Linda Sutter, to call for pay cuts to administrators.  

Sam Strait, another frequent public commenter, said he wasn’t asking the city manager or the police chief to take a pay cut, but he pointed out that the market is going to change.

Mayor Pro Tem Candace Tinkler, however, pointed out that the changes to the pay structure weren’t being sprung on the City Council all at once.

“This has been something we’ve had meetings about multiple times,” she told the city manager” and you’ve slowly pulled us through the process and kept us in the loop as things change, so I feel really comfortable with this as it is now.”