City Council Approves Salary Increases to Benefit San Angelo Fire Department

As of October 1, 2015, City of San Angelo employees will receive a pay raise after weeks of presentations and discussions between Lisa Marley, director of Human Resources & Risk Management, and City Council Members. In a 6-0 final vote, the Council approved a pay raise option that was not a part of the original discussions, but rather, one created by Rodney Fleming, Single-Member District 1

Originally, at the City Council special budget workshop held on July 28, 2015 at the McNease Convention Center, Budget Manager Morgan Chegwidden proposed $1,561,473 for salary increases to begin the process of raising the pay ranges to be within 90 percent of 13 surveyed Texas cities comparable to San Angelo. Currently, civilian employees, on average, are at 88 percent of the pay range, the San Angelo Fire Department is at 87 percent and the San Angelo Police Department sits just over the 90 percent mark, which is where the City wants to be within the next three years to help with recruitment and retention.

When Marley had asked for direction during the budget workshop, everyone conferred that they would look at providing general employees with a 5.5 percent wage increase and talked about a possible 6.26 percent raise for the SAFD, which would be the same as SAPD.

The caveat to that discussion, however, included how salary increases would be implemented, and many of the Council members opted for performance-based increases. 

“I don’t like percentage raises. I like evaluation raises” Mayor Dwain Morrison had said. “That’s just my personal opinion. I would like figures to be worked where they need to be worked.”

Charlotte Farmer also said she preferred performance based raises after Marley showed, how, during the 2012-13 fiscal year, 44 percent of employees exceeded expectations, 55 met expectations and one person came in below average. After doing across the board raises the following fiscal year, however, only 31 percent of employees exceeded job performance while 68 percent met expectations; three people came in below average.

“I know it’s demoralizing for our employees who get “Exceeds” on their evaluations and they get the same raise as those who barely get by," Marley told Council members. “Our ranges have just been in such a mess that we’ve had no choice but to give across the board raises, but we are getting better, so this is the year to separate them.”

Based on the Council’s direction, Marley went back to her office and came up with a solid draft for salaries. After the budget workshop, Marley also created salary options based on the Meet and Confer provisions of the Civil Service code. Council members also asked Marley to look at across the board raises along with performance raises, which Marley did and presented at Tuesday’s meeting.

In 2007, SAPD police officers agreed to move forward with an agreement under the Meet and Confer provisions of the Civil Service code, and the contract was signed in 2008. Based on the contract, and during the process, police officers gave up several provisions that cost the city money in order to get the 6.26 percent raises for all SAPD officers. The two areas Marley mentioned at the meeting were the forfeiture of arbitration in regards to disciplinary actions or terminations and the adoption of a mandatory fitness program last year that would lower medical and prescription costs. For more information about the Meet and Confer agreement between the City of San Angelo and SAPD, click here.

In contrast, however, the Fire Department elected not to proceed under Meet and Confer, so they have arbitration protection and are not required to maintain a mandatory fitness program.

“The City has always done a good job of fixing pay raises over the past few years,” said SAFD Chief Brian Dunn in response to why they chose to opt out of Meet and Confer. “They’ve also done pretty well with increasing the pay for the fire department. We thought the City would do the right thing. They’ve always done their best to take care of us.”

The City indeed did the right thing for the Fire Department on Tuesday.

In her final presentation to City Council, Marley offered three options for Council to consider. Option 1 included a 5.5 percent raise across the board to civil employees as well as non-civil service and SAFD pay ranges. SAPD would receive a 6.26 percent raise based on the Meet and Confer agreement.

Marley told members, “These numbers would move us closer and closer to the Council’s goal of getting our scales to where we want them to be. The downside to that is they would not be connected to evaluation scores. The salaries would not be moved in accordance with evaluations.”

Because some council members expressed a need for evaluation raises, Marley showed the Council Option 2, which would include the following:

• 5.5 percent for Fire civil service employees.
• 6.26 percent for Exceeds Expectations for non-civil service employees.
• 5.00 percent for Meets Expectations for non-civil service employees.
• 5.00 percent to all non-civil service pay ranges.

The third option, which Marley said wasn’t the best in her personal opinion because it wouldn’t do as well raising the pay ranges, would include:

• 6.26 percent to Fire civil service employees.
• 5.75 percent for Exceeds Expectations to non-civil service employees.
• 4.75 percent for Meets Expectations for non-civil service employees.
• 4.75 percent to all non-civil service pay ranges.

Based on the Council’s goals and objectives, Marley said Option 1, although not based on performance, would help get the City of San Angelo in line with survey cities.

“I think that we can continue with the council’s priority and goals and get to where we can; then once we’ve established our salary ranges where we want them, we can go back to connecting to performance evaluations,” Marley added.

After making this suggestion, Charlotte Farmer, SMD6, said, “By doing this, you’re saying once the ranges get to satisfactory level in future years. That’s the one thing that bothers me; it’s such a moving target. We’ve been trying to raise the rates since 2008, and I have to ask, can we get there?”

In response, Marley said based on the average increase of three percent across the board by survey cities, “getting there” is a possibility, but only time will tell.

Additionally, Grindstaff asked Marley how the Fire Department fits in the wage structure amongst other communities San Angelo compares itself to.

“Now that we’ve changed their structure, if you remember, we changed them one step per position, so they fall in line with 86 to 87 percent,” Marley responded.

This answer sparked the debate.

Fleming said SAFD personnel are at a two percent lower rate than the City’s civil people.

“I have a problem with this whole thing. Right off the bat, I think that Fire should be getting the same raise as the police officers, and I would do away with the Meet and Confer deal to keep the numbers up for everybody else,” Fleming stated. “Like I stated in the past, those two departments--our policeman and our fireman--are a crucial part to our city government.”

Not only are they a crucial part of the City’s government, but Fleming said the SAFD means more to him than a lot of the other departments.

“We need everybody, but those two departments are trained, and we put a lot of money into training those two departments than any other department we have,” he added. “I would not be in favor of any of these options. I would prefer for the firemen to get the very same rates as police officers. And I think that was their understanding, and that’s the reason they didn't go through Meet and Confer because they felt they would get close to the Police Department.”

Marley, however, had some issue with this.

“They’re getting 5.76 percent of what PD would be getting,” Marley said. “To me, the Fire Department was very specific and the City would do right by them by not going to Meet and Confer; but on the other side, PD gave up many many things in order to get that raise. I mean the things they gave up.”

Marley said arbitration was key back in 2008, and that was a big option SAPD conceded.

“You give up your right to go in front of a hearing to plead your case, so if you’re up for discipline, it just happens. That’s a big big deal,” Marley noted. She said by doing this, SAPD has saved the city a lot of money.

Fleming didn’t disagree with Marley’s statements, but he did say that the mandatory health fitness program is no big deal.

“I could go out there and do that. I would barely pass, but I could pass it right now," Fleming said about the difficulty of the fitness program.

Grindstaff, to add to the conversation, said she thinks pay raises are a difficult discussion because the City does pay SAPD what the prevailing pay is out there.

“But I want the same for everyone else. I want it for Fire and I want it for the guy who is in the middle of a hole at night fixing a water leak, or the person cleaning up a park,” Grindstaff said. “I think in the end we know everyone’s important. The good thing is the Police conversation keeps pushing us to keep the wages current, and that’s the way I see it.”

With that being said, after more Council Members agreed that the Fire Department needed a higher pay raise, Fleming called for the addition of Option 4, which would include a 6.26 percent raise for SAFD Civil Service employees and SAPD. All other employees will receive a 5.1 percent raise, which is lower than the 5.5 percent previously discussed.

“I’ve been these hourly employees,” Fleming said on how that might affect civil employees. “It was a long time ago, but a five percent raise, I would be very happy with that raise.”

Although this may be the case, Marley said the Council has to keep in mind that these are average pay scales, and there are some people who have positions in the 70 percentile while others may have a salary that fits in the 90 percentile. For those employees on the lower end, the 5.1 percent raise won’t bring them up to the average scale. They’re simply fed into the averages, Marley noted.

Grindstaff said she would like an Option 5, where the City could give everybody a 6.26 raise; however, Fleming told her that wasn’t possible because the City didn’t have the funds.

“I don’t know that we don’t have them,” Grindstaff said in response. “We seem to be able to produce dollars for all sorts of other things that we want to do. I mean to me this is a priority, and I’m not sure why we shortchanged it.”

Despite her reservations, the Council voted 6-0 to adopt Fleming’s Option 4, and the 2015-16 fiscal year budget.

When Fire Chief Dunn found out about the approval, he said he knew the City would do the right thing, and Fire personnel will be pleased with the outcome. The raise will also help with recruitment and retention.

“Since the oil field is down, I hope to get a few new people,” Dunn said. “[Raises] always help with retention. We don’t have a large amount of turnover, but when we do lose someone, it takes me 14 months to train [people] to where they need to be, and that costs a lot of money.”

As for Marley, she believes the new option stays more in line with what the council’s priorities have been, which is to raise City salaries within the 90 percent average of all the cities San Angelo compares itself to, but she hopes for performance raises in the near future.

“As an HR professional, it’s difficult not to connect it with performance because that’s how we’re all driven,” Marley said about steering away from the original plan of doing performance-based raises. “I think that’s why in my presentation, my final statement was that let’s go with an across the board until we get our scales where they need to be, and then come back and do performance driven measures for pay raises.”

Marley added that although she’s also pleased the City will make big grounds in raising its ranges, there may be some issues with morale.

“The people who do exceed, they’re the ones who won’t appreciate that there’s no display for their exceptional performance, but I think if we explain it to them that this is our first goal, and we have to get all of our ranges up, they’ll understand,” she said.

As for SAPD, Marley said it may be hard to look at it from their perspective because they gave up many things for the 6.26 percent raise.

“I just named a couple of [concessions] to make a point, but [SAPD] did not negotiate for the Fire Department to get pay raises, so I know from the PD side, they’re going to feel what they gave up wasn’t worth it,” Marley stated. “They expect us to do right by them because they gave up the things that cost the City a lot of money, and so for us to put it back to them in raises, that makes sense. But the Fire Department didn’t give up anything, and they’re going to get the same raise.”

This new raise will put both SAPD and SAFD within the 91 percentile of surveyed cities, and overall, Marley said she can see the argument from both sides; making the choice the City Council did is a tough line to walk.

As for the work she did under the Council's direction, Marley added, “I’ve got to think about all [City employees], so I figured I would give PD what they negotiated and give the best we can for everybody else, but that was Option 1. Option 1 was what they initially wanted, but they changed. They set those goals for themselves, and we tried to align ourselves with those goals. Obviously, they can change them, and it looks like they’re doing that.”