County compensation discussions continue

By Robert Williams

Editor

Becker County Commissioners approved a resolution to support regional snowmobile trails at the latest board meeting on Tuesday, Nov. 21.

Becker County will act as the legal sponsor for the Northwoods Trails, Wolf Pack Snowmobile Trails, ULTRA Snowmobile Trails, Midnite Riders Snowmobile Trail systems and approve applications to the MN-DNR Snowmobile Trail Assistance Program. 

Becker County will enter into an agreement with the State of Minnesota for the Snowmobile Trail Assistance Program and appointed the Land Commissioner to act as the fiscal agent on behalf of the local unit of government.

Classification and Compensation

The board discussed the ongoing compensation study with 30-year consultant Bob Bjorklund, of Bjorklund Compensation Consulting LLC, via video conference. The dialogue was about options between the current band-and-grade salary schedule and a new point system salary schedule.

The main issue has to do with Personal Analysis Questionnaires (PAQ) that were filled out by employees and supervisors. The proposed salary ranges for county employees will be determined by the PAQs and the schedule was developed by consultants from David Drown Associates Human Resources.

“It seems to me the major problem is employee acceptance and management acceptance of the data used to arrive at the answers,” said Bjorklund. “All the information was based upon information gathered from the questionnaires. Given the fact that employees and managers are concerned that the PAQs may not contain complete or accurate information, the way to really address this problem from the county’s perspective going forward is to ensure that information accurately reflects the duties, responsibilities, working conditions and qualifications of the jobs under review. I think the best way to do that as mentioned is for managers to sit down with the employees in their department on a job-by-job basis, examine the questionnaires, make adjustments to make sure they accurately reflect what the managers expectations are and on that basis, submit the data and re-rate the jobs.”

Bjorklund also discussed the consequences of reducing the number of salary grades – minimizing differences between duties and responsibilities between certain jobs that may also be causing employees and managers some concern regarding the hierarchy and grade placement of jobs.

The county’s current 30-32 salary bands have been compacted down to 14, according to commissioner Erica Jepson. She suggested further vetting of the PAQs and an increase in the number of salary ranges while working with HR and Drown and Associates. The board came to a consensus that a solution needs to be come to by the end of the year.

Bjorklund’s recommendation was for the county to move forward with the new system and work with Drown to address the issues.

“To start over would be wasting a lot of taxpayer money and that’s my concern,” said commissioner John Okeson. “I think we can get the little problems fixed with this and move on. Not everyone is going to be happy.”

Donations

The board accepted a $250 donation from Betty Bigger to the Becker County Veterans Service Office in memory of her husband, an Army paratrooper, requesting that it be used for Becker County Veterans.