Becker County Board holds public work session with wages consultant as they try to salvage a new class and compensation system for county employees

Detroit Lakes, Minn. (KDLM) – Members of the Becker County Board held a public work session last Friday with a member of David Drown Associates in an attempt to update the wage scale for county employees.

The board wasn’t onboard with what had been presented by a different consultant throughout 2023 and didn’t adopt a new class and compensation system during their most recent regular meeting on Dec. 19.

The public work session with DDA is an attempt to move forward with a new class and grade system, but without losing the work that was previously done.

Tessia Melvin, a member of DDA, said her company works with 15 different wage systems across 47 different counties and wants to make sure Becker County’s new system is designed specifically for them. She also added the wage spread among different positions within Becker County isn’t consistent between department heads, supervisors and regular employees.

“When I look at your current wage grids, because you have more than one, there’s not a consistent wage spread,” said Melvin. “From the minimum to the maximum, it varies. So, department heads have a larger range from their min to their max, and then supervisors have a little bit less and then employees have less. And that is totally fine, not all entities do that, but that is a philosophy of the board for how do you pay employees. I always say the market data tells you where you are to the market, but the board gets to decide how do we want to pay. So where do we want to be in relation to the market and then how fast do we want to get there.”

During the presentation, commissioners seemed to like the idea of adding steps 11 and 12 to each job class to reward employees with above market maximum rates for staying at the county for the long term.

Melvin was quick to point out that the steps do not equate to tenured time. 

“Steps don’t equate to tenure,” she said. “I don’t want anyone listening thinking, ‘well, I’ve been here 11 years, so I’m going to come in at step 11 and then move,’ that is not the case unless you guys found a whole bunch of money and have unlimited funds. You move in the same way, and I can’t undo what was done in the past, so this kind of moves forward, but it does allow your employees when they hit those steps, they are going to get a bigger bump for the value in their competencies and what they bring to the organization.”

Commissioners also seemed settled on a new wage system with 20 different pay grades, with each pay grade having 12 steps between their minimum and maximum earnings that they will try to fit all 124 different county positions into.

Barry Nelson, chair of the Becker County Board, said he liked the new 20 pay grade grid.

“I like the 20 (step),” said Nelson. “Does the board want to settle in and move forward with the 20? Ok, we’re kind of all saying based on your recommendation that we like the 20 and it gives us pretty good confidence of where we can end up.”

During upcoming meetings, Melvin said they’d be moving the county positions into the new grid, but she was quick to point out some of the positions, like county engineer and assistant county attorney, needed to be moved up to stay competitive with the market. 

“But (assistant attorneys) are positions, because of the public defenders increase was so large, that has to be above market,” said Melvin. “And part of it is the value of their job. They are keeping you out of litigation and the complexity of their work. So I felt that one was lower too, so that is one I encourage to be moved up.”

No official actions were taken by the board during the work session, but commissioners said they plan to continue meetings with ADA to craft an equitable pay system and implement the new system during 2024.