Salary Compression, Inversion, and Three Classification Appeals

Classification is decided on the whole job, not on a title, a single duty, or the volume of work - and it must not be decided under budget pressure. The analysis:

1. Build the record. Obtain current position descriptions (not the 2011 versions), organizational charts, and two to four weeks of duty diaries showing percentage of time. Compare the actual work to the Office Coordinator specification on the allocation factors: level of independent judgment, complexity of the work, supervision received versus exercised, authority to commit funds, and consequence of error.
2. Distinguish permanent from temporary. The directives quote higher-class duties, but the work arose from a vacancy and appears temporary. Where the duties are temporary, the typical remedy is an out-of-class or higher-class pay differential under the CBA or personnel policy for the period worked - not a permanent reallocation. Permanent reallocation requires that the higher-level duties be a continuing, assigned part of the position and that the employees meet the class's minimum qualifications.
3. Check retroactivity rules. Retroactive pay is usually governed by the classification policy or statute (commonly limited to the date of the request, the start of the assignment, or a fixed look-back window), not by equity alone. Apply the rule as written.
4. Decide in writing with appeal rights - a written decision to each employee, to the union, and to the civil service authority, stating the analysis and the appeal route.

If the duties are permanent and meet the allocation standard, reallocate prospectively per policy. If temporary, pay the differential for the months worked. Do not pre-commit to an outcome before the audit.

Do the arithmetic first. Three hundred forty positions at an average salary of roughly $47,000 require about $12.8 million in salary base to close an 8% gap - roughly $1.0-1.3 million recurring. The $420,000 covers roughly a third. Any plan that promises full market movement in one year is not fundable, and the county administrator needs to hear that plainly.

Priority order:

1. Fix the inversion now. It is the smallest cost and the largest legal and morale risk. Fourteen employees moving up one to two steps at roughly $2,200-$4,400 per step costs under $60,000. Inversion - subordinates paid more than the people who train or supervise them - invites a union grievance, an equal-pay or pay-equity complaint, and voluntary attrition of exactly the people you least want to lose.
2. Close the within-range compression by moving incumbents' placement so the range has visible differentials between steps; a range whose steps are meaningless is not a pay system.
3. Phase the market movement across two to three years - for example 3% in each of the next three years plus the inversion fix - with the schedule published so employees can see the plan.
4. Fund the arbitration-proof items (any out-of-class pay owed to the three appellants) from the same allocation.

Present the options to the administrator as a costed menu, not a single recommendation. An 8% gap is a multi-year problem; the credibility risk is promising it in one year and delivering a third of it.

The practice is the engine of the inversion and has to change, but the change needs to be designed and bargained, not announced.

Substance. Replace discretionary Step 5 placement with a default rule: new hires enter at Step 1 or 2 unless there is documented, job-related justification (a scarce certification, a competing offer in a hard-to-fill class, verified directly relevant experience). Every exception requires HR approval in writing and triggers a review of whether incumbents in the same class are now compressed below the new hire. That single control - exception plus incumbent review - prevents the next inversion before it happens.

Legal and labor considerations. Step placement and starting-salary rules are ordinarily mandatory subjects of bargaining where they affect wages and are not already fixed in the agreement. The union has asked to meet; HR should offer dates promptly, present the problem and the data (the market study, the inversion list, the attrition figures), and bargain over the placement rule rather than imposing it. If the CBA already delegates step placement to the employer, HR still owes the union notice and an opportunity to bargain over the change in practice.

Communication. Tell affected employees what is happening and when, in the same week - an unexplained freeze on step placement will be read as favoritism. Publish the phasing schedule for market movement. Employees tolerate a slow fix far better than a hidden one.