Pay Compression in the Systems Analyst Class
The county's Systems Analyst II class has six steps, each 4 percent apart. Fourteen employees are in the class at an average salary of $78,000. To fill a cybersecurity vacancy after eight months of recruiting, the county hired an outside candidate at step 5 - the same step as two incumbents with 9 and 11 years of service. Within three weeks one incumbent filed a grievance alleging inequitable pay, and the union demanded that "everyone in the class move up two steps." The classification specification has not been revised since 2016 and does not mention cybersecurity duties. The county has $85,000 available for adjustments this fiscal year and a meet-and-confer obligation over wages. The pay plan requires that step placement be based on verifiable experience.
1. Diagnose the problem. Is this compression, inversion, a classification issue, or a pay-plan violation - and what data would you gather before proposing anything?
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It may be several problems at once, and they have different remedies.
- Compression - new hires and incumbents converging at the same step because the market moved and the step structure did not.
- Inversion - an incumbent with 9 or 11 years earning the same as or less than a new hire in the same class.
- Classification - the specification predates the cybersecurity work, so the county may be paying market rates to attract skills the class does not describe. That is a classification problem disguised as a pay problem.
- Pay-plan compliance - step 5 for the new hire must be justified by verifiable experience. If it was not, the cleanest remedy is to correct the new hire's placement, not to raise fourteen people.
Data to gather: the new hire's documented experience and the step-placement worksheet; the current distribution of all fourteen incumbents across steps with hire dates; a market survey for the class (public and private, with a stated methodology and effective date); turnover in the class; and the count of similarly situated employees in adjacent IT classes who could raise the same claim.
2. Recommend a course of action that fits within $85,000. Show the arithmetic.
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Cost of the union's demand: one step = $78,000 × 4% = $3,120 per person; × 14 = $43,680. A second step adds roughly $81,120 × 4% = $3,245 per person; × 14 = $45,430. Total for two steps ≈ $89,110, which exceeds the $85,000 available. So the demand cannot be met as stated, and saying so with numbers is far stronger than saying "no budget."
A defensible package:
- Verify the new hire's step. If step 5 was not supported by verifiable experience under the pay plan, reset it to the correct step. That remedies the anomaly at little or no cost and undercuts the equity argument.
- One step for the class (~$43,680) restores distance between new hires and experienced incumbents and is affordable.
- Targeted adjustment for the two most affected incumbents, using the remaining roughly $41,000, if their compression is demonstrably worse than the class average.
- Commit to a class and market study for the next fiscal year, including whether cybersecurity duties warrant a separate class or a revision to the specification.
Avoid making a one-time payment to one grievant as a quiet settlement; it creates a "me-too" expectation you cannot fund.
3. How should the county handle the grievance and the union's demand?
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- Treat wages as a mandatory subject. If the CBA sets step placement or requires meet-and-confer before changing wage schedules, the county cannot implement adjustments announced only to the grievant. Notify the union and schedule the meeting before the effective date.
- Answer the grievance on the merits: whether the pay plan was followed in the new hire's placement, and whether the grievant's placement is consistent with the plan. Follow the contractual steps and timelines; procedural default is a common way employers lose winnable grievances.
- Present the cost model to the union rather than a position statement. Showing that two steps costs $89,110 against $85,000 reframes the conversation as prioritization rather than refusal.
- Keep the class study on a schedule with a written commitment, so the union has a forward-looking remedy to discuss.
- Do not negotiate individual side deals with the grievant outside the process; consistency is the county's best defense on the next claim.