Whether or not the City of Greensboro will start implementing the “step” plan for employee compensation is still up in the air.
The step plan was on the agenda for the Tuesday, July 15 work session, but it was only discussed briefly and Mayor Nancy Vaughan prevented any decision.
Because no decision was made, Interim City Manager Chris Wilson said the step plan would be on the agenda for the Tuesday, July 19 City Council meeting.
The City Council traditionally doesn’t take votes during work sessions, but it does approve measures by straw votes or consensus.
The funding to implement the first phase of the step plan for city employees was included in the budget, but the City Council has never voted to approve changing from the current merit system of compensation to a step plan.
A step plan pays all the employees on the same step the same salary and all the employees on the same step receive the same raise regardless of performance.
Under the merit system that the city currently uses, supervisors determine the raises their employees receive within the approved range based on their evaluations.
According to an anonymous survey done by the city’s Human Resources Department, city employees overwhelming prefer the merit system to the step plan.
According to that survey, 56 percent of the 645 employees who responded preferred the merit system while 22 percent preferred the step plan and 22 percent had no preference.
Despite the fact that the employees by a more than two-to-one margin prefer the merit system, there may be five votes on the City Council to approve the step plan.
During a budget work session, when the City Council considered the step plan Councilmember Yvonne Johnson was absent and the council split 4-4.
At that work session on June 7, Vaughan and Councilmembers Justin Outling, Marikay Abuzuaiter and Nancy Hoffmann spoke against the step plan.
Councilmembers Sharon Hightower, Michelle Kennedy, Goldie Wells and Tammi Thurm spoke in favor. Hightower has been lobbying for the step plan for years but has never been able to get a majority of the City Council to support it.
Thurm’s support was conditional based on the assurance that the city could go back to the merit system after a year.
Abuzuaiter and Johnson were absent from the July 15 work session, which means if nobody changed their vote the step plan would have been approved by a 4-to-3 vote.
Despite some pressure to hold a straw vote and make a decision, Vaughan held firm in delaying any action until next week.
STEP BACK! A program change favored by a minority of employees is ridiculous. Prove that this change in compensation improves employee morale and does not discriminate against good employees and you’ll receive support from employees and taxpayers.
Until then, not just no but hell no.
This is just like lazy children in school getting the same grade as children who study and try to excell all getting the same grade. Why even try. In the long run NOBODY WINS.
What I don’t get is that a Level 3 merit raise is still more than a step raise, and you do not get either type of raise if you are not at least a level 3 employee. There is no advantage to the step that I can see, other than it saves the city money by giving out smaller raises. Basically, everyone gets about 2% under step while the merit pool is typically a 3% average payout.
Why not ensure every employee gets the same salary, regardless of skills, responsibilities, etc? That’s where the City is headed with this dumb idea to pay everyone the same regardless of level of performance. It’s the “unionization” of the City’s workforce, helped out by the liberal city council.
In college I worked part time loading/unloading freight for a unionized trucking company and was paid the same hourly rate as the employee who had been there 30 years. Of course, the 30 year employee got assigned to operate a forklift, and I got the ones with torn sacks of flour, battery acid, etc. There was no emphasis on performance, and in the end the trucking industry (which was unionized) was broken up under the Reagan administration, which led to huge increases in employee-owned companies and a better way of life. The company I worked for went out of business due to competition.
Similarly, employee performance is a type of competition and should be paid accordingly. If I come into work on time, volunteer for overtime, get compliments on my work, etc, why not pay me more than the employee who takes up space and is absent a lot?