Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, June 26, 1995 TAG: 9506260025
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: SARAH HUNTLEY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Charles Jennings Jr. has been hauling garbage for Roanoke County for 26 years and, beginning July 1, he'll finally get what he deserves.
A 17.71 percent pay raise.
In an effort to fix long-standing inequities in pay, 386 of the county's 739 employees will receive heftier paychecks at the start of the new fiscal year.
"It will be a big help because every time I go to the grocery store the prices keep going up," said Jennings, who will earn more than $3,000 extra a year under the plan. "There were some years when we didn't get any increase at all."
Roanoke County's pay disparities came to light in March after a Police Department employee filed a grievance - and a lawsuit - complaining that detectives with less seniority were making more money than he.
The problem wasn't confined to the police department, nor was Detective Rick Moorer's situation unique. Assistant County Administrator Don Myers said there were three types of pay inequities that spanned several departments.
The largest problem was compression at the lower end of the pay scale. These inequities were created because the county increased starting salaries without giving adequate raises to its existing staff, Myers said. In many cases, employees with two or more years of experience were earning less than new recruits.
There were also longevity issues and inequities created through promotional "leap-frogging," Myers said.
So, the county put its pay team to work.
"We've come up with a process that pretty much addresses every type of inequity we've encountered," said Myers, who worked with the team of county employees and citizens to develop the plan. "People who have been in their current position the longest get the biggest benefits."
The plan, which team members call "The Fix," will cost $440,000. It bases salaries on years of service, so the individual increases vary. Twenty-four county employees will receive salary raises greater than 10 percent.
The largest percent increase - 17.71 percent - is shared by Jennings and a parks and recreation employee. The parks and recreation employee will receive the largest dollar amount - an additional $5,240 a year.
The fix's lowest increase goes to an engineer, whose salary will be boosted 0.01 percent. That comes to a whopping $4.37 a year.
Almost all of the affected employees are "front-line service providers," Myers said. Department heads won't come under the same system.
The police department has more than 100 employees who will benefit from the fix. For the most part, they are being treated the same as other county employees.
There is one exception, however. Myers said the county will take into account career paths for public safety employees because police, fire and other emergency services rarely recruit externally. In the past, people who have been promoted have not received adequate raises.
"In a way, we are recreating history and trying to correct that," Myers said.
The increases under the county's plan are considerably lower than the raises a police committee had proposed last month. And some officers, especially those in senior positions, dispute the methods the county used for adjusting career paths.
Under the police committee's $315,914 proposal, officers would have received pay increases ranging from $45 to $11,000 a year. The lowest salary increase in the police department, under the county's plan, is $11 a year. The highest is $3,960.
The police committee's proposal addressed both internal inequities and disparities among salaries in the county, Roanoke and Salem. The officers argue that external parity is an important element in solving the department's turnover problems.
The county's plan, in contrast, deals only with internal inequities. Even with the fix, employees in Roanoke County start off making less than employees in other jurisdictions. They gain some ground at midpoint, but at least one jurisdiction still offers higher maximum salaries. A survey to address those disparities is planned for next year.
"I didn't expect them to accept our plan," said Officer Frank Walkiewicz, who drafted the police committee's plan. "It was just a proposal, but I'm not completely satisfied with the county's plan, either."
Walkiewicz, who also serves on the county's pay team, said he is concerned that the county's plan has too many steps.
"It takes, at the very least, 20 years to reach the top, and in some grades there's only an $11,000 difference between starting and the maximum," he said.
Walkiewicz also opposes the county's method of determining past histories. The administrators are rounding out years of service so some officers are losing months, he said. The county also refuses to take into account previous years of service if someone left a county job and returned later. The anniversary date begins on the day of return.
"I argued on some of these issues until I was blue in the face, but I was only one vote," Walkiewicz said.
The police department employees who are most upset over the county's plan are those who were promoted under the old sheriff's department, Sgt. Jeff Swortzel said.
They weren't paid for the promotions then, he said, and they expected to be compensated accordingly now. But the county is giving them increases based on the value of the dollar during the year they were promoted, instead of current values.
"The effect of those calculations is that people who were promoted in 1991 are making more money than I am," said Swortzel, who was promoted in 1985.
Although Swortzel said he is pleased that the county is making an effort to correct the problems, he questions why the administrators stopped where they did.
"With our help, they solved many of the inequities, but there are some big inequities they missed. This thing isn't about greed, it's a philosophical issue," he said. "They've bypassed the people who have been fighting the battle for the past 11 years. Why do you tackle a large problem and then stop fighting when 95 to 97 percent of the job is finished?"
The detective who first took the issue to court, however, said the plan works for him.
"It satisfies what I set out to accomplish," Moorer said. "Everything, that is, except the back pay issue."
Moorer said he did not plan to continue with his lawsuit, but he acknowledged that other police department employees may file grievances.
"There are a few people who will have complaints, and what those will turn into I don't know," he said.
There is an appeals process built into the new plan. Employees who want their salary increases reconsidered can petition the pay team after they receive their first revised check, Myers said.
"Although we know that individual situations will probably jump out and bite us, we've worked hard to avoid that," Myers said. "We do feel like we've come up with a good, solid mechanism."
by CNB