IPS Compensation - Part Two

Your PDQ is current. Total points above the minimum requirements for the job have been calculated. What comes next? That depends on your job family. The HR office sets the salary schedule for every job family, but those positions in the Public Serivce job family have a separate salary schedule because of the unique nature of the positions.

We help determine the salary schedule for the Public Service Job Family. We collect data from a number of sources including the International City/County Managers Association and the Manufacturing Extension Program. The HR office runs a regression analysis and produces a salary schedule based on the UT model. This model sets a minimum, midpoint and maximum salary for each pay grade and sets the distant between pay grades.

The method for calculating what we call the "target salary" is the same for every job family. How does this work? We subtract the minimum salary from the midpoint salary for each pay grade. This number is divided by 10. The result gives us the value of each point. Your total points are multiplied by the value of each point. This number is then added to the minimum salary for the pay grade and voila - we have your target salary.

Every employee should understand how your points are calculated and thus how we arrive at your target salary. Our goal is to get 100% of our employees to their target salary. We started this process about a decade ago. We've had some good budget years and some lean budget years. We've made progress, but we still have a ways to go. We were hundreds of thousands of dollars below market in 2000 with virtually no employee at his/her target. Today, we are much closer. Let's hope for some better budget years so that we can continue to remain competitive.