SR 06:110 - Laserfiche WebLink

Revised Total Compensation Proposal- March 21, 2006 Page 2 of 16 matches for finance, accounting and other management/administrative classes in private sector administrative or headquarter offices. However, to find engineering and planning positions, for example, we may have to add additional smaller, private sector firms to the mix, such as engineering consulting firms, or replace some of the comparator agencies used for the administrative/management positions. That would potentially result in a different set of comparator organizations per functional group of benchmark classes, which would skew an "apples to apples" type of comparison (some of the private sector organizations may pay higher or lower than others). The second reason why survey data will not be an exact match is due to differing benefit structures, primarily in the variable pay area. A significant amount of a private sector company's compensation philosophy may include variable pay, usually in the form of bonus pay and stock options. However the amount received by individuals each year may differ dramatically from year to year depending upon firm profitability. Both the expectation of receiving as well as the fluctuating amount must be accounted for in order to more accurately capture a classification's total compensation potential. Option Two The alternative option for project methodology is to conduct a total compensation market salary survey for the entire management/confidential bargaining group. Should the City decide to go for the larger study (we usually benchmark approximately 70% of the classifications), we expect to be able to collect both public and private data for only a very few classifications and the majority of the classifications will only have public sector data because the positions do not have private sector equivalent positions (police, fire, library, etc). While we are obviously able to collect the data, our experience is that the survey data is only somewhat useful. The data collected for those classifications that are found in both public and private will be extensive and will clearly indicate differences/similarities between public/private pay practices (option 1 above). The balance of the classification matches will be limited to only public agencies. We have found that it is difficult to use the statistical data for internal equity alignment when some positions may have extremely high/low averages/medians based upon whether private sector data was found or not. It skews the overall results. Based upon the RFP, a study according to Option One can be done much more quickly than Option Two. Given the number of agencies/companies required for the study, completing a study of approximately 30% of the classifications (12-15) would take approximately 2 months, given the number of anticipated meetings that this study might require. The full study (70% of classifications) will require approximately 4 months. KOFF & ASSOCIATES, INC.