County salary study shows some disparities

A compensation analysis of Delaware County salaries found that more than a third of county employees’ salaries were below the market while two-thirds are at or above the market.

In December 2019, county council unanimously approved hiring McGrath Human Resources Group for $102,452 to study the compensation of court and county employees. In October 2018, Sheriff Jerry L. Sanders Jr. petitioned council to increase his deputies’ salaries by $5 an hour because of serious retention and recruitment issues. At the time, his request was postponed as council said they wanted to analyze all county salaries.

In September 2019, council increased sheriff’s deputies and Medical Examiner investigator salaries by $2.18 an hour and Park Police by $2.12 an hour.

To gather data for the analysis, McGrath circulated a questionnaire. However, county Human Resources Director James Kane said most of the responses were incomplete.

“The fact is there is no compensation schedule,” Kane said. “There were no structures in place to show how people should be paid.”

And, he said there were more than 600 job positions found, which he added was a larger number for the size of Delaware County.

He said the market data showed that approximately 36 percent of Delaware County’s employees’ salaries were either below the market or were going to fall below the market while 64 percent were in an acceptable range.

One of the groups with the lowest comparable wages was magisterial court employees, Kane said, adding that the study did not include salaries at the Fair Acres Geriatric Center or the George W. Hill Correctional Facility. Overall, the county has about 3,000 employees.

Generally, he said longterm employees had salaries more in the acceptable range while starting salaries for new employees were low in the marketplace.

“This concept of people thinking out loud to us, ‘Pay is low and benefits are great,’ but people couldn’t identify what great benefits meant but they could understand pay,” Kane said. “In some cases people thought they were grossly underpaid and yet, in the market data, we found they were being paid at market or above.”

Part of the analysis includes a recommendation for a salary structure, based on a step system for both union and non-union employees, as well as updated job descriptions and performance reviews.

Kane said the

market should be surveyed each year to determine updated salary data.

He added that of the 3 percent salary increase that county council approved in his adoption of the 2021 budget, 2 percent will be allocated for salary adjustments. In addition, he said non-union employees received a 1 percent increase on Jan. 15.

A final presentation on the study will be presented to county council on Feb. 17 and it’s anticipated that the salary adjustments will be made between March 3 and 8.