City pay plan reviewed

QCS Staff

Tucumcari City Manager Jared Langenegger Thursday laid out a plan that would would make pay levels and raises for city employees systematic and predictable.

Langenegger presented the system to city commissioners in a workshop held before Thursday’s regular commission meeting.

He said he worked with other city staff to develop the system in response to reports that city employees were leaving for better-paid positions with other cities in the region.

Langenegger’s proposed system is based on data from the U.S. Labor Statistics and the New Mexico Municipal League, he said.

Using a federal publication, “The National Compensation Survey: Guide for Evaluating Your Firm's Jobs and Pay,” Langenegger said he scored each city job based on knowledge required, complexity, level of contact with people, and physical environment.

Next, he said, he compared pay levels for jobs with those same scores at the state level to determine appropriate job titles for comparison, then, using Municipal League data, he compared pay levels for comparable jobs in other New Mexico cities similar to Tucumcari in size and economic status, he said.

He then assembled “pay bands” for each job with minimum, mid-level and maximum pay levels.

He set the lowest entry-level starting pay level at $8.47 an hour, which is competitive, he said, with jobs at fast food outlets and convenience stores.

Overall, he said the changes he is proposing are likely to increase the city’s pay budgets by about $70,000, balancing employee pay raises against the effect of the lesser pay of new employees who replace workers who quit or retire from city jobs.

Because police officers have more hazardous jobs and have been hard to recruit, he said, he set up an independent system of pay under which a new patrol officer, before training, would earn $12.61 per hour and $13.87 per hour after completion of training, and who, if he or she remained at that rank, would earn a maximum of $21.95 per hour. Higher pay levels would be assigned to higher ranking officers, he said.