kstephens@altoonamirror.com
HOLLIDAYSBURG Efforts to write Blair County’s first compensation policy have stretched over six meetings as of Thursday, with no action yet scheduled on salary study recommendations for non-union employees.
The salary board, comprised of Commissioners Bruce Erb, Laura Burke, Amy Webster and Controller A.C. Stickel, has been convening special meetings almost weekly since Feb. 18. That’s when the board backed away from addressing non-union pay changes
recommended in the salary study, pending development of a
compensation policy.
The policy, when finished, is expected to address matters such as how the county determines starting pay, pay ranges, raises and changes in pay due to job changes.
kstephens@altoonamirror.com
HOLLIDAYSBURG The Blair County Salary Board should come up with a compensation policy that recognizes the worth of the employees and lifts them out of poverty, President Judge Elizabeth Doyle told the board Thursday.
Despite initial disappointment with the salary board’s decision to delay scheduled action on employee raises linked to the recently-completed salary study, Doyle said she was happy to learn of the board’s pursuit of a compensation policy because it means the salary study won’t be a final step in addressing employee pay inequities and turnover.
“My request of the human beings that make up this salary board is to please create a compensation policy that values the employees as the county’s greatest asset,” Doyle said.
kstephens@altoonamirror.com
HOLLIDAYSBURG Blair County commissioners are considering a follow-up contract with East Coast Risk Management, the company that took much longer than anticipated to finish a salary study with recommendations not yet addressed.
“This is for work going forward,” Human Resources Director Katherine Swigart told commissioners Tuesday when she presented four job-related tasks that East Coast could handle.
Those tasks include updating the study’s pay scale report, at a cost of $140 per hour, reviewing and/or creating a job description, establishing a task-based value of each job title and assigning jobs to pay grades. For a task fitting into one of those three descriptions estimated at about 15 annually the county will pay $450 each under the proposal.