Council okays municipal pay increases

By Mark Ribble

LEAMINGTON — After a lengthy presentation and discussion at last week’s council meeting, Leamington Council voted to accept a recommendation that brings market equity to the salaries of the municipal employees.

Consultant Marianne Love, brought onboard to conduct a salary review of the Leamington’s municipal employees, recommended a new salary grid framework that would bring Leamington employees up to levels of othercomparable municipalities.

According to the consultant, the municipality last did a compensation review in 2012 and then updated that program in 2017.

Love was retained last year to review the current compensation program.

She compared job rates based on the current competitive pay market, taking into consideration four things: internal equity, pay equity, market equity and sustainability.

She said that Leamington sits at about the 50 percentile when compared to other municipalities such as neighbours like Kingsville, Essex, Amherstburg and others like Woodstock and Orangeville.

This leaves Leamington about five-to-eight percent lower on average and leaves the municipality vulnerable to employees leaving for high paying jobs in other communities.

Love recommends that Leamington’s pay target be more in the 65 percentile, which would mean a substantial increase insalary for some employees.

In total, the recommendation will cost about $815,000 to cover full-time employees and an additional $45,000 for part-time and student employees.

She also recommended that Leamington undertake the practice of salary reviews every three to four years.

The recommendation would require Leamington to bring employees to their proper level based on the job and recognizing their time in that position as well.

Councillor John Hammond expressed concern about someone perhaps getting a massive increase in pay and suggested a more stepped approach.

“I understand the importance of having good employees and being able to retain them, but $815,000 is a very big jump,” he said. “Can we look at going from 50-66 percentile the first year, then from 56-62 in year two and 62-68 in year three?”

“This allows time to get back to normal operations,” Hammond added. “We know that represents a three per cent tax increase.”

Councillor Trevor Jones spoke in favour of the recommendation from the consultant, saying that Leamington has to operate as a “big little city.”

“I believe our municipality must be an employer of choice,” he said. “We have to serve the greater good.”

While Councillor Tim Wilkinson agreed it was not an easy subject to approach, he said that the town is in a unique time where the power is with the employee.

“I’ve seen so much turnover,” he said. “It wasn’t that way when I started eight years ago.”

Wilkinson said he felt the municipality needed top talent in the positions and there is a cost to losing that talent.

“I’m not excited about it but I think it’s necessary,” he said.

Councillor Paul Tiessen agreed with Wilkinson, saying any corporation’s most important assets are its employees.

“We need to pay at least what our competitors are paying,” he said.

Mayor Hilda MacDonald had reached out to many of her mayor colleagues and discussed the issue and was quick to point out that council needs to apply current thinking.

“We have to be current in our thinking,” she said. “We’re doing things entirely different than five, ten, twenty years ago.”

“We have to make decisions that are painful, but that are best for our municipality,” she said.

Councillor Hammond spoke up prior to the vote to say that he would also support the recommendation.

The vote unanimously approved the recommendation for the increases, effective January 1, 2022.