City adopts new pay schedule for heads of departments

The Kalispell City Council on Monday passed a new salary scale for some of the city’s highest-paid employees.

The plan outlines a step plan that gives an expectation of what a raise could look like for the city’s nonunion employees.

Officials touted it as a scale more in tune with other municipalities.

“Primarily, what it does is create a market-based salary plan and pay matrix,” Kalispell City Manager Doug Russell said.

The measure was passed at Monday’s council meeting.

It set up a 20-step scale, with each step increase coming with a 1.3-percent raise.

Moves to the next step would be based on 20 hours of professional development, budget availability and other factors, according to Russell.

Current employees will be placed at the next upward step according to salary.

A 1.9-percent base raise will also be applied as part of the plan.

All told, the nonunion employees will receive overall 3.2-percent pay increases. Russell said that this follows similar deals reached with union groups.

Nonunion city employees include directors of public works, planning and other departments.

It also includes the city attorney, police and fire chiefs and other top positions.

Prior to passage, council member Phil Guiffrida applauded the effort to determine salaries based on other cities.

“I actually appreciate the market-based approach when looking at something like this,” he said.

City staff looked at similar positions in the largest 10 cities in Montana to gauge the market. With various factors, Russell said that they sought a middle ground between the highest and lowest salaries.

“The high point of each range is below the average of the top five cities,” he said.

Funding to implement the pay matrix has been included in the 2016 preliminary budget. A public comment session was available at Monday’s meeting, but nobody spoke.

The final budget could be passed in August.

Reporter Matt Hudson may be reached at 758-4459 or by email at mhudson@dailyinterlake.com.