City confused about compensation study implementation

CLINTONVILLE – Two years after an employee compensation study was completed for the city of Clintonville, interim city administrator Diane Rowe told the Common Council at its July 14 meeting that city department heads are “confused” on how to use the compensation study to figure wage increases into the 2027 city budget.
Rowe said that after speaking with the department heads of the city, it was her understanding that they had never seen a final report for the compensation study that the city had contracted out in 2024. She said she contacted the company that the city contracted with to do the compensation study and was told there was no final report given to the city, just a spreadsheet and a presentation, as that is what the city requested.
Now, two years later, city department heads were “confused” on how to use that information when completing the 2027 city budget, Rowe reiterated.
“There is a challenge on how to implement that,” Rowe said.
She added that aside from the police department, the city does not have an established employee evaluation process.

“Typically, with a wage and compensation study, as you progress through the steps, oftentimes its tied to your performance evaluation, educational advancement and credentials, tenure, things like that,” Rowe said. “Without an evaluation process in place, that is a challenge to implementing a wage study, and also just in general as a human resources employment process.”
Rowe recommended that the city address the issue “quickly.”

Finance Committee
The Clintonville Finance Committee also discussed the compensation study at its July 13 meeting. At the committee meeting, Ald. Jim Supanich said there were concerns about how the city “came up with the amounts of money that we increased the tax rate by last year.”
Rowe gave the committee the same assessment as she gave the council one day later. She said when she held a city leadership meeting, there was confusion as to how to implement the wage study. After doing more research, Rowe said she was looking for a “final report” on the compensation study but could not find one. She said all she could find was a presentation and a spreadsheet.

After reaching out to the company that the city contracted with to do the compensation study, Rowe said she was told, “The decision was to not do that final report, and instead just do these presentations and the spreadsheet.”
“The challenge that I have is that, in talking with staff, there is not an understanding of how that is implemented, and there is no documentation I can find on what it is we need to do, other than that it is my understanding that everybody was put at Step 7 (on the compensation scale), but there’s not an understanding at where people start when new employees are starting,” Rowe said. “We really don’t have any guidance with any of the documents I have found.”
“We paid a fair amount for that wage study, I would have thought we would have had more documentation than that,” said Greg Rose, Clintonville Finance and Personnel Committee Chairman said. “It is something that I think we probably should have been given at the level of what we invested at. For our previous city administrator to go as far as we did down that and just accept some presentations and not a final analysis or anything to work off of in the future, is sort of like running a marathon and not crossing the finish line with a mile to go.”
Ald. Tammy Strey-Hirt said the city shouldn’t have to pay more if it requests a final report now because a final report should have been provided at the time.
Rowe said according to the original scope of services requested by the city at the time, it is “debatable” as to whether a final report was part of that scope of work.
“They (company doing the compensation study) said the former administrator had went the route of just wanting the presentation and the spreadsheet in lieu of this final report,” Rowe said.
Dave Tichinel, utility manager for the city of Clintonville, said the employees in the Clintonville Water and Wastewater department did not all advance to Step 7 on the compensation scale. He said he likes the step program for compensation because he uses it as an incentive.
“If I would have started them at (Step) 7, I’d be starting them at a full operator pay, which when I hire them, they’re not full operators,” Tichinel said.
He added, “I’m a little confused myself, is, are they supposed to be at Step 7, or am I doing it right by giving them incentives to go pass DNR exams that I need them to? Because if I put them at Step 7, what’s the incentive of going and passing the test? That scares me.”
Rowe also told the committee that during her research she found that city employees do not go through a yearly performance evaluation. Only members of the police department are evaluated annually for performance.
Supanich said he’d like the city attorney to review the scope of work for the compensation study to determine if the city would have to pay to receive a final report.
“Either way I think we need the additional study, to be honest with you,” Supanich said.