City Looks at Workers’ Pay Amid Worries of Shortages in Departments and Aging Workers

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By Pauline Masson –

Some city departments are short staffed due to the inability to attract new workers while others attract new workers who move on for higher pay after gaining experience for a year or two. 

In one crucial department, where employees have remained with city for decades, key workers are approaching retirement age and within a few years could be expected to retire and leave the department with no expierenced workers.

The dire description on hiring and retaining staff came from City Administrator Harold Selby’s, report to members of the Administatrive committee at it’s Oct.23 meeting.

Selby assessment of all departmnts was triggered by request from Alderman Rafael Madrigal to the city administrator to look for ways to increase the pay of the city’s police officers.

Selby said rather that limit his research to one department he looked at all workers, department by department.

The 911 call department is particularly vulnerable, he said. The department is so short of workers that remaining dispatchers are required to work longer hours and take no day’s off or vacaton time. The city has been unable to recruit more dispatchers because applicants can find higher pay at 911 centers in surrounding city.

The police department has struggled with retention of new officers for seversl years, as new hires work for the City for a couple of years, “and head east,” to higher paying departments, Selby said.

Even the stalwart public works department where some employees have been with the city for decades, the age of department leaders signals a troubling shortage of staff in the near future.

“Robert Brueggemann and Roy Hinkle, will reach retirement age in seven years,”Selby said. “And could leave the department with no leaders.”

“The police department and public works departments are the most crucial departments in running a city,” Selby said.“The city’s top priorities to its citizens are safety provided by the police, and water and sewer service. The city has to be able to provide those basic services.”

The answer to the delimma is pay increases for all employees across the board.

Committee member Debbie Kelley (former city collector) said she did not like the ideas of giving a percentage increase to all workers but preferred a department by department and job by job analysis of appropriate pay for each position.

Selby said he had looked every department. And he had contacted neighborng cities to determine how the amount of pay raises to individual employees were determined.

One city he contacted shared its plan where each city job has a graduated pay scale based on required education, special skills, licenses or certifications and length of service to the city. Selby said he would contact other cities at similar size to learn pay scales and raise policies to see what fits Pacific.

Committee members said they would like to bring to the full board enough information that pay raises could be decided and approved in December to go into effect in Januauy 2024.

The discussion of increasing city employee salaries comes at a time when the city enjoyed larger budgets in recent years. Revenue, especially sales taxes, have been rising steadly for several years.