Carrollton city employees are to learn the results of a salary comparison study conducted over the summer, during a city council work session that is scheduled for next week. The council had requested the study to be performed for all city jobs following concerns that valuable employees were choosing employment elsewhere, allegedly because of higher pay.
“Essentially what it really focused on is that the lower end employees, we are going to look at trying to increase those wages. The number that the consultant quoted said that probably the minimum pay for laborers should be about $14.50 an hour. That is the kind of thing that we will discuss with the council and see how they want to proceed,” said Carrollton city manager, Tim Grizzard. The city currently pays around $12.50 an hour.
Grizzard continued, “We are not just competing with other cities, we are competing with industry. We are competing with the college, Southwire, Tanner. There is just a very healthy job market out there and we have some good people. We probably pay a little more that most municipalities but again we are competing with more than just those cities and the county.”
The salary study will also provide comparisons for the cityÂ’s public safety positions. There are concerns that those employees are getting better pay elsewhere after receiving their training in Carrollton.
Grizzard said, ” It cost a lot of money to train police and firemen, so if we don’t pay enough to keep those folks, we are costing ourselves more money in the long run.”
The city will discuss results from that salary study during a work session on Monday.
