City Council Minutes 2017 03 14 SP

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City Council Meeting Minutes March 14, 2017 Page 7 of 8 Councilmember Stolzmann stated the employees in option 1 probably are disproportionately women and that should be considered. She is less concerned about compression as a whole than the lowest paid employees. We should consider some of these part-time wages in this category. Even small wage increases would be helpful to people in this category. Councilmember Loo stated if do option 1 should also do option 2. Councilmember Stolzmann agreed. Councilmember Leh noted he prefers to talk about the "compensation philosophy" and we should think broadly about all the benefits we give. He agrees with Mayor Pro Tem Lipton we should look at benefits for more people along with bringing up the pay of some of the lower paid employees Councilmember Keany wondered if we could offer a more flexible schedule and still have benefits which would attract some employees. He would like to reevaluate the cities with which we compare for the salary survey. He stated we should evaluate our salaries with adjacent communities and those to which we are losing employees regularly. He likes option 2 and also raising some of the lower wage positions. Councilmember Loo stated whatever option we chose, it should be based on equal pay for equal work regardless of if the person is supporting a family or not. Councilmember Stolzmann stated the focus should be on raising the pay of the lowest paid employees. Mayor Muckle asked if we could do Option 1 but make the raise to $12/hour and do option 2 as proposed. He is also interested in perhaps changing the cities in the salary survey and how can we offer people access to the health care perhaps without a City subsidy. The benefit of having access to buying group health care can be significant (a modified combination of 1, 2, 4 and 5). Members would like to see the costs for the Mayor's suggestion and continue to study some options for additional benefits. Any changes will be considered for 2018 through the annual budget approval process. DISCUSSION/DIRECTION — CITY COUNCIL SALARY SURVEY Director Hix noted the Council does make significantly less than most comparable municipalities. The staff suggestion is to increase salaries for the Mayor to $1134/month and Council salary to $830/month. Currently council is only eligible for benefits at 100% cost; that can be changed as well. Any raise would only take effect for new councilmembers.