SUNDRE - Council tabled discussion recently on hiring a company to conduct a professionally-prepared compensation and benefit review.
During a mid-September council meeting, administration sought a motion approving the selection of Salopek & Associates at a cost not to exceed $40,000 to conduct the review.
Chris Albert, director of corporate services, told council a request for proposals was sent in August.
“This is for the purposes of not only staff salaries, but council compensation and the fire department as well,” Albert said.
“Based on the information that we had gathered from council and council’s expectations, what we were hoping to get from this is not just a comparison of straight pay scales versus other municipalities, we wanted a little bit more robust information and actionable recommendations from whichever proponent we selected,” he said.
Administration currently follows the philosophy of being roughly in the middle of the pack in terms of compensations in comparable municipalities, he said.
“We want to gather information to make sure that that is a good place to be to retain staff and attract new staff.”
Mayor Terry Leslie sought a motion from council, with Coun. Todd Dalke suggesting the decision should for the time being be tabled due to the cost involved and to allow more time to review the other selected consultants.
“I would like a deeper dive to understand the full scope of the project — it is a lot of money,” said Dalke.
The mayor asked his council colleagues to contact administration about any questions they have to be better prepared to consider a motion at the next meeting.
“Would that be a reasonable timeframe?” asked Leslie.
“For myself, you bet,” said Dalke.
The matter was tabled.
