At its Monday night meeting, the Safety Harbor City Commission voted unanimously to approve the scope of an upcoming employee compensation study.
At a recent meeting, City Commission approved an out-of-contract pay raise for the city's firefighters, as well as an additional cost of living adjustment for all city employees. As part of that discussion, Commission requested a study of employee compensation to see how competitve the city is against other local governments.
Commission was provided a choice between a more comprehensive study that could take up to a year but review all details of all pay grades, or a smaller study that can be completed in six months that just compares current job classifications.
City Manager Matthew Spoor told Commission that city staff vacancies, especially in sanitation, would benefit from a quicker study, and Commission voted unanimously for the smaller study at an estimated cost of $40,000 to $65,000 that would also do an "apples to apples" comparison that would not only look at salary, but the overall benefit package given to employees.