May 22 – Councilors voted unanimously this week to extend the deadline for completing a comprehensive investigation into Manchester City workers’ wages for another year, despite a committee recommendation to scrap the effort.
Members of the Community Improvement Committee voted 3-2 earlier this month to receive and submit a request from Lisa Drabik, the city’s human resources director, to extend the end date for the investigation to June 30, 2026. Councilor Chris Morgan was in favor from , Ross Terrio and Crissy Kantor. Opponents were Pat Long and James Burkush.
The study, funded by the city’s special revenue reserve account, is a review and analysis of the current employee benefits structure — known around the city as “Yarger-Decker” after the consulting firm that developed it.
The study is expected to include recommendations for improvements to ensure “internal equity and external competitiveness,” according to a 2022 memo from former Mayor Joyce Craig to councilors requesting funding for the project.
A vote to receive and submit the committee recommendation to end the study passed 13-0, with Councilwoman Kelly Thomas absent. Board members then voted 13-0 to extend the deadline to June 30, 2025.
The votes followed a presentation from Drabik that provided an overview of the research for newer board members, a description of the work completed to date and what remains to be done – and her reasoning behind requesting an extension of the project in the first place.
“In other words, I viewed it purely as an administrative detail,” Drabik said. “There was no intention to delay the research, results or anything else related to this project.
Evergreen Solutions, a national company based in Tallahassee, Florida, was selected last June from a field of four finalists who responded to a request for proposals from the city to complete the study.
Evergreen had proposed an eight-month timeline to complete the study and expected the city to receive preliminary wage recommendations and cost scenarios in December 2023 or January 2024, in time for the city’s budget process.
In 2023, councilors authorized spending up to $750,000 on the study. All staff functions are involved in the research.
Drabik said work on the study is about 65% complete, with about $250,000 of the $750,000 spent so far. Work started last August.
High turnover rate
It is expected that a presentation will be given to councilors sometime in September on the work completed so far.
Drabik said the hope is to get some sense of support for possible wage increases ahead of contract negotiations set to begin this fall. Ten of the city’s 13 contracts with unionized employees expire June 30, 2025, Drabik said.
One of the goals of the study is to improve the recruitment and retention of municipal employees in Manchester, Drabik said. On May 1, the city had 239 vacancies, with 282 employees ready to retire.
For years, the city experienced low employee turnover, ranging between 7.3% and 4.1% from FY 2017 to FY 2019.
That figure rose to 17.7% in FY21 and 21.1% in FY22. Through April, the FY24 interest rate is 18.3%, Drabik said.
Councilman Dan O’Neil said it’s important to complete the investigation and “give the workers some potential hope.”
After the two board votes, Councilman Pat Long made a surprise motion to reconsider the proposal, then asked the board to deny his motion. Because an item can only be submitted for reconsideration once, this means that the matter cannot be revisited later.
“This ends here today,” Long said.
The reconsideration vote failed on a 2-11 vote, with councilors Joe Kelly Levasseur and Ed Sapienza in favor of the motion.
The way city jobs are classified and employees are paid and evaluated for wage increases changed in 1999 with the implementation of an employee reclassification study developed with the help of consultant Yarger-Decker Associates.
The employee reclassification system introduced performance and skills as factors in determining pay increases. Previously, city employees received raises based strictly on seniority.
The need for a classification and compensation study was raised a few years ago by the city’s now-retired Human Resources Director Kathleen Ferguson.
Ferguson said at the time that collective bargaining efforts had changed the original Yarger-Decker scale to multiple scales, creating disparities among city employees in similar positions.
