Lockhart City Council approves compensation study

By Wesley Gardner
LPR Editor

The Lockhart City Council on Tuesday approved the selection of Florida based firm Evergreen Solution to conduct a classification and compensation study on the city’s employees that could affect future salaries and wages.
According to Lockhart Civil Service Director Julie Bowerman, the study will aim to help the city achieve human resources objectives such as employee recruitment, retention, pay satisfaction and containing labor costs.
“Classification and compensation studies review internal equity – pay relationships between positions – and external competitiveness – pay relationships with labor market competitors,” said Bowerman. “The system creates a transparent and methodical approach the city can continue to use to ensure current and future employees are placed in the appropriate job classification and pay grade.”
The study will group city positions on the basis of a uniform criteria – i.e. job duties and knowledge requirements, officials said. It would then assign positions to salary ranges that are aligned with the external labor market.
Bowerman noted that the cities of Buda, Lakeway and Fredericksburg have each worked with Evergreen in the past four years. Each city provided positive feedback on their experience working with the firm.
The project, which was approved as a one-time purchase last year, is expected to begin on Jan. 14 of this year and will take roughly three months to complete. The city initially allocated $50,000 for the study but will only pay $24,000.

To read more, see this week’s edition of the Post-Register