Police jury to pay employees more competitively

Lincoln Parish government employees are underpaid on average compared to the public sector job market, the Lincoln Parish Police Jury learned Tuesday.

After seeing the results of a compensation study it commissioned, the jury now plans to spend more than $300,000 a year to bring many employees’ pay closer to the market norm.

Facing recruiting and retention challenges, jurors agreed in June to pay $33,750 for a comprehensive compensation analysis for its workforce of 162 employees.

The Illinois-based Arthur J. Gallagher & Co. performed the study.

Based on the pay of similar parishes and counties in surrounding states, as well as other public-sector data, Gallagher found that on average, the police jury pays its employees 18% less than the 50th percentile, or median, of the market.

This includes all police jury departments, such as highway and solid waste, except for the Lincoln Parish Library.

The company considers anything off the market by more than 15% to be “significantly misaligned.”

At the 25th percentile of the market, the police jury’s average pay was still lower by 11%.

So the jury agreed to move to a new pay structure, built by Gallagher, featuring pay grades and ranges where even the lowest end of the spectrum would be aligned with the 25th percentile of the market.

For example, the lowest a grade-1 position would now possibly pay is $10.75 an hour, and the maximum would be $14.25.

Out of the jury’s 162 employees, 56 are being paid below the new minimum for their job, so they’ll all be moved up within the new ranges. Many will also receive 1% raises per year of service.

That’ll cost the jury $272,457 in extra pay, plus about $30,000 in extra benefits.

Those employees not affected by these pay changes will receive the 2.5% costof- living increase in 2025 that the jury normally gives across the board.

The new structure is more than just pay increases, though. It’s also a new grade and range system that doesn’t lock employees into yearly step increases.

“We actually have a defined range now that we haven’t had before for each grade that will allow us to move forward with confidence and get people what they’re worth,” Treasurer Michael Sutton said.

Administrators say the new system will allow them to attract better talent by taking into account a prospective employee’s years of experience at other jobs, something they say the old system didn’t really allow.

“You’re pegged in a slot, and it goes up by 2.5% increments,” Parish Administrator Courtney Hall said. “So it’s hard, with somebody that’s coming in with experience, you’ve got to put them in that pigeonhole. It’s hard to recruit people that way.”

The jury also reviewed its proposed budgets for 2025, but since these pay increases had not yet been approved, they weren’t built into the budgets yet.

So it remains to be seen until the jury’s Dec. 10 meeting exactly how the new pay structure will affect the budget. Officials said the additional cost will be spread out amongst all the departments’ various funds.