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Jonesboro City Council Considering Compensation/Incentive Plans

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The City of Jonesboro’s Finance and Administration Committee meets this afternoon to discuss the future of the city’s salary structure for all departments.  Last night, the full city council heard a comprehensive breakdown of how the city has provided raises and incentives for employees. 

In 2009, the city hired the Johanson DB Squared firm to revise the city’s classification and compensation system.  The goal of the plan was to bring all employees to a market average in pay. 

Currently, 5% of city employees are at the minimum pay level, 52% are at the market average, 28, are just above market average and 15% of employees are at maximum pay scales or above.  Police officer salaries and compensation are being reviewed, as well as fire department salaries.  Those departments that make lower, such as maintenance workers and the parks department, say they may have a larger incentive package, but they want more dollars in their pay.  

Jonesboro’s Chief Financial Officer Suzanne Allen says the city currently spends about one million dollars on incentives for police and fire and the council will consider spending 646-thousand-dolars for increasing salaries this year. If the model is followed, that number is expected to go to almost $1.5 million dollars in 2022 in extra compensation and incentives for employees. 

The city’s police department has been losing officers due to low salaries and police chief Rick Elliot recently proposed “step increases” to help in raising officer’s pay. 

The Finance and Administration Committee of the Jonesboro City Council will discuss what to do about salaries during their meeting this afternoon at the Council chambers.  That meeting starts at four p.m.

Johnathan Reaves is the News Director for KASU Public Radio. As part of an Air Force Family, he moved to Arkansas from Minot, North Dakota in 1986. He was first bitten by the radio bug after he graduated from Gosnell High School in 1992. While working on his undergraduate degree, he worked at KOSE, a small 1,000 watt AM commercial station in Osceola, Arkansas. Upon graduation from Arkansas State University in 1996 with a degree in Radio-Television Broadcast News, he decided that he wanted to stay in radio news. He moved to Stuttgart, Arkansas and worked for East Arkansas Broadcasters as news director and was there for 16 years.