Casper to raise city employee pay in coming year

CASPER, Wyo. — City of Casper employees will be getting a bump in their paycheck in the coming year.

Following a compensation study by Graves Consulting, the Casper City Council committed to raising pay scales for almost all city departments by 2.75%.

Graves Consulting representative Laurie Graves said her firm found that 56 municipal positions were below market value and should be moved up to the next pay grade. Graves told councilmembers that keeping the positions below market value hinders retention.

“We know it’s important … to ensure that you can retain people as they build their careers,” Graves said. “The most expensive turnover you can have is your longer-tenured, more experienced people.”

In addition to the market parity increases that all city employees will see, Napier said those who are bumped into higher pay grades will see an additional merit-based raise to keep their pay steady relative to their grade.

“Let’s say there’s a person whose pay puts them in the middle of grade 20, and the market parity increase moves them into grade 21,” Napier explained. “By virtue of that movement, they should be given an increase so they stay steady in the middle of their new wage band. That way they have a similar relative position to where they were before.”

Graves said each pay grade is unique, with the grades having a wide variety of jobs and total employees in them.

While almost all departments will be getting pay scale increases of 2.75%, the two exceptions are the Casper Police Department, which saw a pay scale bump of 3%, and the Casper Fire-EMS Department, which City Manager Carter Napier said will be negotiated with the firefighters union separately.

Napier explained that the police department’s larger increase is a result of the highly competitive hiring market in law enforcement.

“We want to stay competitive in a highly competitive market,” Napier said. “Nationwide, police are seeing a premium with regard to what they can command from the market. Our feeling is that if we don’t keep pace to some measurable degree, we will continue to fall behind. And while 2.75% and 3% aren’t that big of a difference, our stance is kind of that 3% should be the floor.”

In Tuesday’s meeting, Mayor Steve Cathey added that this marks just the first phase of Graves Consulting’s plan. The council will consider how to approach the future phases when the next fiscal year begins on July 1.