City employees receive pay hikes

The Clovis city commission on Thursday approved employee pay increases.

City Manager Justin Howalt said the process to make this possible has lasted a couple of years.

“We have been working hard to get our compensations within the correct range based off the market,” Howalt said.

Over the last several years, the city has increased the ranges for each position, according to Howalt. While this did move each salary forward, Howalt said the downside of increasing pay is that it created some compression within the salary ranges to where newer employees are “very close in pay” to some of the tenured employees.

“Our strategy this year was to try to start decompressing the employees within the particular ranges and within the same positions as they currently are,” Howalt said.

So, to decompress, Howalt said the strategy this year was to try to start decompressing the employees within the particular ranges, within the same positions they currently are in.

• For employees with less than a year of service, Howalt proposed to increase their hourly rate by a quarter.

• For an employee with one to five years of service, the proposal would increase their pay at 50 cents an hour.

• For those who have worked five to 10 years, their pay would increase by $1 an hour.

• For employees of 10 to 15 years, an hourly increase of $1.15.

• For those with 20 years or greater, an increase of $2.50 an hour.

Howalt said the $2.50 increase will impact 13 of the city’s employees.

The pay raises will mean an increase to the annual budget of $873,616, Howalt said.

Mayor Mike Morris thanked Howalt and the rest of the city manager’s office for their work in making the pay increases possible.

“I know our city managers worked hard on a strategy,” Morris said. “Thank you for your work on that.”

The pay increases will begin this month and will be reflected on employees’ paychecks of Nov. 3, Howalt said.