Grant PUD approves non-union salary increases

GRANT COUNTY — Grant County PUD non-union workers are receiving a 2 percent wage increase for 2010, starting Friday.

PUD commissioners approved the increase by a 4-1 vote at the latest board meeting. The increase costs the district about $474,000.

“The increase was put in place to support the hard work the employees do,” said Rita Bjork, PUD public information officer.

The increase only goes to employees receiving a 2.5 or above performance rating on the recently completed performance evaluations. The ratings are on a scale of zero to five, five being the highest score.

“They will be looking at individual job categories to see if any employees exceed market salary ranges for work,” Bjork said. “Those that do will not receive the 2 percent increase.”

There are about 240 non-union positions. About 50 employees are expected not to receive the salary increase because they do not meet requirements.

The employees not receiving the wage increase get a lump-sum equal to 2 percent of their annual salary and in lieu of an increase in their base salaries, according to Bjork.

“The wage increase was necessary to ensure our district has some highly skilled individuals in the electrical utility field and we must be competitive in our wages to keep them in Grant County,” said Bob Bernd, PUD board president. “Some of our workers might be making a great deal of money compared to many other workers in Grant County, but we must pay a certain wage in order to compete nationally in these positions.”

The commissioners have discussed the wage increase since approving the ? $517 million operating budget for 2010. The initial proposal by management was a 3.5 wage increase to match the union workers’ raises.

The 2010 wage increase for union workers is based on the three-year union contract, which ends this year. Union workers receive a raise April 1.

“We didn’t think it was fair for non-union people to not receive an increase,” Bernd said. “We already have (a wage) disparity between union and non-union employees accumulated over the years and the lack of a non-union raise would have made the disparity that much larger. We have wonderful employees that are really dedicated.”

Commissioners voted down from the 3.5 percent wage increase proposal for non-union workers after examining the district’s financial future.

“The commission has been concerned with the economy and the fact that we had to raise our rates this year,” Bernd said. “We are trying to keep the wage increase instrumentally small to be sensitive to that.”

Commissioners approved a 4 percent rate increase at a board meeting in February to secure the utility’s financial health. The increase means an extra $2 per monthly bill for the average residential customer, starting April 1.

“This was a bad year to do an increase, but not doing it would have hurt our residents over time,” Bernd said. “It was a business decision we made.”

About 12 percent of the utility’s budget goes toward wages.

“When we talk about a 2 percent increase, it’s a very small amount in the scope of expenses for the PUD,” Bernd said. “It really has no effect.”

Commissioners plan on holding discussions for employee salaries for 2011.

“Our goal is to re-evaluate this entire compensation project and look over our negotiations with unions,” Bernd said. “We have already had a few preliminary discussions about having third party negotiators in to help with these decisions.”

Bernd expects the review to be completed in time for next year’s budget.

“We are going to re-classify several positions within the PUD to hopefully work toward being on par with the local economy,” he said. “We don’t want to hurt other local industries by being so far above the labor market and it is just not good business to be paying more than we need to.”