Columbia’s city manager has reiterated his call for the city to lead the market for employee pay and benefits, saying it’s critical to recruitment and retention.
During Thursday’s state of the city address, city manager De’Carlon Seewood praised the city council for voting in September to approve a $10-million pay raise plan for the approximately 1,500 city employees. Mr. Seewood says the city will soon unveil a plan to address pay compression.
“Addressing compression will restore pay differentials between employees newly-placed in a classification and employees with more experience. The city remains committed to adjusting the salaries for employees impacted by compression. We have proposed a plan to address this compression and will actually be moving forward with that plan in the next few months,” says Seewood.
Mr. Seewood says the city is now offering six weeks of paid family leave for the first time, adding that they have also added Veterans Day as a paid city holiday for the first time. Mr. Seewood says Columbia wants to recognize the many city employees and their family members who have served our nation.
Columbia’s fourth ward councilman praises the city manager’s state of the city address, saying it’s important to look back and reflect on accomplishments. Councilman Nick Foster voted for Mr. Seewood’s $10-million pay increase plan last fall:
“Two years ago when we went away on retreat, one of the things we came away with was the need to really focus on employees and doing the very best we could by them. And one of the accomplishments that I feel good about with the council was, and De’Carlon made reference to this, is the council said we don’t want to just be in the middle of the market, we want to lead the market,” Councilman Foster says.
Columbia’s city employees received a loud ovation from Mr. Seewood, the council and others during the state of the city address.
