2023-07-11 Salary Commission Minutes

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Salary Commission July 11, 2023 MS. FRENZ: And we're not looking at theirs either, right. We're looking at—the example that you're referring to, Commissioner Nakama, just gives everyone here an example of how the people the civil service employees continue to get every year, the step increases. So, every year, I know if I'm a BU13 employee, regardless of what my current salary is at I know that I will get in the year 2018, 2.25 percent more. The next year, I know I'm going to get 2.15 percent more and so on and so forth. Versus our—back to the first page that has the numbers. These people, they don't get any increases at all. This is all they get every year. They get no increases. So, that's all that's trying to show you is MS. NAKAMA: Right. I understand what you're saying that the increases is set and we have no voting power over the automatic increases that they get. CHR. PAVAO: That's collective bargaining that the unions (inaudible). MS. NAKAMA: Right. But my quesmy other question is, are these just base salary not including benefits? MS. FRENZ: We're not dealing this is Cody—we're not dealing with benefits at all. In the so when you say benefits, I think we talked last month about we have different compensation, we have insurance—we're not dealing with any of that. We're talking base—social security, right— we're ightwe're talking base salary or salary without any of the other benefits. So, we're not talking benefits at all. Everyone is entitled to the same benefits—some get a little bit more when you talk about the type of bargaining unit or—police and fire have exemptions we're not getting into any of those benefits. MS. NAKAMA: I understand that. In order for us to have good employees across-the-board in every department, that benefits should be considwe should have it, at least, in the back of our mind that it's base salary plus benefits. But then, like, the police and fire back in 2016 they changed through whatever process they went through—we no longer have new recruits because they don't include family benefits. At the last recruiting for the firemen, they had six in the school of new recruits instead of having 24 and a dozen and more up to 24 recruits. We only had 6 because there was no family benefits. I mean, even if we don't consider benefits, we should have it in our back of our mind that these salary base salaries—give us some basic knowledge of, does it include benefits or not. MS. FRENZ: They all include benefits. This is Cody. Every employee that joined the County of Hawaii, the benefits are there across-the-board, and that's an ERS function. MS. NAKAMA: There's benefits for the employee—yes. MS. FRENZ: That is correct. Page 18