2025-09-24 Salary Commission Minutes

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Salary Commission September 24, 2025 And I say that because I appreciate the point that you’re making but we’ve never had that. That’s not our purview, but I want to say that because all of this is going into public record—you brought up good questions. I want that response written up. CHR. PAVAO: Thank you. Yeah, I—Chair Pavao—I agree with Commissioner Namahoe that the range is a good idea but, unfortunately, our hands are tied because I think it would take a Charter amendment. The Charter is real specific that we set an exact salary. There is precedence for a range is people in excluded unit have ranges—they have salary ranges and some of them are pretty significant. Look at the state excluded units—some ranges go from, like 95,000 to 130,00—pretty large ranges. So, I mean, I personally think that’s a great idea but, unfortunately, we don’t have that power. It would have to go through a Charter amendment, I think. But I think your idea is a good idea, too. Instead of putting out—taking police and fire out of the current Findings of Fact—we could add language to say that once their collective bargaining— primary collective bargaining units have settled on an agreement, that we would address their salaries so that’s equal—the same percentage. MR. NELSON: The question is, can we do that without knowing the exact number (inaudible). I think that’s a question for Cody—we won’t know what the number is. MS. FRENZ: This is DCC Cody. So, that’s correct, you would not know what those numbers are until maybe, at the latest, middle of next year, theoretically, right? So, it sounds like Chair Pavao was saying you would continue with the current path forward, include some sort of notation that any positions that continue to have inversion issues—because it may be other than Police and Fire, hypothetically—that this body will re-evaluate those at any given time—or when the issue is right, to further adjust, if necessary. Something very broad but specific to what the need would be that indicates to the public—‘cause you can do it, frankly, at any time under the Charter and your Rules. But I think that would be an indication to the public and anybody who is interested to know that it’s possible there could be additional increases, if there are inversion issues. So, you could make that clear in your proposed Findings for publication purposes, if you wanted to. MR. NELSON: And if you did that, you wouldn’t have to go back to (inaudible) process? MS. FRENZ: We would. No matter what, we would still need to do that entire process, so— MR. NELSON: (Inaudible) So, there’ no real save—time-saving necessarily other than alerting the public with what you’re going to do. MS. FRENZ: True. But it also could be that if the information comes to you, whenever relevant—when available—and there is no inversion that you think requires further action by this Commission, then there’s nothing left to do, and you’ve already done it. Page 12