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Multiple Agencies

A Biennial Report on Recommended Adjustments to the Classification Salary Schedules

October 2000

Report Number 01-701

Overall Conclusion

The State of Texas faces new challenges in recruiting, developing, and retaining a qualified workforce. The changing demographics and availability of the labor force are already affecting the State's ability to recruit and retain qualified workers. A qualified workforce enables the State to provide appropriate services to the public.

The State's salary schedules, as well as actual salaries, have not kept pace with those of the private sector or even other public sector entities. While this has been the case for several years, we believe that continuing to lag behind the market places the State in a position that could affect overall services. The issue of pay needs more attention given both the strong Texas economy and the forecast of a significant labor shortage.

Any change to a compensation system must take into account the overall salary structure, the relative position of individual jobs compared to similar jobs in the market, and actual employee pay. This report deals with salary schedule increases needed to place the State in a more competitive position.

Key Facts and Findings

  • We recommend that the salary range spreads of both Salary Schedules A and B be adjusted to reflect industry recommendations for specific job types. This adjustment would give agencies more flexibility to pay employees at higher rates within the adjusted ranges. It would also increase the midpoints of the salary ranges and thereby reduce to 7 percent the State's lag behind benchmark jobs as of September 1, 2001.

  • Increasing the midpoints would not eliminate the need for an overall salary schedule increase that would affect all state employees. Therefore, we also recommend applying a flat dollar increase of $200 per month to Salary Schedule A and a 10 percent increase to Salary Schedule B effective September 1, 2001. To keep up with market increases, an additional $50 per month increase would need to be applied to Salary Schedule A and a 3 percent increase to Salary Schedule B effective September 1, 2002. This adjustment would cost approximately $945 million for the biennium.

  • We also recommend that Salary Schedule C be increased by $50 per month effective September 1, 2001, and $50 per month effective September 1, 2002. We estimate that this increase to Salary Schedule C would cost approximately $7 million for the biennium.

Contact the SAO about this report.

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