The County of Door will spend up to $55,000 to hire a consultant to conduct a wage comparability study and design a new compensation plan for county employees.
The Door County Board voted unanimously in favor of the plan Tuesday.
County Administrator Maureen Murphy says the current seven-year labor agreements will be expiring at the end of 2013 and that will result in more than 200 county employees being non-represented, meaning the County Board can set their compensation, including salary and benefits.
Murphy told supervisors Door County needs to make sure the county's salary structure is comparable to communities the county would be competing with.
"This will make sure that our salaries are comparable to our comparables -- I'm using that comparable word a lot -- but that's what this salary survey will do -- make sure we're in line with where we should be," said Murphy.
Murphy says it's just one part of a three pronged approach. The other two parts involve drafting an employee handbook to cover issues like work schedules and when overtime would start; and reviewing worker benefit packages, including health insurance, where Murphy says some "significant changes" could be made.
