What Happened?
The city of Dallas, Texas, recently completed a total compensation review, which compared the salaries of city employees with other municipalities, as well as the private sector.
Valuable Data
Not all municipalities can afford compensation studies, nor do they often get access to timely reports by associations. The Dallas study—while clearly focused on regional economic dynamics—is packed with valuable comparable data for cities around the country. It may also be helpful to review the city’s compensation objectives, which are aimed at getting salaries closer to market media so recruitment and retention is easier.
Interesting Observations
A massive presentation that was delivered to the city council—weighing in at 93 pages—is packed with details on the city’s pay elements, healthcare costs, insurance offerings, benefits, deferred-compensation program, pension plan, and more.
Generally speaking, it pays to be a uniformed employee in Dallas. Uniformed employees, such as police and fire, have a total compensation that is 11 percent higher than neighboring municipalities. That “total compensation” number includes salary, bonus, and the value of major benefits. The bulk of that value comes from benefits; uniformed salaries were 9 percent below the market median, but benefits were above the 75th percentile. Civilian employees, on the other hand, have total compensation that is 14 percent lower than the median.
Among the more interesting datapoints were items related to salaries and their competitive standing in the market:
Average Salaries—Among the salary schedules offered by the city are these averages:
- Fire—$65,065 average salary
- Police—$64,752 average salary
- Civilian—$42,644 average salary
Comparative Salaries—Among the pay range data:
- “Uniformed”—Base salaries were aligned with the market median (average)
- Civilian—Base salaries for civilian jobs were 9 percent below the market median; total cash compensation (salary plus bonus) were also below the market median.
Retirement Benefits
- “Uniformed”—Retirement benefits for uniformed jobs were above the 75th percentile of both the municipal and private-sector groups surveyed.
- Civilian—Retirement benefits for civilian jobs fared much worse than uniformed jobs: Benefits were below the 50th percentile of the survey group. However, they were still considered average for the private sector.
Vacations & Holidays
- Vacations—In Dallas, employees receive 9 holidays; vacation leave varies by years of service. Even so, vacations hours were considered “average” when compared to other municipalities, but slightly below average for the private sector.
- Sick Leave—City of Dallas employees accrue 96 hours of sick leave per year. That’s slightly below the average in the survey, but better than the private sector, where the average number of sick-leave hours accrued per year is closer 79.
Total Compensation—
- Civilian—When adding up all compensation—such as salary, bonus, and the value of major benefits—total compensation for civilian jobs is 14 percent lower than the median of other municipalities in the survey.
- Uniformed—When adding up all compensation as above, total compensation was 11 percent above the median of the survey group.
Other Data
Of note was an appendix that included a number of “special pay” items that are available to certain employees, including:
- Language Skills—Up to $150 per month for employees with advanced language skills that support the department in which they work
- Retention Incentives—A lump sum payment of $5,000 to certain employees after five years of service; another $3,000 is available after 10 years.
- Down Payment Assistance—Up to $6,000 for qualified employees.
- Patrol Duty Pay—Additional $100 per month for police officers and corporals after six years of service; after 10 years of service, the amount increases to $150 per month.
- Fire Fighter Certification—An additional $500 per month for employees who meet certification requirements at the “Master” level
- Tuition Reimbursement—Up to 70 percent of tuition expenses, with a maximum of $1,500 per year.
Extensive details are available in the original report.