SALISBURY — The Rowan County Board of Commissioners received the results of a long-awaited pay study looking at the county’s public safety departments and providing recommendations on updating the county pay schedule for those departments.

The pay study was performed by McGrath Human Resources Group and looked at the Rowan County Sheriff’s Office, the Emergency Services department and the Animal Services department. The pay study has been underway for the past few months, with the county looking at public safety because of pay increases in surrounding counties and a subsequent high rate of staffing turnover.

The methodology used by McGrath included interviews with county administration and the three department leaders, reviewing current data including the compensation structure and job descriptions, looking at compensation data from relevant public and private organizations nearby and collection information on benefits.

Victoria McGrath, who presented the results during the meeting on Monday, said that one of the main issues in the county’s current compensation system was a “huge” variance between the minimum and maximum salary ranges for county employees.

“One of the recommendations would be to look at that range and subsequent compositions, because it is large. It’s just very difficult to get through that salary range. You should be getting to that market point, or that midpoint, which is now 30 percent, between four to seven years, and you’re not,” said McGrath.

McGrath provided several recommendations for solving the issues that cropped up with the county’s pay schedule, one of which was reducing the separation between the minimum and maximum pay schedules. While the change would reduce the maximum possible pay for county employees, she said that the reduction is not necessarily harmful “if no one reaches the maximum anyways.”

McGrath provided more recommendations, the majority of which pertained to providing annual progression and longevity pay increases. She said that the county should keep its current annual longevity pay policy, although they might want to look at changing the numbers. Currently, the county’s longevity policy includes annual raises based on an employee’s tenure, with the raise being 0.5 percent for staff with up to four years of longevity, one percent for between five and nine years, 1.5 percent for nine to 14 years and two percent for 15 years and more.

The study also recommended that a secondary increase, a progression increase, be given on an annual basis. The proposed increase could range from one to five percent with the exact number being based on the employee’s performance, said McGrath. On average, employees would receive a three-percent increase. This increase would occur at a different time, with the longevity increase occurring on Jan. 1 and the progression increase on June 1, so that employees could clearly differentiate between the two.

After McGrath’s presentation, Chairman Greg Edds asked her if implementing the recommendations from the pay study would present a long-term fix. McGrath said it would not, but it would move Rowan County towards the implementation of a competitive pay schedule. She added that pay schedule updating is a “domino game,” with municipalities constantly having to update their own policies to keep up with others.

The presentation and subsequent discussion did not include any information as to what the total cost of implementing the recommendations would be. However, the commissioners gave their unanimous approval for County Manager Aaron Church to take the recommendations and add them to the budget proposal for the upcoming fiscal year. That proposal would likely be presented to the board in May.

“I just want to say thank you. The board has spent a lot of money and the county has spent a lot of money looking into this. I believe that (the commissioners) are very serious about helping us with some issues that we have. I do look forward to speaking with each of (the commissioners) in the coming days about what that looks like, but it is encouraging to see that it’s a plan that affects our future as well as our present,” said Sheriff Travis Allen after the vote.