The city’s recently completed salary survey provided officials with an in-depth look at how Lake Charles stacks up against other cities in terms of workforce competitiveness. While the results came with few surprises for city officials, the data have provided them with a plan to make the Lake Area a more enticing place to work.

The survey focused on career and non-career positions along with the fire and police departments. For the career and non-career positions, the five locations used in the survey for comparison were Calcasieu Parish, Lafayette, Bossier, Baton Rouge and Alexandria.

“The career positions are positions in the pay plan that have career paths where people can move up. That’s where most of the positions exist,” City Administrator John Cardone said. “Your non-career positions are department heads, division heads and assistant department heads.”

In the survey, the results showed that 98 percent of the career positions were below average. The survey also showed that in the city’s non-career positions, the pay of almost every comparable position was below the average of the surveyed locations, and significantly below that of the parish.

The city ranked well in the fringe benefits for the career and non-career positions since all full-time employees, including fire and police, are covered by health insurance. The data show that about a third of employees pay nothing toward their health insurance and are covered by a higher deductible. The employees with single coverage and lower deductible pay 9 percent of their premiums, while the city covers the remaining 91 percent.

“What was found out was the city of Lake Charles health insurance is very competitive. We have a very good health insurance program, and we actually offer a free plan to our employees with a higher deductible. The survey showed that no other cities offered that,” Cardone said. “That’s a big deal because health insurance for an employee is costing them about $550 each month. We’re saving that employee about $6,000 each year. That’s about a $3-an-hour benefit. We also have a lower deductible plan where the employee pays $50 a month. Some of the other cities have a percentage higher than the $50.”

When the survey compared the fire and police departments, the entities included were Lafayette, Bossier, Baton Rouge, Alexandria and Sulphur. For the Police Department, the city showed the entry-level pay for an officer in Lake Charles is 24 cents per hour, or 1.49 percent below the average of the other surveyed cities. When the base pay is considered without supplemental pay, the pay is 38 cents, or 2.52 percent below average. For the Fire Department, the starting salary for an entry-level firefighter in Lake Charles is below the average of the other cities by $2,063, or 7.3 percent.

One of the parts of the survey where the city proved to be well above average dealt with longevity pay for police officers. The pay starts during the officer’s fourth year of service and runs through the 28th year at a rate of 2 percent per year.

“Lake Charles, for the Police Department, was more generous in giving this longevity pay than any other city. Some didn’t offer it, and some were less,” Cardone said.

For the Fire Department, the longevity pay was the same in all of the cities that were surveyed. The rate is 2 percent per year starting in the fourth year of service and runs through the 23rd year.

The survey showed how the city contributes 31.5 percent to the employee retirement system for the Police Department. For the Fire Department, the city contributes 29.25 percent. Cardone talked about the financial stress caused by the increasing retirement rates.

“Under the retirement system for police, the city’s retirement contribution is 31.5 percent. That is probably costing us today about $2 million more than it was a few years ago,” Cardone said. “The city kept anticipating those retirement contribution rates might drop, but they haven’t. They’ve continued to migrate up over the years so that’s been a challenge.”

Cardone said the process for the city since receiving the final details of the survey has been to spread the information throughout the departments. In the end, he said, a pay plan modification will be presented to the City Council to help Lake Charles improve in the areas the survey said the city was weak.

“What we shared with the council is we will be putting together a proposed pay plan modification, which will increase our pay plans somewhat to help make us more competitive, along with an across-the-board pay increase,” Cardone said. “We will also show them a potential source so we could be able to fund that. We most likely won’t be able to present something that gets us to exactly where we want to be, but it will get us closer to there.”(MGNonline)