SIDNEY -- The Sidney City Council recently approved modifying the City’s pay grid. 

City Manager David Scott said in the July 9 meeting said the City has made several adjustments to the employee pay grid, but has not revamped it. 

“When my predecessor was city manager, that was when Bass Pro had bought out Cabela’s and a lot of pay freezes were put on and we did percent raises across the board rather than merit raises. Everyone got 1 percent or 1 ½. In some instances, they gave the lower scale people 1 ½ and the higher scales 1 percent. But when you do that it throws all your percentages off because now you’re not the same distance apart every time you move to the next step,” Scott said. 

He said the employee pay grid has not been modified since 2016. He said other communities have not made any modifications in anticipation of the $15 per hour minimum wage, which means those communities may be looking at a mandatory large revamping of their scales. 

“Over the years, like I said, we made several adjustments. It’s kind of thrown it a little bit out of whack, and we’ve never fixed the full scale. We did do the salary survey study that we talked about with the council a long time ago in strategic planning. We have used that as part of our basis, one of the suggestions, and rightfully so, is we need to do something with that pay chart,” he said. 

Scott said the City has always had 10 levels, but for the last six years has only been operating on nine. He said the revamped pay scale rearranges employees in the pay grid so they have room for advancement.