The County District Court will scrutinize an appeal made by county employees complaining about changes in the compensation scale.

Thursday, December 27, 2001

The County District Court will scrutinize an appeal made by county employees complaining about changes in the compensation scale.

Three employees in accounting positions have contended that their job grade was under-evaluated under the new wage system. And they think their right to appeal was not well taken care of by the county board.

The salary of county employees depends on a combination of a grade and step.

The grade is basically defined by a type of job while the step correlates to seniority. The higher the level in both scales, the more wage an employee earns.

Last year, the county board adopted a changed grading system. As a result the number of grades decreased from 35 to 24.

Under the new system the grade of each employee was determined by person-specific factors such as experience and know-how, and job-quality factors such as complexity of duties and scope of supervision. Bjorklund Compensation Consulting, a consulting firm the county hired, conducted a survey and interviews with the employees to determine the grading.

According to a complainant, the three employees were reclassified from level 9 to 7. But another employee allegedly doing the same type job was granted level 9, she claims, saying the seventh level is equivalent to a data-inputing position and the accounting should be ranked higher.

The dissatisfied employees appealed in accordance with the county personnel rules and regulations, which allow employees to contest the county board decision.

But the commissioners denied their appeal in a board meeting on March 6.

The employees filed a writ of certiorari in the Minnesota Court of Appeals asking a judicial review of the county board decision.

The court decided to reserve and remand the case in September, pointing out &uot;the county board did not specifically articulate the reasons for its denial of relators’ appeals.&uot;

The appeal court opinion says, &uot;The minutes (of the March 6 board meeting) reflect only that the county board heard each relators’ testimony and that there was a ‘discussion’ following the testimony.&uot;

The district court will focus on what was discussed in the meeting and examine if the board’s denial had appropriate grounds.

The county hired DMG Maximums, another consulting company, to review appeals, and the three employees were interviewed The firm recommended some changes in certain job classes, but no recommendation regarding the complainants was made.

Commissioner Dave Mullenbach said the board followed a proper procedure handled by specialized consultants. &uot;I believe we did exactly what we had to do,&uot; he said.