OCEAN CITY – A city-wide Compensation and Benefits Study will get underway soon with this week’s approval of a service firm to analyze current compensation and classification practices of city employees.
On Tuesday afternoon, Human Resources Director Wayne Evans requested a bid award to Management Advisory Group International, Inc. of Woodbridge, Va., to conduct a Compensation and Benefits Study of city employees in the amount of $45,960.A citywide Compensation and Benefits Study was listed as a planning action item within the City’s Strategic Plan for 2013 under Goal 1 of a Financially Sound Town Government.
On April 15, the council opened four service firm bids for conducting a pay, classification and benefits study to analyze, validate and/or improve current compensation administration and classification practices, and determine competitiveness of the town’s pay and benefits programs in its comparative market through the collection and analysis of compensation and benefits survey data. The bids were remanded to staff for review.
This week Evans submitted to the council, following receipt of four timely proposals, the vendor Evaluation Committee met to review the proposals and determine the next steps.
All four vendors exceeded the town’s $50,000 budget by a range of approximately $10,000 to $55,000. The committee determined to eliminate the high bidder from further consideration. An itemized cost breakdown was requested from the remaining three vendors as a means of determining what vendor services the town would curtail or eliminate altogether in order to complete a study that meets both the strategic objectives and the budget.
Meeting with City Manager David Recor resulted in a revised scope of services that was discussed with each vendor’s project manager and re-pricing the services resulted in bids that ranged from $45,000 to $50,000.
The committee conducted telephone interviews with each vendor’s capabilities, qualifications and expertise in the areas if interest for the town’s study. The committee concluded one vendor would be eliminated from further consideration due to the assignment of an inexperienced project lead, subcontracting of the compensation analysis work and overall light experience with municipal work.
Evans furthered, each committee member independently completed a decision support matrix on the remaining vendors assigning point values to weighted components in the categories of Service, Company Experience, Timeline and Cost. The committee’s independent and consolidated rankings unanimously favored the same vendor.
A reference instrument was developed and recent vendor clients were interviewed on their assessment of the vendor’s communications, technical know-how, responsiveness, flexibility, attention of detail, quality of presentations and reports, timeline compliance and team member interactions.
The committee recommended Management Advisory Group International, Inc. based on its matrix scores, focus on municipal government classification and compensation work as its core business, inclusion of software tools as part of the project cost, free follow-up consultation for one year after implementation, favorable references, and a low bid of $45,960.
The City Council voted 4-1 to approve the bid award with Councilman Brent Ashley opposed and council members Margaret Pillas and Joe Mitrecic absent.
In March, a debate over the recently approved Compensation and Benefits Study ensued on the council. A couple weeks prior, the Mayor and City Council approved outsourcing a study of Ocean City’s current pay and benefits, despite thoughts to have the work conducted by city staff to save funding.
At that time, Evans requested the council’s approval to solicit proposals for a Compensation and Benefits Study for city employees to be completed around the end of August.
Pillas asked why the study could not be completed in-house by city staff to save the already allocated funding, such as when Evans conducted a Compensation and Benefits Survey in 2011.
Evans responded at that time he conducted a market study only to compare Ocean City to other comparable jurisdictions based on some benchmark positions. The survey did not expand into position classifications and employee responsibilities.
Recor reminded the council the funding for the study had already been allocated in the current fiscal year’s budget and is an initiative that will carry on into the next fiscal year fully funded.