Changes in the salary process

Will politics once again prevail over principles in the case of the charter amendments adopted by the voters in November that offer opportunities to improve the county’s salary process?

I daresay many people do not realize how extensive are the changes approved by the voters. Salary Commission members now serve three-year staggered terms, giving continuity to the commission’s work. The commission no longer has complete control over council salaries, and the council can no longer reject administrative raises by a simple majority vote. Instead, the commission now establishes both council and executive salaries and those salaries become effective unless five or more councilmembers veto them in whole or in part. The commission must adopt policies governing its salary-setting decisions, and those salary decisions must be made by March 15. Each appointing authority (mayor, council, department heads, and commissions) is authorized to set the salary of an appointee at a lower figure than the figure in the salary ordinance.

Looking at these changes as a whole, it appears to me that a sensible process would unfold as follows. After determining its policies, the Salary Commission would ask each person or agency empowered to make appointments to propose and justify a salary for each position.  The commission would then establish a salary range for each position, taking into consideration recommendations and justifications provided by the appointing authority for that position and other relevant data. The appointer would then set an appointee’s salary within that range based on qualifications and performance evaluations, the criteria for which should be matters of public record. Periodic adjustments to salaries and salary ranges would be made as facts and circumstances warrant.

Implementing such a process will initially require strong leadership from the commission as well as considerable work by many other people. However, once the process is established it can be maintained and refined with relative ease.

Now for the politics. The current salary commission is the first ever to be appointed in a timely manner. The main reason for the mayor’s prompt action is a need to raise salaries immediately at least for the police chief and water department manager. Two abortive efforts were recently made to achieve this purpose. Those efforts having failed, the pressure is now on the new appointees to the commission to raise at least some salaries by March 15.  Even if the council approves appointments on schedule, the commission will have possibly six weeks to handle organizational matters, gain an understanding of its mandate, and meet the target date for raising salaries.

The time constraints on the commission are due in large part to the failure by the mayor and council to appoint a commission for 2005-06. Had it been appointed, that commission could have continued the work of its predecessor. For example, the 2003-04 commission did preliminary work on making performance evaluation an integral part of the salary process. 

It could also have dealt in an orderly way with the demand to raise salaries immediately and in a thoughtful way with the myth that the solution to management problems is to throw money at them.  

Another factor impacting the current commission’s time frame is the new requirement to adopt policies governing its salary-setting decisions. Logically, the policies should be in place before salary decisions are made. Furthermore, since the commission has sole authority over its policies, and since the commission exists to serve the public interest, a public hearing probably should be held before policies are adopted. Obviously, this policy-setting process cannot be completed before March 15.

Will the commission be able to satisfy political demands under time constraints not of its making without seriously compromising its mandate and without appearing to be merely a tool of the mayor and/or council? Will it make hasty and ill-considered decisions that short-circuit improvements in the long-term salary process? Will the public wind up with more “business as usual” instead of the improvements made possible by the charter amendments they approved? I am skeptical about what will happen during the next few weeks and about the long-term prospects for a principled salary process, but I will be pleased if the commission proves my skepticism is misplaced.

• Horace Stoessel is a resident of Kapa‘a.