Pay Plan

MoDOT strongly supports the Personnel Advisory Board's (PAB) efforts to pursue both within-grade salary advancements based on tenure, and a general structure adjustment of 1.8 percent for fiscal year 2017. MoDOT also supports equity-based within-grade advancements, market-based reclassification/repositioning, and other salary increases that might be considered to improve the ever decreasing pay competitiveness of Missouri state employees.

The sporadic general structure adjustments over the last 14 years have led to a chronic situation in which the cost of living will continue to outpace state employee salaries. The action recommended by the PAB for fiscal year 2017 is conservative in relation to the measures needed to begin reversing this situation. Frankly, we are concerned we will not be able to recover. That is, we have potentially created a gap that can never be closed.

We welcome any increases which help improve the salaries for employees, but strongly support the use of within-grade increases in addition to a general structure adjustment. These increases have not occurred statewide since fiscal year 2001, resulting in increasing salary compression and equity issues within MoDOT and other state agencies. Over 51 percent of MoDOT employees fall at or below step 4 of our 18 step grid.

Our own market analysis mirrors that of the PAB and indicates that Missouri state employees' salaries are falling farther behind the national average.

More worrisome is the new trend that we have fallen further behind some of our neighboring states, as well as some Missouri counties and cities, for whom we compete for highway maintenance employees and supervisors. In the past, we made up for lagging base pay with a good total rewards package. Our market analysis now indicates that our benefits and retirement package no longer makes up for our lack of competitive base salaries. We are now far enough behind in base pay that our total rewards package has begun to lag the civilian, and some other public sector markets.

Our current turnover rate is as high as it was when we reduced our workforce by 1,200 employees including 122 layoffs. Pay is clearly the reason for employee departures. We are at historically high turnover rates in our critical highway maintenance functions and have experienced pockets of high turnover in other positions. This increasingly high turnover impacts our ability to sustain outstanding customer service and causes significant losses in productivity related to hiring, onboarding, and employee development efforts. We must be able to recruit great new hires and retain our talented, seasoned public servants by offering competitive base salaries.

A long-range goal should be made to raise the average state employee salary to (at least) the average national ranking, or (at least) commensurate with Missouri's cost of living ranking among the states. State employees are being asked to maintain a high level of service, with fewer employees and resources available. They should be provided adequate salary increases to maintain or improve their standard of living.