By Christina Sampson | Casa Grande Dispatch
SIGNAL PEAK — Central Arizona College employees will get raises, with no changes to their benefit packages, this fall.
CAC Governing Board members approved the salary and benefit package at their meeting last week, and their action was met by applause from employees.
Board member Rick Gibson called the increase a “great package” and said, “I think it shows a lot of hard work and a lot of effort has gone into this.”
Exact increases will vary from employee to employee, but the changes approved by the board ensure three general markers are met.
First, the school’s lower wage-earners will receive raises that ensure they are making a liv- able wage, officials said.
“What that means is no employee in this organization will make less than $28,000 per year,” Jim Kimsey, vice president for human resources, said in a phone interview after the meeting.
Second, all salaries will be raised until they are at least 90 percent of the national market average for a comparable position. If meeting either of those benchmarks does not result in a 2 percent raise for the employee, then that worker will receive a 2 percent raise.
The changes recommended by the salary and benefits commissions were calculated using data from a study conducted by Linstrand Consulting.
“It was time for us to do a study to adjust our salaries,” Kimsey said. He said there had not been one done in the eight years he has worked at the college.
The study compared CAC jobs to similar jobs in the market and examined markets college employees could transfer to if they left the school. Feedback was received from employees.
The study found that, overall, CAC was in the 90th percentile of the national average for comparable jobs in terms of salary, although in the lower 90s for managerial, technical and support staff.
The school’s benefits cost employees more than the market trend of 28 percent of salaries, with about 35 percent of CAC salaries going toward those costs. Because the college pays a high percentage of its employees’ medical and health care premiums and provides comparably generous time off and makes retirement pro- gram contributions, when benefits and salaries are considered together, employees’ total compensation is closer to the market average.
Kimsey said the adjustments would help the school “be competitive on a regional and national basis” in recruiting new faculty and staff.
He said the school recruits nationwide for faculty, staff and managerial positions and regionally and locally for technical positions.
