Carthage city employees to benefit from latest salary study

CARTHAGE, Mo. — Tuesday evening (1/14) the Carthage City Council voted to adopt the recommendations from a recent salary study.

"We had a couple positions that had been added since the previous study, so we updated all the salaries within the city,” said Carthage Mayor, Alan Snow.

The study was conducted by McGrath Human Resources. It’s an update to a larger, comprehensive study from 2021.

"With any salary study, it looks at the market demand, and there have been changes since COVID, so this study actually updates those positions that have been affected by market changes,” said Interim City Administrator, Traci Cox.

Recommendations from the salary study include a minimum 2% raise for all city employees, and an increase in minimum wage to $15 an hour.

City leaders say the salary study update will allow Carthage to be competitive when hiring, and to keep new hires from moving on.

"69% of our employees have five or less years of service, and it's important because we are paying to get them trained for the position and then they are leaving,” said Cox.

"There's a whole lot of reasons why you want to retain your employees. We really appreciate everything they do for the city, and we want to make sure we're doing everything that we can for them,” said Snow.

City staff will benefit from the study's recommendations almost immediately, instead of at the start of the new fiscal year in July.

"We are implementing this salary study early, so that the employees will benefit from the additional pay five months earlier than they normally would have," said Cox.

Changes to city employee salary will show on the first paycheck of February.