11/9/2020 - Meeting Minutes
Meeting Minutes
Citizens’ Compensation Advisory Committee
November 9, 2020
Members Present: Marlene Sloan
Jeff Worthington
Jeff Herring
Ray Schelble
Mike Terry
Brandon Dew
Members Excused: Jeff Herring
Staff Present: David Salazar, Compensation Administrator
Carolyn Campbell, Benefits Program Manager
Eleonore Jackson, Classification & Compensation Analyst
Guests: Kim Taylor, VP Compensation & Data Operations, Payfactors
Jaysen Oldroyd, City Attorney’s Office
Jami McCart, Employee Relations & EEO Manager
Allen Hatch, HR Business Partner
Jennifer Sykes, HR Business Partner
Liz Nenni, HR Business Partner
Michael Sanchez, HR Business Partner
Dave Buchanan, HR Business Partner
A recording of these proceedings is on file and available by request from the SLC- HR
Department.
Meeting Open & Welcome: Jeff Worthington called the meeting to order and established a
quorum, including all members of the committee except for Jeff Herring who was excused.
Review & adopt: With a motion set by Brandon Dew the committee unanimously approved the
minutes from the October 8, 2020 meeting.
Public Comment: None
Internal Pay Equity Audit – report and presentation by Payfactors: Kim Taylor (Vice President of
Compensation & Data Operations, Payfactors) shared the report and findings on the Internal Pay
Equity Audit ordered by The City.
Excerpts from Kim Taylor’s report & presentation:
Project Background
In 2020 Salt Lake City partnered with Payfactors to complete a comprehensive and proactive
review of current employee salaries, to ensure that pay practices are equitable and not
adversely impacting incumbents based on gender, age, and/or ethnicity. This review was
completed in three stages. The first stage was a simple comparison of average pay for each
employee demographic group. The second stage was a regression analysis of employee salaries,
with the goal of identifying and measuring a predictive relationship existing between pay and
individual employee characteristics such as gender, age, or ethnicity. Finally, Payfactors was
tasked with conducting an Employee Cohort Analysis whereby salaries paid to employees in the
same or comparable jobs were manually evaluated to identify any perceived inequities requiring
in-depth review, and individual pay actions meant to mitigate these inequities were
recommended.
Pay Equity Overview
While Utah does not have standalone legislation governing pay equity, the Utah
Antidiscrimination Act prohibits employers from wage discrimination based on gender, age, or
ethnicity (among other individual employee characteristics). Under this Act, employers may not
pay different salaries to employees having substantially equal experience, responsibilities, and
skills for the particular job. Furthermore, the federal Equal Pay Act states that employers may
not pay different salaries to men and women when those employees are performing
substantially equal work.
The Utah Antidiscrimination Act specifically calls out organizational tenure as an affirmative
defense for observed pay differences, provided that increases are uniformly applied across
employees. The federal Equal Pay Act goes farther, and outlines four possible affirmative
defenses for pay differences: seniority, merit, quantity or quality of work output, or any factor
other than sex.
Employees Excluded from the Analysis
Employees belonging to a collective bargaining unit
Temporary or seasonal workers
Political appointees
Employees assigned to jobs where there is no variability in pay (for example, Justice Court
Judge, ranked Fire or Police jobs)
Findings
After several iterations of the Employee Cohort Analysis, all but 3 of the initial 522 employee
pay discrepancies that were flagged for review were ultimately found to be justified. The
primary justifications were considerable prior work experience, often in the private sector and
occasionally at specific and relevant labor competitors; specialized technical skill or knowledge,
or possession of a certification/license that impacts the value of the work; or the relative size of
the department or team managed.
Overall, the total cost of the recommended pay increases meant to resolve these discrepancies
is $4.46 per hour: $3.08 in the general employee population and $1.38 in the Department of
Airports population. Four additional employees were flagged for future review and potential pay
adjustment, simply because their pay rate was relatively low in their respective pay ranges, but
not a result of a specific pay equity concern.
Recommendations & Recap
To summarize, while a statistically significant difference in pay was found between female
employees and male employees across the City’s general employee population, none of the
other differences identified were deemed statistically significant. Further, an in-depth review of
employees and their associated backgrounds ultimately demonstrated that all but three
identified pay discrepancies were found to be justifiable.
Overall salary adjustments were recommended with the goal of adjusting those three
unjustifiable pay gaps, and while the overall amounts recommended as a result of this audit
were relatively small, it’s often the case that organizations are unable to make all recommended
adjustments in a single increase cycle. Our short- and long-term strategies for closing gaps are to
initially focus on resolving on focusing largest discrepancies first, followed by adjustments to
employees that happen to also be below their respective range minimum, or adjustments to
employees that are top performers or long-tenured.
New committee appointment: The Committee conferred to elect a new committee member in
order to fulfill the vacancy left by the departure of Frances Hume. With a motion set first by
Mike Terry then followed by Brandon Dew, the committee has voted to appoint Jana Bake as
the newest member of the Citizens’ Compensation Advisory Committee. Jeff Herring, though
absent, had submitted his candidate pick ahead of the meeting.
Unfinished business: None
Confirmed next meeting dates:
− Tuesday, January 5, 2021 from 3:30pm – 5:30pm
− Tuesday, January 19, 2021 from 3:30pm – 5:30pm
− Tuesday, February 2, 2021 from 3:30pm – 5:30pm
− Tuesday, February 16, 2021 from 3:30pm – 5:30pm
− Tuesday, May 11, 2021 from 4:00pm – 5:00pm
− Tuesday, October 5, 2021 from 4:00pm – 5:00pm
Meeting adjourned at approximately 5:14 PM