Clovis Unified School District is currently undergoing a salary schedule market study. A market study is designed to analyze our existing salary schedules to ensure they remain competitive among similar employers. Unlike a reclassification study, a market study looks at our salary schedules in their entirety to make sure we continue to competitively pay team Clovis Unified, and that job descriptions are placed correctly on our salary schedules.

The results of our 2021-22 Market Study, which was commissioned by the Employee Compensation Committee (ECC), is now running more than a month behind. 

 

While it was expected that results of the study would be in-hand by the end of March, and potential salary schedules under discussion by ECC in April, the study by Koff & Associates has not yet been completed and the district has yet to receive complete drafts of all salary schedules for discussion by ECC.  This delay has been caused by a combination of factors including response time from districts used for comparison, and the number of questions and additional information sought by ECC, the District and Koff to ensure the final analysis and market study was thorough and complete.

 

In April, the District and ECC received an initial summary of Koff’s work. This summary showed that Koff’s analysis of the 77 benchmark positions found them to be 3% over the study median. Koff & Associates then sought direction from ECC to affirm their recommendation that draft salary schedules be created based on the study median. ECC members voted to have Koff and Associates build salary schedule drafts that reflected the study median as a starting point for their discussions before reaching a final recommendation to the Governing Board and Administration.  This Tuesday, a few hours before ECC’s meeting the same day, a draft of a potential teacher salary schedule was provided and discussion by ECC began.  We have not yet received classified or management salary schedule drafts.

 

Between now and June, ECC’s work is going to focus on:

 

While this is not where members of our ECC wanted to be just a month before typically making a recommendation about compensation changes for our employees to the Governing Board, the group remains committed to a thorough and complete market study, and to taking the time necessary to do a high-quality job on behalf of our employees. ECC will continue to send updates after each of their meetings, and I encourage you to reach out to me if you have any questions moving forward.

The Employee Compensation Committee (ECC) made up of classified and certificated employees works every year on compensation-related issues like salary increases, substitute pay, etc. The need for a market study of both classified and certificated salary schedules first came from this group, who wants to ensure employees continue to be competitively compensated for their work in Clovis Unified.  After the ECC’s recommendation was presented by the administration to the Governing Board in May of 2021, the Board authorized this third-party study.  Proposals were then received from various human resources firms and vetted through a committee of employees before Koff and Associates was recommended to the Board. Committee members chose Koff & Associates based on their professional qualifications, prior work, and reputation for quality.

Aim III of our strategic plan is to ensure that we continue to hire, develop, sustain and value a high-quality, diverse workforce and a market study is one way that we can make sure our classified and certificated salaries remain competitive. With recent changes to California’s minimum wage and on-going changes in other compensation-related things like pensions and benefits, we want to make sure that we take an important step back from any one job description or unique position, and look at our salary schedules as a whole. Using an outside third party like Koff and Associates means the analysis will draw from internal and external expertise in competitive employee compensation.

Koff & Associates was selected to conduct the Market Study and recommended to the Board by an employee review committee. To learn more about Koff & Associates, please visit their website here:

A. A market study is a process by which an outside, third party human resources company analyzes our salary schedules with comparable employers in California and then makes recommendations to the district related to that analysis. It’s purpose is to ensure that Clovis Unified’s salary schedules remain fair and competitive to similar employers.

Q. What does a Market Study include?
A. A market study includes an analysis of the certificated and classified salary schedules with those of similarly sized companies and employers in the private and public sector around California. Koff and Associates will identify approximately 75 “benchmark” positions and complete comparative studies of pay ranges and relationships with other positions within the organization to ensure competitive pay structures exist in Clovis Unified. At a meeting of the Employee Compensation Committee in early December, members identified two ranges of the teacher salary schedule, and the process they wanted used to identify a variety of classified (operations and non-operations) and certificated management job descriptions that will provide the benchmarks for the study. An analysis of the benchmark positions will then be used to evaluate the teacher, certificated management, classified and operations salary schedules.

Q. What happens when the market study is completed?
A. Koff and Associates will provide findings and potential recommendations from their study to the District. These findings and recommendations will become part of ECC discussions in the Spring of 2022. Separate funding and action by the Governing Board would be required before any recommendations from this study would be implemented, and the timing and resources to fund implementation could become part of future recommendations made by the ECC to the Administration and Governing Board in the future.

Q. Is this a reclassification study?
A. No. A market study looks at salary schedules in their entirety to make sure that our basic salary infrastructure is consistent with similar employers. It does not include a process for individual employees to seek a reclassification of their current jobs to a different pay grade on the salary schedule. Instead, the market study allows us to ensure our salary schedules themselves are competitive and well-structured for our employees.

Q. What is my role in the market study?
A. There is no additional work needed by any individual employee related to the market study. You can keep yourself informed of the project and the work of Koff and Associates, and our ECC online at (insert web page).

Q. What are the expected outcomes of this study?
A. It is the intent of this study to provide valuable information and comparative data that allows ECC members, and the administration and Governing Board to make well-informed decisions about allocation of resources that ensure our salary schedules demonstrate our commitment to our workforce.