By VERNON ROBISON
Moapa Valley Progress
The Moapa Valley Water District (MVWD) Board of Directors, in a meeting held on Jan. 9, voted to adjust the district’s compensation scale to provide the opportunity for senior hourly employees to receive regular increases in wages. In the same meeting, the board also approved increases for the salaried General Manager and Assistant General Manager positions.
The revised compensation scale was first presented at the board’s December meeting by a group of hourly employees. The proposal provided an additional 3 percent increase to hourly wages every five years after the employee has worked at the district for 10 years and has ‘topped out’ in the current pay scale of his/her position.
The current compensation structure provides for incremental annual pay increases for employees during their first 10 years at the district. These increases are conditioned on performance levels determined by receiving necessary state certifications and in regular employee reviews. After the first 10 years of employment, if an employee has met all the performance requirements, he/she would ‘top out’ in the pay scale for that position.
The new plan would give an additional 3 percent bump in pay every five years after that. This 3 percent add-on would be applied only to the position’s topped-out base wage. It would not compounded on the employees previous hourly rate.
Nearly all MVWD hourly employees were in attendance at the January meeting to hear the discussion and to show support for the proposal.
Most board members also voiced general support for the plan. Board member Randy Tobler, who had met and negotiated with employees during the formation of the proposal, said that many of his concerns about the idea of Longevity Pay had been resolved by a strong performance-based component in the plan.
“I want to be clear: I am not in favor of cost of living adjustments,” Tobler said in the meeting. “I know that it is somewhat common in the public sector. But coming from the private sector as I do, I just don’t believe that, just because you show up at work for 10-15 years, you are entitled to an increase in pay.”
But Tobler said that the proposal had resolved that concern by building a performance requirement into the framework. He stated that the plan was actually more of a merit-based system, mixed with some elements of longevity pay. Because of that, he said he could support it.
“You’re all important to the district,” Tobler told the group of gathered employees. “You’re fully invested in it and we don’t want to lose you to other entities in the city. You’ve done a good job of drafting this proposal and presenting it; and I am going to go with it.”
Board member Lindsey Dalley praised the proposal as being “creative in its blending of performance requirements with longevity pay.”
“This keeps the jobs in-house and keeps the experience and certifications here at the district,” Dalley said. “To me that justifies the additional costs, even though things are tight in the budget right now.”
The only board member who opposed the plan was Ryan Wheeler. Wheeler pointed out that there was a valuable benefit for all MVWD employees in not having to commute outside of their community for work. He felt this value was being overlooked in the proposal.
“This takes the benefit of working in the community where you live completely for granted,” said Wheeler, who commutes to Las Vegas for work each day. “There are significant costs of commuting in both money and time. Frankly, there is a lot of money that I would give up at this point to be able to go to my kids’ school events or have lunch with my wife every day.”
Wheeler also noted that the proposed package would give each employee an additional $132,000 over a 30-year career period. “I don’t see any ratepayers here today,” he said. “But I think they would have a lot of questions about this,. I just don’t feel comfortable supporting it.”
In the end, Dalley made the motion to approve the proposal. The motion was accepted with a 4-1 vote. Wheeler was the lone dissenting vote.
The board also approved raises for the district’s two salaried position which were not affected by the modification to hourly compensation previously approved. This included a pay increase to the Assistant General Manager from $85,000 to $95,000 per year. In addition, the General Manager salary was increased to $115,000 per year, from $99,000.
Tobler commented that, under normal circumstances he would not see any need for the General Manager position to go above $99,000. But he said he was willing to make an exception in this case because of the experience level and contributions of current General Manager Joe Davis and Asst. General Manager Lon Dalley.
“We are at a stage where the challenges we are facing as a district is demanding a lot more of them,” Tobler said. “I mean, we have had a ruling to change water law that they have been dealing with and they have gone far and above what would normally be required. That’s why I am in favor of it. They deserve it.”
Board member John Blackwell agreed with this. “You have to look at what they’ve done over the long haul and you can see all they bring to the table and what they keep at the table,” Blackwell said. “We want to keep them here.”
The vote on these two salary increases was unanimous in favor.
In a separate agenda item the board approved an adjustment to water rates that has been in the works for the past four months.
This change included a 7.585 percent increase to commercial and residential monthly base rates. In addition, a 1-inch residential base rate would be created at $47.99 per month. The current 3/4 inch and 1 inch commercial base rate would be reduced to match the corresponding residential base rates. Finally, the current volume tier charges separating commercial and residential classes would be eliminated and replaced with a single new volume tier structure applied to both classes.
The board approved this rate change with a unanimous vote to be effective immediately.
