Page 26 - Southlake FY22 Budget

TrAnSMITTAL LETTEr

The adopted compensation system establishes a general fund exPendiTure highlighTs
defined labor market, market position, pay structure,
and plan for movement through the pay ranges. The highlighT iTem exPendiTure
City has established a market compensation target
and, on average, endeavors to pay better than 60% External hosting
of the designated labor market for civilian personnel of library $10,400
and better than 80% of the market for sworn public catalog
safety personnel.
Street Tree
Program
For FY 2022, the budget proposal includes a 2.5% (moved to
cost of living adjustment for employees and possible
merit adjustments up to 2% based on the relative Operations General $10,000
Fund from
(cont.)
performance of employees. The budget also
includes market adjustments for positions that do Reforestation
not currently meet the City’s compensation goals to Fund)
pay better than 60% of the established labor market.
Once COLA and merit adjustments are applied, any Everbridge $4,625
Resident
employee whose salary lags the desired market
position will receive an adjustment to close the gap. Connection

Benefits. The City recently entered into a contract
agreement with Cigna for health and dental insurance. Medical and prescription claims continue to be high,
and the previous carrier initially adopted a 23.6% rate increase for health insurance. As a result, staff issued
a request for proposals to solicit quotes from other carriers and Cigna was selected as the new carrier for
health, dental and vision insurance. Cigna’s health insurance plans mirror the previous plan designs and,
overall, rates decreased by 0.1%. For FY 2022, the budget proposes increasing the City’s contribution towards
the cost of employee dependent coverage in an effort to maintain competitive insurance rates with the labor
market. The cost of the additional increase is approximately $52,500 (all funds).

When evaluating the level of benefits needed to be competitive within the City’s labor market, it would be
inappropriate to look at each individual benefit option separately because of the unique palette of benefits
offered. A better analysis is to compare the cost of benefits as a percentage of compensation. The City of
Southlake strives to offer benefits near the percentage reported for state and local government workers by
the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. As released in June 2021, the benefits percentage reported for state and
local workers is 38.1%. The adopted budget reflects Southlake’s benefit costs as 29.1% of total payroll.

Personnel expenses support the focus area of Performance Management and Service
Delivery, and the strategic corporate objective of “Attract, develop, and retain a skilled
workforce.”

Operations. The General Fund includes the dollars needed to provide basic services. Operating expenses are
relatively stable from FY 2021, with minimal new items.

Service Enhancements. This budget includes requests to enhance existing services that the City provides. The
budget proposes including $5,000 for target industry recruitment support to provide resources for the newly
created Target Industry Recruitment Task Force, which will focus on business and corporate recruitment. We

BUDGET BOOK | FY 2022 City of Southlake 25
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