News Talk 94.1/AM 1600 Where The Upper Cumberland Talks
Sparta Mayor Jeff Young said he will recommend the Board of Aldermen to begin an internal pay study Thursday night.
The conversation began last week after a few street department workers left for retail jobs. Young said companies are now paying more than entry level city positions.
“The city of Sparta has been very competitive with the wages that we have when you stack up city to city and county to county,” Young said. “Historically, that has worked, but it doesn’t seem like it will now with all these retail chains increasing entry level positions.”
Young said the city has lost nine employees this year. Just two years ago, Young said it only lost two employees. Young said he believes the police and street departments are areas where the city can improve.
“Hopefully if we can make some adjustments on this to not only stop this cycle of some of our entry level positions leaving, but also encourage them to come back at some point in time,” Young said.
Young said the city conducted an internal wage study just two years ago, but the data is no longer applicable. Young said City Administrator Brad Hennessee will lead the initiative alongside department heads.
“You can hire a private consulting company, but most of those charge you to do basically the same thing that we can do locally in-house,” Young said. “We would just gather information from all the municipalities around us and expand that search a little bit outside the Upper Cumberland.”
The Board of Aldermen meets Thursday at 5:00 p.m.
