Press: We Don’t Need Another Stinkin’ Wage Study

Item: The joys of being consulted/ Coeur d’Alene Press

More Info: When the caller ID shows Kootenai County, Idaho, smiles plaster the Philadelphia faces of the Hay Group. Why not? Kootenai County spent $60,000 on a salary study by the Hay Group in 2005, and now they’re eager to donate another $15,000 to compare employee salaries with market conditions. “It has been somewhat brought to our attention that some of our positions … do not meet the existing market standards and we need to confirm that,” Commissioner Rick Currie said. To which Sheriff Rocky Watson unholstered this retort: “We don’t need another study. We just need to implement the last study.” The county has waded through controversy on this topic for the better part of a decade, hiring consultants to compile at least three salary studies and, as far as we can tell, using none of them.

Question: Does the county need another study? Or the guts to implement the last one, as Rocky Watson says?