OCEAN CITY — Municipal employees can expect to see a little more in their paychecks after resort officials this week approved an across-the-board pay hike spread over all positions and all grades.
Last year, the Ocean City Mayor and Council contracted with consultant Evergreen Solutions to conduct a pay study for town employees amid struggles with recruiting and retaining full- and part-time seasonal employees in all departments.
All town employees from department heads to rank-and-file season part-time employees are graded in a graduated pay scale based on experience and years of service, for example. The state mandated an increase in the minimum wage to $15 per hour by 2025 but faced with employee shortages for a variety of reasons including increased competition from neighboring jurisdictions, resort officials last year decided to expedite that minimum wage increase and move it up on the town’s timetable to January 2022.
Nonetheless, the town still faced employee shortages in most departments, which necessitated the need for an updated pay study. The town’s last pay study was conducted seven years ago in 2015. On Tuesday, Human Resources Director Katie Callan and Budget Director Jennie Knapp presented the results of the consultant’s study and recommended a pay increase for all town employees across the board.
“We reached out to all of the department heads to submit positions for including in the compensation study,” said Callan. “They included positions that have been difficult to fill or had high turnover rates. We didn’t just stick to government. We also included some private sector.