Just as Sampson County finalizes the implementation of a multi-year, $3.7 million pay plan, it is time to look at it again.

As with a vehicle, the plan needs maintenance, so administration and the Sampson Board of Commissioners will have to kick the tires, check the oil and take a good look under the hood to ensure the county can get where it wants — and needs — to go.

During the many years of a down economy, people were thankful just to have jobs. It’s not necessarily that extreme anymore. Unemployment rates are at or near all-time lows, so prospective employees can be selective. Counties are competing harder than ever for quality people.

That brings us to Sampson’s pay.

In 2015, a study showed that Sampson’s classification and compensation system was in serious distress. Market analysis from 10 surrounding counties and two large cities revealed our county as less competitive in recruiting and retaining employees due to lower salaries. It also revealed that four out of every five local government employees were below the minimum of proposed salary ranges.

So the county acted.

The multi-million dollar plan was put into effect and over the course of the last four years, local salaries have been adjusted to the market minimum, with the most tenured employees first.

However, now the cycle needs to begin again. The market changes. Other counties do their own studies and bring their salaries up in response. It is never-ending.

The county’s Human Resources director Nancy Dillman said this week, while the pay plan enacted in 2015 had as its aim to bring experienced and deserving employees to the midpoint of their pay grade, most county positions have stayed at the minimum. That’s a problem.

There were 100 employee departures in 2018, eight a month on average. Seventeen of those were retirees. There have been 46 retirees since 2015.

As new hires come on the payroll due to attrition and turnover, they will come in at that new minimum salary rate, following a short probationary period. They will receive the same pay as an employee that may have been working for Sampson County for a decade or more.

That salary compression is a real issue, as it can greatly affect morale and overall production.

The goal of the pay plan was that it be kept current and reflect the market rate. That is vital, so that Sampson doesn’t slip down the pecking order. Just as important, though, there has to be an instrument whereby the most deserving and best performing employees are able to advance along their pay grade. That was another goal of the pay plan.

The form of that instrument and those merit increases needs to be further examined, especially so everything is equal across the board to eliminate as much subjectivity from the process as possible.

Dillman said the county might consider rewarding effective employee performance rather than longevity.

“Do you want to reward somebody for showing for 10 years, 20 years, 30 years and doing the same thing every day?” she said this week. “They never move, they never grow, their skillset doesn’t evolve … we need to decide what it is we value.”

And that decision should really take place sooner rather than later, so Sampson can continue to be as “an importer of good people, rather than an exporter of good people” as one commissioner stated this week.

The wheels are moving. Now it’s time to pick up a little speed.