Spirit Lake is planning to move forward with a new wage matrix which will provide more up-to-date job descriptions and guidelines on salaries and wages. 

Mayor Charlene Phipps and the City Council have held multiple workshops to create the new wage matrix.

“It's been very old school, and we're trying to get it all formalized,” Phipps said during a meeting Wednesday. “We’re trying to formalize something and put something into concrete that's never been formalized.”

The more formal guidelines are aiming to make the hiring process easier for both Spirit Lake and those applying for jobs with the city.

“The way we're looking at it is we can set some groundwork now that will carry on to the future,” Councilmember Max Liese said. “We'll stop having this complete turnover every time we get a new face in here.”

A formal matrix and evaluation system would promote fairness, consistency, accountability and protection against arbitrary wage decisions, establishing starting pay rates and step increases for all city staff, including police officers and city works employees.

“We're trying to figure out what's fair and compare it to other communities that are the same size and similar size, that kind of thing,” Liese said. “We're doing the matrix and the job descriptions are because we came down to the pay (for the jobs) and we're going ‘What do we pay these guys?’ and you got to evaluate them on a job description.”

The fiscal year for Spirit Lake begins in October with the wage matrix set to be in place once the new year arrives. 

“It's not something that we looked at quickly and just approved it, we actually have been evaluating,” Phipps said. “We wanted input on what (city worker’s) jobs entailed, we were corrected on a couple of things, and so we will address those based upon what their input is.”